Smart Indian at Piccadilly Circus

 Five of us ex-colleagues are having a "Whizzo Wheeze", looking to play bar billiards at the Glasshouse Stores on Brewer Street. Unfortunately, as on the last two occasions, the table is not operational - this time the cues have been stolen. It feels as if the table will be phased out soon. And there aren't many other places left  in London where you can still play bar billiards.

We stay for a couple of pints, then go in search of a curry. I had noticed on arriving at Piccadilly Circus that the fabulous Criterion, right by Eros, was now a branch of Masala Zone, so we head off there. Masala Zone took over the place just last year. The Criterion dates from 1873, and has more recently been home to Marco Pierre White, though it has a chequered financial history since. The decor is consistently opulent. 

Masala Zone has its own pedigree, though only back to 2001, and now has 4 branches in London. We really liked the Covent Garden branch, ideal for groups, with its Indian marionettes hanging from the ceiling. The Criterion Masala Zone is also large and ideal for impressing a group.  The decor now has Indian themes too making it even more dramatic. 

The menu isn't huge but takes a little while to get your head around, as it isn't a standard selection. We order drinks - beers, Kingfisher for me, though sadly only in the 33cl bottles. There's a good selection of "grazing small plates".  We decide to take the short cut of the five item, sharing grazing selection, just for two. The Bombay sprouted lentil bhel is a huge pillar with loads of flavour, crunchy and crispy with pomegranate seeds. There are two lamb sliders, not easy to divide between 5 so I opt out of those. Of the other 3 dishes, one in particular was a very dense dish with spicy sauce. 

We've eaten the starters before we get asked to order our mains. But that's not an issue as they arrive well within the time we'd expect.  Three of the group order thalis - prawn, lamb and chicken - which looked to be good sized portions including two vegetables, dhal, papad, rice or chapattis, with a raita option. P has the veggie "Undihiyo" of nine different veggies including banana, which he described as "Richly spiced, variety of vegetables. On dry side with rather more potatoes than I would have preferred". My choice was chicken mangalore, a 2 chilli option of chicken in thick sauce, which was indeed pretty hot, with chapattis and chana masala; a bit too much really. 

Service has been fine, though I did get twitchy waiting for my second beer. Total was around £250 including service. Probably would have been rather more with wine than just a few beers. The general view of the group was very positive, with some already planning to visit again.  

Return to Soho Vietnamese

 The plan is to meet E and her new squeeze before going to the theatre. But unfortunately he has to work late so it's just the three of us. As one of the options we suggested, E has booked us in quite early (5.30) for dinner at Cay Tre in Dean Street. We had been there some time ago with 131-ers and it's also a possibility for an upcoming reunion.

We arrive a bit early and are shown to our table, though we are warned the kitchen won't open for 10 minutes.  Before we are settled in, E joins us. It's a buzzy place and we are towards the back, where the group area would be. We order a bottle of Chilean SB at £32 and some sparkling water (£2). 

The menu is quite extensive, and includes many vegetarian dishes that will suit E. There's a whole page of pho. After a little discussion about a set seafood dish, we opt to stay with standard starters and mains. 

I have the crispy crab parcel to start. This is quite dense, including pork, prawn and mushrooms as well, but still tasting of crab. It's also very deep fried. B has the salt and pepper soft shell crab. This is a good size, recognisably crab-shaped. She is also impressed with the dressing that comes with it, fresh and bright. E chooses a mango salad with tofu. This seems quite small with not a lot of mango but she is happy with it. 

I'd been trying to decide between the chilli and lemongrass chicken and the "shaking" beef, and eventually settle on the latter. It comes as cubes of beef with fried peppers and onion, and a garlic sauce. The first few pieces are melt in the mouth, but a couple of the later ones had some gristle. B has "one bowl" vermicelli with prawns in chilli and garlic. There are plenty of prawns (shell on) and lots of flavour - she even eats lots of the vermicelli. E chooses the okra and aubergine curry, and we share some jasmine rice (which we don't really need). 

Service has been fine, they are used to rushing people through, so we get away in time for the show. It has been rather noisy, so not sure it's ideal for our group. Other tables have some huge bowls, much larger than B's, presumably the pho. With a second bottle of wine, the bill comes up just short of £180 (13% service again). It works as an interesting pre-theatre place, but not one for an intimate restful dinner.

Sardinian in Victoria

 We are meeting T&K for the first time this year, and as they had liked Olivomare previously they suggest we went to the parent place, Olivo, also in Victoria.  As before, we meet up in the Lord Lucan pub, Plumber's Arms then take the short stroll to Eccleston Street.

We had been there many, many years ago, when the decor featured an internal tent, pastel walls and stencils. Now it is super-modern: black and lumpy like Lego bricks.  It remains a small place, with perhaps 50 covers and is pretty much full when we arrive at 1.30pm. 

The menu has many overlaps with its fishy offspring, and the wine list is the same, so we choose the Sardinian white Karmis again - still the cheapest on the native list at £34.50, only £1 more than when we went two years ago. 

