Busy February

February was a very busy month for eating out, as we went to 10 different restaurants during the month. They were mostly old favourites that I’ve reviewed before, like Chez Bruce (featuring devilled lamb’s tongues), The French Table for Valentine’s Day and Italian Taste (mussels) in Surbiton, The Good Earth, Esher (sizzling lamb) and El Pirata tapas off Piccadilly (very tasty rib-eye).

First up was a fairly new branch of Sticks n Sushi in Kingston, though it has much the same menu as the others.  It is a big place, but was pretty full so we ended up with seats in the window, watching the world go by John Lewis. Wine service was a little slow because of that, though it hadn’t been rapid when we went last time. We had the spicy edamame beans while we considered the order – one of the better examples. Then we had salmon carpaccio (as opposed to tataki, quite thick, very tasty), hot and gooey crab croquettes, seaweed  salad, deep fried prawn bites and tuna tartare bites with avocado.  These were followed at a sensible pace by the iberico pork, duck meatball, and scallop and bacon sticks. Total bill including two bottles of SA Chenin Blanc (at £30) was £150 – pretty good value.

We planned to meet up with A, K and K’s new squeeze C. They suggested Café Rouge upstairs at Victoria station, so we trot along arriving as they do to find that Café Rouge no longer exists. In its place is a take-away with just a couple of basic tables. They negotiate a table and we were just getting our heads round the menu when it transpires they don’t serve alcohol!  So we head off to the Nova complex across the road and fetch up at RailHouse Cafe. The menu here is a little unusual – mainly bowls with add-on skewers plus a few “plates”. I have the chicken schnitzel with mushrooms – a good, sized piece, still moist inside – plus some chips. B has skewers: prawn and chicken skewers with a mixed salad. Our share of the bill was £140 – not cheap for what we had.

J,D and I had a bet on revolution in China – and I lost. So after buying them drinks in Wetherspoons, we head to a Uyghur restaurant for lunch - Karamay Uyghur near Fenchurch St station. It’s an odd little place upstairs, with a stage for a band – presumably a social space for the community. People were leaving as we arrived, so we ended up the only ones in there for most of the time. The dishes feature noodles – described as linguine or spaghetti – and several have serious chilli. I have lamb ribs with noodles and some grilled vegetable dumplings on the side. Very good slightly spicy; J has lamb skewers and D spicy (3 chilli) tenderloin. We each have a couple of bottles of the national beer – Wusu. All this comes to a very reasonable £44 a head.

Although we’ve been there a few times, I haven’t reviewed Giggling Squid in Kingston before. There are branches in Esher, Wimbledon and many others too. We’re meeting D and her new pal J. We order some Chenin Blanc – J is driving so doesn’t have anything – and some of their very good prawn crackers while we consider the menu. They specialise in Thai “tapas”, but we generally also order some dishes from the starters and mains lists too. D and J order curries which come with rice and salad. We have one bite salmon, pork dumplings duck spring rolls followed by soft shell prawns and caramelised pork with rice. Our share including wine comes to a very modest £100. Definitely on the regular visit list.  

Taking advantage of the leap day, we meet up with G at the Ivy City Garden, off Old Broad Street. It’s a huge place, and at 1.30pm is very busy (and noisy) with several work groups. There are loads of plants around and a very odd wall sculpture featuring a lizard eating its tail. We arrive first and order Chilean Viognier (£38). G arrives 5 minutes or so later – and we still haven’t got our wine. After quite a long chat a waiter arrives asking if we’re ready to order, so I ask about the wine and G orders a gin (Monkey 47) and tonic.

The menu has several sections to it – a February specials list, and also an Ivy Asia list, that I focus on. B’s starter is very dramatic: it’s a crab, brown shrimp and avocado tian from the specials list. It arrives served in a silver plated crab-shaped platter, complete with a spicy sauce poured over it, and for some reason a jug of dry ice!  It tastes good too. G has the cheese souffle off the “Ivy Classics” list served in a bronzed pan which she polishes off with relish. My starter is chicken skewers (three) with bang bang peanut sauce, which has loads of nuts and a good chilli kick (effectively an above average satay).

Topping us up with drinks has been erratic, with some empty glasses. But when we order the second bottle the senior waiter seems to get the idea. Or maybe it’s because now, around 2.30pm, the place is starting to thin out a bit.

