We find ourselves in Kingston and are heading towards the Giggling Squid, a reliable favourite. As we walk along Charter Quay by the Hogsmill River tributary, we pass a Chinese restaurant which we've never been in because it always looks empty. But today, despite it being a Monday, it is very busy, with several tables occupied by Chinese people.
So we change our minds and decide to give Sanxia Renjia a go. We're shown to a window table with a nice view and quickly order a bottle of French SB at £30. It comes promptly, served by a very smiley waiter. It is quite a big place, but sectioned off into smaller areas so that it doesn't feel daunting.
The menu covers both Sichuan and Cantonese cuisines. There's also a substantial dim sum section. The Sichuan section offers several Clay Pot and Dry Pot options, but the aromatic crab with ginger and spring onion from the "Traditional Chinese" list has caught our eye. Because of this, we decide just to have one starter between us - a pan-fried pork dumpling. Typically there are three of these, making sharing trickier. They are very lightly fried, but very well-flavoured.
We had asked when ordering whether the crab came whole, and were assured that the kitchen will have cracked it open for us. The main shell with the brown meat had been, but the crab claws and legs hadn't so we had to ask for the crackers to get at the white meat. With the sauce (loads of ginger) on, it all got rather messy, but we were well-supplied with napkins and little moistened towels - the spicy sauce option would be very challenging I imagine.
Along with the crab we had the cumin lamb (marked "hot and spicy") and fried rice with tobiko, prawns and scallops. The lamb was indeed covered with chilli pieces, but if you avoided those it wasn't too spicy otherwise. Tobiko it turns out is a golden coloured fish eggs concoction (Wikipedia tells me it is flying fish roe) piled on top of the rice. There were plenty of prawns, but scallops were hard to find, probably cut up very small.
With a second bottle of wine and 12.5% service (which has been friendly and helpful) the bill comes to £140. Certainly worth another visit.
A couple of days later we are meeting up with T&K in town. T has chosen The Seafood Bar on Dean Street, as he knows some of their Amsterdam branches through his nephew who lives there. It's a nice bright place, not very busy on a mid-week lunchtime. We order some wine - a light, fruity Chardonnay at £36 - from the chatty waiter, who introduced himself as Florian.
The menu is quite remarkable. As well as several kinds of oyster, there are loads of permutations of fresh seafood - Fruits de Mer, Mixed Grill, Combinations, Plateau - and a few other dishes from the Plancha. B has seabass ceviche to start, which she raves over. She follows up with a Plateau - crevettes, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel rillettes, poached salmon, seafood salad. Unsurprisingly, she can't finish that. I have clams with white wine, garlic and cream sauce to start. This is a big warming bowl in a sauce commonly linked with mussels. My main course was gambas, grilled with salsa verde and chilli - have a dozen of them. Full of flavour, with the chilli being quite subtle.
T&K have scallops with mushrooms and chorizo and tempura oysters, in attractive shells, to start. Both looked very good. Their mains were a massive fruits de mer and filleted lemon sole. We also have some truffled chips, plain chips and mixed salad.
We have three bottles of wine in all; service is an unusual 11.5%, making the total £326 for 4. Definitely a good place for seafood lovers.
Finally, on Friday evening we meet up with S&L. They like their cocktails, so we go first to Blind Spot at St Martin's Hotel. They have a range called "Spin the Globe" - unusual combinations named after various cities. A particularly odd one is called Kingston (Jamaica) which includes Guinness but comes out transparent. When we ask about this, we're told that the coconut juice combines with the stout to make it clear - very odd.
Then we walk up St Martin's Lane to Gilgamesh which S had booked because she'd received a 50% off food offer. Named after the Sumerian king/demi-god, it describes itself as "pan-Asian". By coincidence, I was catching up on the Observer the day before only to find a Jay Rayner review of the place - he clearly didn't like it at all!
Admittedly, the headline "It's a weird trip" is accurate enough. We were shown downstairs to a corner table where the decor is relief depictions of Sumerian scenes. As it's quite early, there aren't many other people in as yet so they accommodate our request to turn the music down (Sade and ambient music), apart from two rather severe looking heavies at a large table nearby.
Ignoring Rayner's comments, we press on with the prawn crackers - both white Chinese and brown Thai versions - and a rather good salsa. We'd checked the wine list in advance and managed to find a Spanish Macabeo/SB for £38 - after that it gets scary.
For starters, we had the cocktail glass full of popcorn shrimp (which was great), soft shell crab (quite meaty), a rich duck, watermelon and cashew nut salad and a couple of steamed dumplings off the dim sum list.
For main, B and I share a deliciously tender "shaking beef" fillet chunks and a baked seabass fillet. S's Thai green chicken curry was a bit ordinary, but L's beef rendang with roti was also really good - a serious kick to it. We also has some jasmine rice and pak choi.
Desserts followed - Asian banana crumble and chocolate fondant (very gooey).
Part way through the meal, the room started to fill up. Six or seven very scantily dressed young women joined the heavies' table. Several other tables had an older man surrounded by younger women - though I suppose that was true of our table too, though the dress code was very different! And as I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for the others to come back from the loo, more young ladies in impossibly short skirts were coming down the stairs.
We had 3 bottles of wine and service was 12.5%. The discount offer saved us £100, leaving the total at a very reasonable £260 for 4. Even at full price it was worth it for the experience!