Bread arrives - a mix of the carta da musica and good baguette style.  The menu has a tempting mix of interesting starters, pastas and meat and fish.   K has the small linguine with suckling pig with garlic and chilli - a modest amount of pasta with what she says is a very tasty rich sauce. T has the octopus stew he had at the other restaurant, which he too is pleased with - spicy and tender.  B's starter is Sardinian prosciutto with lots of char-grilled fennel - really full flavoured meat. I choose the white crabmeat salad with spicy dressing - very fresh and light.

B and K have the same main course - veal escalope with sauteed spinach. The large pieces of meat are presented rolled up and standing vertically - quite dramatic. But B isn't impressed, finding it tough as shoe soles. She does manage to eat it all though. T has the sweetbreads ("animelle") with ham and green beans. He is very pleased with that, though it seems he doesn't like beans as he passes most of them to K. I have the most expensive thing on the menu, sliced beef entrecote with spicy broccoli, which is very good - served on the rare side of medium/rare the meat is melt in the mouth and flavourful, while the broccoli is al dente with a good chilli kick. We also have a portion of deep-fried courgettes which gets polished off rapidly.

B and I are tempted to have a dessert - "Sebada" - a traditional Sardinian dish of crunchy, crispy deeply fried pastry filled with cheese and dipped in honey - lovely, surprisingly light. T&K go with a chocolate cake that looks rather heavy.

Service has been friendly and efficient without being intrusive. When serving the second bottle, the waiter said he had better put a couple more in the fridge - quite right! (Though we only have three in fact). Service charge is a whopping 15% - £50 - taking the total to £390 for the four of us. That seems a lot - I had enjoyed it but B less so. 

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.

  

Esher Chinese

 We are in Esher for a showing of "The Great Escaper" in the Everyman. Someone had recommended a Japanese place, but that seems to have closed down, so we try the Chinese, the Good Earth. There are other branches in Wandsworth, Knightsbridge and Mill Hill, and a few "Express" outlets too. 

It's a smart place, with lots of red and gold, some classic Chinese pictures on the walls. Although there is only one other couple in, we are asked if we have a reservation, but then given a nice table in the window overlooking the High Street. The chopsticks are elegant, in fancy wrappers, there is a classy glass tray for dishes in the centre of the table (lazy susans on larger tables) and to B's great amusement we are presented with two little buttons, which when doused in hot water expand into hot towels. 

I'd looked at the menu beforehand, and it seemed quite expensive - £20 for soft-shelled crab starter, £25 for sweet and sour pork. The wine list wasn't so bad, so we settle on the French Viognier at £34. Fortunately though, there is also an express lunch menu at £18.80 for two courses and a range of dim sum dumplings at £5 per portion. 

So we decide on a combination of the two. From the express menu we order lettuce wrapped chicken and spicy lamb with lemongrass, egg-fried rice and vegetables. Dim sum dumplings were scallops, and prawn and chive. I also throw in a Dragon's Whiskers prawns from the starters list. 

The lettuce chicken and Dragon's Whiskers come first. The chopped chicken comes with some vegetables and a tasty sauce (billed as plum sauce, but lighter than that). A bit messy to eat, so the hot towels come in handy. DW is large prawns in shredded pastry, also rather messy, but certainly tasty. The dumplings come next. Scallops are really good; the wrapping is a bit heavy on both, so the chilli sauce is welcome. 

Finally the lamb, rice and vegetables, all served on one beautifully decorated plate on the glass tray; our starter plates have been replaced with smart blue and white bowls and plates. The lamb is good and spicy, with clear chilli flakes in it. The rice has identifiable pieces of scrambled egg, and the good range of vegetables (peppers, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms and something that may or may not have been celery) were all fresh and deliciously al dente.  

Unusually for us we treat ourselves to a dessert. Harking back to many years ago we order the toffee bananas. These are gorgeously crispy with sesame seeds; B reckons we should have had ice cream with them, and tells the couple at the next table, who duly order that and agree.

The waiter has been smiley and helpful without intruding; wine glasses topped up efficiently. The place is quite large, but has filled up a little while we were there. No background music.  

With a second bottle of wine, the bill goes up to a bit over £130 - with an odd 13% service charge. That's fine, but I imagine an evening meal from the main menu would be much more. Admittedly, the portions do seem to be quite large from what we saw at other tables, but I think our lunch deal worked pretty well. If the Japanese doesn't open up again, we will probably go back. 

Well-known Brasserie and venerable old Indian

 We were arranging to meet up with M&L in central London, but were met with a challenge - M wanted somewhere where they served draught lager. This turned out to be harder to find than I expected. Most places do bottled lager, but those that serve draught tend to call themselves "gastropubs" and have very limited and uninteresting menus. Something of a class thing going on here perhaps. 