For main course I have the Keralan duck curry with sweet potato. It’s quite a light, sweet curry, not that hot. But the duck is tasty. B has Mexican-style Flat-iron Chicken (again a February special). This comes with a nice salsa, and quite spicy guacamole.  This is a rather large portion. G simply has a Sirloin steak.

We don’t have room for dessert, finishing our wine while G has a cappuccino. The dessert list does look good though. Service charge is an annoying 13.5% taking the bill up to over £270.  That’s pretty pricey, but the food has been good.

  

Japanese in Soho

 We've arranged to meet up with T&K for lunch and decided upon Robata, a Japanese in Old Compton Street. It features grills as much as sushi, to suits us better.  Then a tube strike is announced, so we decide instead go to La Gamba, as it's within reach of Waterloo.  But the strike is called off, so we revert to Plan A.

We meet for a drink beforehand at the French House just round the corner. This throw-back place is full of character and charm - but for its prices, where anything other than the house wine is £36 a bottle.

The style of the restaurant is modern cafe, with lots of stools and high tables. Fortunately, our table is not one of those. There's a rather odd motto in neon on the wall, something like "I used to love you but now I love sake". 

The staff are friendly and smiley. We order the Chilean SB (£30), which is delivered promptly. We also order a dish of spicy edamame beans (other options are available) while we select from the lengthy menu. This is amazing - not just a few sprinkles of chilli on top, but a deep and dense sauce that really sets your a-tingling. A very good omen of what it to come. 

We choose from the menu divided into raws and sushi; small plates; robata skewers (oddly priced by the piece, but with a minimum of 2); bao buns; and robata large. There are sides and rice, but we decide against these, though the truffle fries did get some attention. 

Soft shell crab (always a favourite) features as a sushi roll or bao bun - we settle on the former, as we will have a beef brisket bun as well.   We have the tuna tartare and beef tataki off this list too.  The soft shell crab roll was good - not as good as a whole crab - the beef came with an interesting sauce, but I thought the tuna was a little dull. 

The karaage - now our favourite Japanese chicken dish - was good and hot, with a moderately spicy sauce - maybe not quite as good as the one in Yatay in Wardour Street we had some time ago but pretty acceptable. We had two types of gyozas - pork and kimchi - the latter also having a kick. 

For skewers we had the scallops (nicely judged, moist but with a crispiness) and the lamb breast (fatty, but very tasty).  And we also plumped for the signature dish of Iberico pork pluma as a "large plate". B had her eye on this from the start - and it was indeed excellent, moist, tender, full of flavour. 

After all this, we decide we haven't had quite enough, so order a prawn tempura roll (which as a sushi roll was not quite what B had expected) and chicken thigh skewer, which was rich and dense. 

With three bottles of wine, and 12.5% service the total comes to £280.  So it's not a cheap option, despite its low-key decor. But the flavours and quality do make it feel like a reasonable price. WE'd go back and happily recommend it to others. 

Surbiton Japanese and Kingston Turkish

 We've now been a few times to The Boat, a Japanese place near Surbiton station. It's little more than a cafe in some ways, but quite attractive in its way. It's become a regular choice after the farmer's market. The walls are decorated with boat-related images, though some are more Nelson-era ships. 

It describes itself as a Sushi and Ramen restaurant, but it does some other things too that they call "kitchen dishes", which is what we have tended to go for.  Typically we order edamame beans, but often choose the seaweed salad instead - this features two types of seaweed, and is very mild. 

Pretty regularly now we go for the karaage, deep-fried chicken served with a spiced-up salad cream. A recent favourite too is prawn katsu, prawns in breadcrumbs with a strange dense soy sauce. This latest time we also had the chicken gyoza and yellowtail tuna. We've recently taken to also ordering an inside out roll dish (rice stuffed with avocado and something) of some kind - soft-shell crab, spicy tuna, or on this latest visit beef. We don't really need it and often end up taking much of it away. The beef was a bit of an odd mix with the other dishes. There is a range of other sushi, nigri and sashimi, but we don't always go for those - the sushi sashimi sets look good though. 

Our wine choice is the Secretary Bird SB from SA at £22.  The staff are very friendly and chatty, and the light jazz background very pleasant. Total of around £75 without service (they prefer cash). Maybe not worth a visit across London in itself, but worth looking up if you're in the area.

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Another local we've now tried a couple of times is Cappadocia, near Kingston station. The Turkish restaurant is a pretty big place, with a take-away joined on. Maybe good for groups. Lots of Turkish-looking people in on both occasions. 

On both occasions we've had the lamb's liver and the acili ezme (a spicy salad) as starters. The liver is very good, dry and tasty; the salad a huge hit of chilli if you're not careful. The first time we tried the Bolu Manti,  meat stuffed dumplings with yoghurt. We were expecting something like a dim sum dumpling, but they were much smaller, so the ratio of meat to dough wrapper much less. OK, but rather heavy without a lot of flavour. This last time we had tiger prawns with garlic instead,

The first time I had the special flamed beef stew  - Testi - as a main. Elaborately presented in a clay pot on a  bed of flaming stones it looks pretty sensational. But the flaming is pointless - it is just a beef stew with red wine, a good sized portion but nothing special. That time B had the prawns as a main course, large ain a good sauce. 

On our second visit B chose the diced lamb on aubergine puree and garlic yoghurt. She found that rather too smoky for her taste.  My diced chicken breast with ginger was better, a thick almost curry-like sauce and good moist meat.  Portions are generally large. They do a range of kebabs as you'd expect and the mixed grill is huge.

Both times we had a bottle of French Viognier at £25. The first time we ordered a second bottle, but they didn't have another so proposed substituting a Chardonnay from the same vineyard - we had a Sauvignon instead. The second time, it was just a couple of glasses of house white.

Service was efficient, fairly friendly head waiter the first time, rather cold chap the second. The first time we had a 20% off food voucher and the bill was £114; the second time without it came to £110.  

Japanese in Wardour Street

 We're meeting up with a gang of old friends, so need somewhere interesting that can fit in 10 of us and two kids. B had spotted a Japanese place in Wardour Street  - Yatay - that had featured in the Guardian "Blind Dates" column, so that is where we end up choosing. 

With that number they ask that you book one of their set menus, at £45, £65 or £95. Unsurprisingly, we opt for £45. So after a quick drink in O'Neill's across the road, we fetch up at 1pm. It's not very busy downstairs, but we get shown upstairs where we have the place to ourselves. Downstairs had high tables and stools but upstairs is better for us old folk, with normal tables. Plenty of room for the pushchair too.  It's a dark, sultry looking place, with quite loud music - natural blind date sort of place - but also some interesting abstract art.

The charming maitresse d' welcomes us and explains the menu. Basically it comes down to five courses. First up is "Bites".  Edamame beans are common enough - a large portion. "Dirty fries" is an unusual mix of gyoza skins fried with jalapeno mayo - very good, spicy and crunchy. Plus a selection of pickles that went far beyond what you might expect.

Then there are "Small Plates". These are an interesting -and again spicy - seaweed salad, a raw salmon tataki - less interesting- and chicken karaage. This last is super, spicy chicken nuggets fried in garlic and ginger supported by a stunning yellow/pink tofu dip.

Next come Robata, in two waves. First there is a trout skewer, beautifully done, crisp on the outside, melting inside. This is matched with a pork skewer - large pieces of tasty pork - and a surprisingly good beetroot and garlic skewer. 

Plates are cleared away and larger ones replace them for the last main dishes. These are "hen" supreme (a large dish of chicken in a sticky sauce), charred sweet potato and a mouth-tingling spinach in sesame and chilli. Plus portions of steamed rice. By this time most of us are struggling, and we end up getting quite a lot to take away in cleverly wrapped foil parcels. 

Finally there is a house dessert, a fairly dull sponge cake with a tooth-achingly sweet sauce. 

The wine list is short but not cheap, so we end up with the house white, a Spanish Verdejo at £30, plus a few beers and soft drinks. Service has been very attentive, a bit swift if anything, and we get used to the volume of the music. Dishes have been served so that each pair of us has the full range, so it would be quite easy to replicate in a smaller group.  Total £740 with service between 10, including a few bits for the children. Very good indeed.

  

Late January

We’re in Kingston, house-hunting, and I’ve found a tapas bar near where we’re looking. So we head down an unattractive road and find the Pottery Bar, well off the beaten track. Not somewhere people just happen upon. And as it’s a mid-week lunch, we’re not surprised to find that, apart from a business meeting going on, we are the only ones in there.

 The drinks list doesn’t include any Spanish wines, so we order the house white Trebbiano at £21.  The menu isn’t especially tapas either. We order steak salad off the specials board (bizarrely itemised as lamb shank on the bill) plus garlic prawns, and chorizo, chick peas and goats cheese, plus some bread with oil and balsamic to keep us going.

 Despite there being no-one else in the food – including the bread – takes an age to arrive.  When it comes the bread is lovely, slightly warm, crusty and a good sized portion, though rather they rather skimped on the oil and vinegar.   The prawns had a hit of chilli along with the garlic, and the chorizo/cheese combination worked well. The salad is a very large portion, with tender steak and nicely dressed leaves.

 The service is friendly, and we chat a bit – the waiter describes one of their dishes as “weird”. We have two more glasses of wine. The bill (with just 10% service) comes to £78. Nice enough place, but probably only if you are in the area - not worth the detour.

 With S&S we return to our favourite, Chez Bruce at Wandsworth Common. As usual, we meet in the nearby pub, The Hope, for a drink first.  Unusually, the pub is packed, with lots of family groups and kids – we don’t normally come on a Sunday. The pub menu looks quite good itself.

 Chez Bruce is busy too, but well-organised. We have a nice table in the window.  Friendly and efficient service as always, with their lovely parmesan biscuits and excellent bread to start.   The other three all have crispy, deep-fried poached egg to start – lovely. I have the trout ceviche, very fresh and clean

 For mains, two (including B of course) have duck breast with foie gras. S has roast cod with mushrooms. After asking about how it’s done, I decide to be adventurous and order the pig’s trotter, despite being a little alarmed at twice being told that the skin will be gelatinous!  It’s stuffed with chicken mousse and chopped sweetbreads – and really tasty. Luckily I start at the right end and don’t come to the tiny bones until the end.

 Desserts are ice cream (including salted caramel), pear, and yoghurt parfait that comes with something akin to polystyrene.

 We have three bottles of Chilean Viognier for £105, some water and a coffee.  The “3 course weekend lunch” is £48.50 – considerably more than what we usually pay mid-week.  But it remains undeniably good.  So the total comes to £340 for the four of us.

 Still house-hunting, but this time in Surbiton, we return to Hart’s Boatyard, our favourite pub by the river.  We get a nice table overlooking the river.  I fail to find our usual Rothschild Viognier on the wine list, so order a Gavi.  But when the waitress comes she has the Viognier – wrong, but right!   B has the steak salad – a regular choice – and I have the pork belly.  This is quite fatty, but it comes with a crispy bacon slice and some rather good pork cheeks. A second bottle of wine takes the bill to £76.

 Then for my birthday, we book a table for lunch at The French Table, also in Surbiton. We’d been once before and had a lovely 5-course set lunch.  We get as far as Clapham Junction to find all the trains from Waterloo cancelled.  We hang around for a bit, as the information board suggests there might soon be a train, but it gets later and later, so eventually we decide to go to Victoria, and I ring to cancel.  Apparently they’d had a lot of cancellations because of the trains – such a shame.

 At Victoria we decide to go the new(ish) branch of Sticks ‘n’ Sushi in the Nova complex. On arrival it doesn’t look very prepossessing, but we are shown upstairs where it is busier, buzzier and more attractive.  The tables are close together though, so we have to fight to hear each other over the job interview next door. We order the Chenin Blanc (£28) and some edamame beans while we work what to have.  We decide to order in two phases – sushi then sticks. So we begin with beef tataki, which comes with a good spicy dip,  crab croquettes that are hot and gooey, and  scallops kataifi topped with roe.  These are closely followed by duck in rice paper (with the same dip) and spicy tuna maki roll with ginger and wasabi.  All very tasty.  Then we order a second bottle and the sticks: scallop and bacon, spicy chicken, and lamb. Again all good - though the second bottle takes a while to arrive.   Good friendly service – the waiter chats to us a bit as we are the last ones in there at 3pm.  Total, including 12.5% service, is £135 – perhaps a bit much for what it was, but then it is my birthday.

Soho Japanese

We’re meeting up with M&G and they wanted to go to a Japanese restaurant, as they will be off to Japan soon.  We’re pleased with this idea as many people reject Japanese places as being all about raw fish, when usually there is plenty of other choice too, so we don’t often find people to try them with.

M finds a place in Old Compton St called Shack-Fuyu, which turns out to be part of the Bone Daddies group. We’d been before to a Bone Daddies ramen bar in Peter St after B had seen the head chef on TV. That had been good (we had salmon tartare, soft-shell crab; Thai green chicken curry ramen)  but a bit café-like and rushed.  Shack-Fuyu is more stylish, with booths for 6 as well as tables for two.

They have an extensive range of saké, including sparkling ones which I’d never heard of before, but we stick with the wine – Le Versant viognier from France at £28.  When G arrives he chooses an Asahi beer.  A very friendly waitress, Teresa,  (Italian, Spanish? Certainly not Japanese) introduces herself to us as our dedicated waitress – which since she’s the only one there is not surprising.  But it does make it easier to question her about the menu.

It’s a “concept” again. It’s not entirely clear which dishes are for sharing and which not. The beef hot stone rice comes recommended.   So we choose that along with others chosen by price – 4 cheaper ones, 3 more expensive plus a burnt cauliflower (that’s how it’s billed) as a token vegetable.  We ask to have the cheaper ones first, but in the end they come as and when.

First to arrive is the raw tuna tacos. There are just two, but they divide up easily enough. The prawn tempura are brilliant – such a light batter and a spicy mayo on the side – and the waygu beef tataki with a ginger soy dressing amazing,  Crispy squid arrive in a huge bowl – good, though they need the mayo from the prawns to perk them up a bit.

Next up is the Iberico pork “pluma” with spring onions (loads, finely chopped) which is also good, the burnt cauliflower, with jalapenos and in a sesame sauce, which was probably the only disappointing dish, and duck gyoza. The five gyoza are presented in a a unique way – they claim nowhere else in London does this – linked together by a light crispy topping.  Finally the beef hot stone rice – good and filling but not as special as some of the other dishes.

I’m still a little peckish so G and I tuck into a pork cheek skewer and seabass ceviche as well.  Both of these excel too.

We’ve had three bottles of wine and G had a second pint. With service that takes the bill to £212, excellent value for all the tasty dishes. 

As we come out we see there is a big queue for the Japanese restaurant next door. Young people obviously! Maybe that’s cheaper, but I think it would struggle to beat Shack-Fuyu for flavour.

 

 

 

 

Blind date Japanese

We’ve been reading the “Blind Date” column in the Graun again, and although the couple decided not to meet again, one did want to go back to the restaurant!  Jidori, near Covent Garden – there’s one in Kingsland Road too.   Apart from the karaoke evenings (which I’m pleased to say we avoided), this Japanese place’s claim to fame is that it showcases the whole chicken.

For a moment it seems like they only do beer and sake, but we do find a wine list and get the house white at £21.  The menu also looks a little complicated so we opt for the set meal, “Omakase”, at £30 a head – 13 dishes with pickles and two desserts.

It’s not all chicken. The first three dishes are a tuna sashimi, grilled peas (interesting) and mushrooms. Then, with the pickles we have chicken thighs and onions and minced chicken with egg yolk.  Followed by spicy chicken wings and the remarkable heart and bacon. Plus chicken livers and four dishes I can’t recall (the translations from the Japanese include scissors, peach and leather!!!).   All really good, including the heart, which I guess we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves.  Dessert is coconut water sorbet, which seems a little dull after all that excitement. 

Just up from Lion King, the place is pretty small, more like a café, though there is an upstairs we didn’t see. Service is very good and friendly, explaining the dishes well. Total with a second bottle comes straightforwardly to £102 – plus 12.5%.  Interesting experience, well worth a try, but not somewhere I’d rush back to.

New development at St James’s Market

We’ve been terribly cultural and visited the Jasper Johns exhibition at the RA – how many versions of the US flag or the numbers 0-9 do you need? So we’re in need of sustenance, but haven’t planned anywhere. We consider Cicchetti on Piccadilly again, though when we went a few years ago it wasn’t brilliant. Then I remember a new complex I’d wandered around before a meeting recently, that links Lower Regent Street and Haymarket.

It’s called St James’s Market.  There are several new restaurants here. We look at a Scandinavian one called Aquavit – too much smoked fish on the smorgasbord.  There’s Veneta, an Italian from the Salt Yard group, a patisserie called Ole & Steen, and even Duck and Waffle Local.

But we decide we like the look of the menu at Anzu, a Japanese place, with a set menu at a very reasonable looking £12.95 for two courses.  There’s no-one else in there (it is 2.30pm), but (or so?) the welcome is warm and we get a seat in the window.  The style is light wood, with displays of large sake bottles.

The a la carte menu looks interesting too, but after asking for clarification about what the set dishes are (I’d guessed “Komatsuna” was tuna, but it turns out it was braised greens!), we decide to stay with the set lunch dishes.  The wine list goes up frighteningly - we find  a rosé from Provence at £28, and order some edamame beans while we decide on the order.

To start we have the king prawn dumplings – three gyoza-like dumplings with very tasty minced prawns fillings – and duck and watermelon salad – a very creditable sized portion of crispy duck, fresh watermelon and pomegranate seeds (a bit challenging with chopsticks!).  Very pleased with those.

Mains aren’t quite as successful. Japanese Mentaiko “Carbonara” is noodles with fish sauce and pollock roe.  It’s quite rich, and fishy, though the roe are surprisingly not that interesting.  Overall, just a bit heavy and sticky.  Our second choice is the soy-roast poussin – for which we are allowed a knife and fork. It’s fine, but nothing special.  We’ve also ordered some rice, which it turns out we don’t need, and eventually (after a little reservation) manage to persuade the charming waitress to let us take away.

A second bottle of wine skews the bill towards the alcohol, taking it to £99 including the now standard 12.5% service (OK, I’ll stop whingeing about it now).   A pleasant, rather than brilliant, lunch which maybe would have felt better with other people in there.

New places in Purley, Covent Garden and Shoreditch

A new restaurant opened up just down the road in Purley in January replacing Napule e’, next door to Buenos Aires. Those poor souls who support Crystal Palace will recognise the name – Speroni’s . And indeed the Palace goalkeeper played host to the whole Eagles team recently. It seems to be a collaboration with Buenos Aires, as we have seen the manager in there during the decorating work – which is perhaps not surprising as Speroni is Argentinian. 

They have done a lot of work on the place, painting the outside, replacing steps and put a lot of effort into the interior decoration. The window display is a series of shelves with kitchen utensils, bottles etc, presumably intended to give a homely feel, but in fact making it look a bit like a hardware store.  When we’d booked for 4 of us on a Friday evening we were told that the best they could was 9.30pm, but fortunately they rang back a day or so later to offer us 7.30 instead. It’s buzzy and lively, if not quite full, and the waiting staff are welcoming.

We’ve gone along with K&I, so we order both a white (Garnacha) and a red (Malbec). Both are nearly the cheapest at £28.50, and the list goes up alarmingly.  B thinks the menu is quite short, but still struggles to choose something she fancies, so goes for a staple, seafood pasta. The choice of pasta turned out to be tagliatelli or penne, when she would have preferred linguine or spaghetti. The only distinctive seafood was mussels, which was a bit disappointing.

I had a “Portobello bruschetta” to start – mushroom on bread with Parma ham and poached egg – very good.  My main was slow-cooked lamb - very tender and tasty but rather odd as it just came with a couple of potato dumplings. I’s starter was salmon gravlax, which looked good, and he had a cod in peppers dish for main course.  K’s chicken dish seemed rather ordinary. K&I ordered churros for dessert which B tried and really liked.

The service was very good, very friendly but efficient. With a second bottle of white, and a modest 10% service charge, the bill was £176 – more than half of it for wine.  B rated it a 7 out of 10, but worth another try. I certainly enjoyed the meal, but we’ll probably just go for house wine next time.

 

After working up in town one day I suggest going out for a meal as I’m all posh in jacket and tie.  B fancied a Chinese but we struggled to find one around Covent Garden or Victoria, so we settle for SticksNSushi in Henrietta Street. B said it was a “café” which makes me dubious (not up to my sartorial elegance!) but it’s far from that. In fact it’s a stylish, dark place with bare walls but comfortable chairs. Rather loud music near the entrance but as we are taken further and further inside it is quieter – in fact it is huge, going right through to Maiden Lane I think.

We’ve been given a table which would seat three,  with one on a banquette (odd arrangement). The menus (plural) are vast, so we order some Journeyman SA Chenin Blanc at £17.50 and edamame beans in a spicy sauce while we have a think.  The wine and beans arrive very rapidly (“quick wine” – excellent, and the beans are tasty too), and we work our way through the choices. There are a lot of set meals, and as I often find with Japanese it seems like either you have small portions or you pay a lot.

As the name implies there are several yakitori skewers with various things, plus a good range of sushi rolls, sashimi and nigri. We eventually (after being asked if we’re ready several times by  the waitress) order three dishes which I think of as “starters” and two “mains” – though of course they are not presented in that way.

Ebi bites are prawns in a very light, almost bubbly batter – a good few of them too for £6.80. We have two tuna skewers (Maguro chilli), which are a little disappointing, being rather dry despite the red onion, teriyaki and chilli topping.  The third “starter” is a skewer of scallops wrapped in bacon with herb butter (hotate to bacon) – excellent.

The two more substantial dishes we’ve ordered are a paper-wrapped duck roll and coal-rice soft-shell crab roll (ie black rice wrapped around pieces of crab). Both are wrapped with avocado and lettuce – and both are really good.

The service has been very good and cheery, if a little fast, but that’s OK as we started late. We have a couple of glasses of a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and that takes the bill (incl 12.5%) to £90. Well worth it for an interesting and tasty meal. With all the choices on the menu we’ll certainly go there again, or to the branch on Wimbledon Hill.

Oh and I almost forgot – it’s a Danish Japanese restaurant! All the staff have T-shirts with Danish mottoes. Not sure what the Danish connection is, but there you go!

 

The team I’m working with on one project has decided we should go out for a team dinner to build up rapport, so we have a table booked at Dishoom in Shoreditch. Not being familiar with this part of town, I allowed myself plenty of time to find the place. So I have a little time to kill wandering around beforehand, taking in the upward mobility of the area.  I walk past Maison Trois Garcons  - a “lifestyle café” (for heaven’s sake!) – and call in the Owl and Pussycat for a swift half.  

This must once have been a classic old boozer, but it has now been totally refurbished and then artfully distressed.  Where once there may have been Red Barrel, there’s now continental beers (and admittedly a couple of real ales). Pork pies have been replaced by “apple dogs” and goat’s cheese salad. The Racing Post by laptops – everywhere.  The clientele are probably refugees from Silicon Roundabout, and deals or business plans are being discussed at each table, though to be fair there was also an Everton supporter bemoaning their performance.

So it’s no surprise to find Dishoom is a stylish place too. Billed as a “Bombay café” (when did “café” change meaning?) this is a large establishment policed by elegant greeters, with a comfortable bar area.  Dark woods and tiles, and comfortable booths and tables are all around, and there’s a good lively vibe even at 6pm.

Only four of our group have arrived on time, so we press on and order a mixture of nibbles. There are no papadums, so we have the colourful and slightly spicy “far far” crisps/crackers, okra fries (excellent, little okra deep fired and dipped in tamarind or chilli), bhel (the puffed rice and tamarind dish), and calamari.

That keeps us going till the others arrive and order more, which comes pretty quickly. We have more okra fries and a keema pau (minced lamb with a sweet bread).  The main dishes I had were some spicy lamb chops (pretty meaty if not that spicy) and a chicken biryani (unexceptional). Others also had matter paneer and vegetable biryani). There were supporting dishes of black daal, raita, dishoom slaw, and gunpowder potatoes as well as plenty of naan bread.

Service has been very good. I have to rush off, so don’t know what the bill came to, but looking online the most expensive dish was the lamb chops at £11.50, and the house wine was £19 a bottle, so I’m guessing it was pretty reasonable.  Certainly worth another try, maybe at their branch next to Stringfellow’s in Upper St Martin’s Lane.

Back to Wagamama

(See also April overview (1))

Back to Wagamam for lunch around 1.30pm. Quite busy, so we are put half-way back - any further wouldn't be too nice because of the low ceiling and frying smells.

The smiley and heavily pregnant manageress arrives quickly to take our wine order (Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc - £21; there are cheaper options) and we also order edamame beans. These come quickly while we're deciding on the rest of the order. As before the chilli and salt is layered on top, so once you get further down the bowl, there's not much interest left.

For "starters" we order the chicken gyoza, and beef kushiyaki (off the specials list), and for "mains" the ginger beef and coriander salad (again) and firecracker praws (specials). The gyoza comes quite quickly and is good - hot, crispy, though not strong on flavour. The beef comes at the same time as the mains - it is 3 skewers of 3 large pieces of beef, in a soy sauce. Very tasty, and mostly very tender.

The beef salad is again very good - a very fresh, light dressing on the salad, and tender beef- though probably didn't need more beef, and it's not very ginger. The firecracker prawns are not for the faint-hearted. Although it comes with a mound of boiled rice, the chillis in the sauce are pretty strong - I avoid the most fearsome-looking ones. Plenty of prawns too. Mains are about £10 each - fair value.

There are a couple of largish groups in - it's an ideal place for that. And two tables of 4 shoolgirls arrive as well - I suppose it's better for them than KFC - rather more sophisticated than I was at that age!

Service throughout has been brisk and efficient - you could be out within 45 mins if you wanted to be. We linger over another glass of wine, and leave paying £80 including service.

April overview (1)

Catching up on some of the places I visited last month:

LAS FUENTES, High St, Purley
Our local tapas bar - very well-frequented. The welcome is always excellent here, with enthusiastic and lively waiters keen to help. We're so predictable in our choice of wine (the house white Rioja) that they are often ready to bring a bottle as soon as we've walked in the door - "quick wine" is what we like!

No sign of Gio, the proprietor, this time. He's still a keen cyclist, doing charity rides to Paris even though he's getting on a bit now. Used to have an eye for the ladies, though I've not seen him do that recently. The style of the place is classic Spanish tiling, with splendidly stocked bar.

Their speciality here is the skewers - lamb, beef, chicken or fish. This time we have the lamb - a good solid selection of nicely cooked meat, hanging over a plate of fried polenta. From their "specials" board (which doesn't change that much), we also have scallops and chorizo (comes with too many potatoes for my liking, but the chorizo is very good) and a relatively new addition, piquillo peppers stuffed with crabmeat. This is starting to become one of our regular choices.

Portions are always good, so 3 dishes between 2 works well enough. Good value as well - lunch usually works out around £50-£60 including plenty of wine.

It gets busy in the evenings, especially weekends. Also has a restaurant section with more formal meals.


WAGAMAMA Park Road Croydon
We're only recent converts to Wagamama, having struggled to find a suitable mix of dishes previously. We're also not that keen on the noodle dishes, so that rather limits things. The Croydon branch is much like the rest of the chain, with shared refectory tables and paper menus/placemats. On this visit it wasn't too busy, but if you're sitting near the back it can be claustrophobic here.

The food comes in the order it's ready, so that can be confusing. But this time it works OK. The spicy edmame beans are up first - good, but not as spicy as those at Dim T in Victoria. Next comes the duck gyoza (rolls) and the spicy squid. The gyoza is good and tasty, but the squid a bit of a disappointment - rather rubbery and no way spicy enough.

Mains come as hoped: beef and coriander salad and chicken tonburi(teriyaki) with a mound of boiled rice. Both good, the beef cooked well and the chicken covered in plenty of sauce. About £60 including wine, so pretty fair.


LE GARRICK WINE BAR Garrick St, Covent Garden
Meeting up with a group of friends for an annual memorial meal, at this cosy wine bar near Covent Garden. Downstairs has lots of nooks and crannies, and tables pretty close together - lovely wine bar atmosphere.

I had the calamari followed by magret de canard. Good service brought excellent French bread, and wines promptly. The calamari was good - sauteed in wine, tender and tasty. Magret de canard was correctly pink, with a fine red wine sauce and a few vegetables. A selection of chips from other people's dishes was also good - presented in the now predictable tin pots. The others all enjoyed their meals too - a very reliable place. Not cheap, as we had plenty of wine at around £20 a bottle, but fair enough to come away with £108 for 2.


AQUA South End, Croydon
It's the South Croydon Food Festival, so after wandering around looking at the stands, (surprisingly not buying anything), we fetch up at Aqua for a late lunch. Not surprisingly with all that's going on, it's pretty busy, and one room seems to have been taken over by a large group.

So to simplify things we order the mezze, while our friend H orders a mixed fish platter. The mezze is pretty impressive - first the dips, hummus, tara, tsatsiki, with plenty of pitta bread. Followed by the fish course: calamari and whitebait, both in batter - OK. Then a selection of keftedes (good and herby), dolmades, crumbly spinach pie, and tomato and halloumi. Finally comes the chicken and lamb souvlaki - a little dull, needed an enlivening chilli sauce. So a pretty filling experience overall.

Rashly we finish off with Metaxas. Outside of Greece this is rarely a good idea, and though we checked the number of stars ("25", said the waiter), the caramel flavour comes through really strongly. Not to mention the feeling the following morning!

£90 for two with lots of wine, was a pretty good result.