Eventually, I found Tutton's, the well-known brasserie in Covent Garden, who offer a Staropramen, Czech lager.   It's a lovely sunny day, so there are many people sitting out on the terrace, but we have a table inside, in a corner near open windows, which was good. Less good was the time it took them to come across to take drinks orders. (Admittedly, after the first time, they got better).  As well as M's lager, we ordered a Cape Heights SA Sauvignon Blanc at £33. 

For starter's, both M and B had the crispy poached egg with mushrooms and peas. It's quite an impressive dish, runny inside but with a well-coloured batter outside. My beef carpaccio was OK, a little small, while L's warm beetroot salad was multi-coloured, but apparently not that special.

As we start the second course, we order another round of drinks. M's lager comes all fizzy and strange. It turns out it was the end of the barrel, so they do offer to change it, and it comes back later much better. The menu for mains was not extensive, but we each found something of interest. M had fish and chips (could have gone to a gastropub) and L had what she felt to be a disappointing pork belly, which had no crispy crackling. But B's seafood risotto was a full dish and my salmon trout nicely roasted. 

Ordering more drinks, the draught lager is now "off", so M resorts to bottled lager after all. We had told them that it was M's birthday so he got a free dessert, choosing salted caramel and dark chocolate tart. I keep him company with a mango and vanilla creme brulee. 

M generously offered to pay, so I don't know the exact bill, but I would imagine it would have been around £250.  For really very central London, not bad really, if hardly ground-breaking. There were a lot of Americans in, with their cruise ships numbers on their chests, so it's obviously on the well-known beaten track. After the initial lapse, the waitress was very smiley and helpful, and the atmosphere welcoming. A good place to take undemanding out-of-towners.  

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 There are some places which are just "institutions", having been around for so long. The India Club in Aldwych is one such. But sadly it closed its doors for the final time today, with re-development of the block finally having been approved. Apparently, early versions of the place have been going for 70 years as an outpost of the Indian High Commission and - it is claimed - hosting important visitors such as Nehru. Our ex-Home Office group used to make it a regular venue for a meal after the Varsity Match and we calculated that we must first have visited some 46 years ago. 

It's not what you would call salubrious or Michelin-quality. Its claim to fame was its authentic home-cooked Indian classics.  The restaurant is up a winding old staircase on the second floor, and features formica tables. It must have had an update over the years, because these are no longer screwed to the floor. The bar is one floor down (it used to be that you had to go down to order all your drinks, but now they do have drinks service at the table too). This has some lovely old prints and photos, but little in the way of plush furnishings. 

We visit in its final week, and the queue is amazing. You could only book for 6 or more, and sadly we are just 5, so we have to put our name on the list, notify them when we had all assembled, and just wait in the bar, drinking Cobra and Kingfisher. 

After about an hour and a half, we are finally summoned upstairs, to quite a good table by the window. Understandably, they are only doing the set menus, though we do manage to order extra chilli bhajis, one of our traditional favourites that blow your head off.  Otherwise it's standard fare of poppadums and pickles, onion bhaji, samosa, butter chicken, chana masala, dhal and mounds of rice. All for £22 including service - the beers were probably about the same. Pretty slick service meant that we were through our meal in an hour.

It is sad to see it go, though we were pleased to have stuck it out and managed to get in before the final close.  You can't recreate history like this.  

 

Smart fish restaurant in Richmond

 An offshoot of its parent in Mayfair, Scott's Richmond opened in September last year. We'd heard some good things about it, so decided to push the boat out and give it a try. 

As the weather was looking OK, I decided to book outdoors on the Terrace. The choice of times was very limited, nothing between 12.45 and 3.30, so I went for the earlier time. Conscious of their strict sounding late-arrival policy, I was glad our bus delivered us to Richmond in good time. Part of the restaurant's appeal was its view over the river, so we walked along the riverside path from the bridge - only to find ourselves far down river without having seen the restaurant. After some hasty discussions, we retraced our steps and found it on the corner near the main Riverside steps - it just didn't have a river-level frontage.

We are taken in, up four flights to the Terrace, to be given an excellent table by the veranda, directly overlooking the river. Down below are swans, geese and to our surprise two herons, which we spend a lot of our time watching. The weather is ideal - warm and sunny, but with a breeze and not too hot. They do have heaters and awnings so they can perhaps deal with less good weather too. A light background track of American songbook and other easy listening plays gently (thank goodness). 

B is fascinated by the staff's dress code. We'd been greeted at the door by a black guy in a cream suit with a Panama hat - very New Orleans jazz. The reception desk staff had boring green suits. Our waiter, Vinnie, wore a smart Burgundy waistcoat and bow tie, while over-seeing the proceedings was a head waiter looking like Lurch in a really odd Burgundy suit. There seemed to be other waiters in green waistcoats, and the minions (inevitably young women) delivering bread were in dull green tunics. The head honcho, dressed in a dark blue suit and pale pink tie, smarmed his way round some of the tables (not ours) looking more like a junior Tory minister.  But nonetheless Vinnie was welcoming, friendly and lightly amusing. The service even extended to providing some diners with sunglasses and sunscreen. 

Unsurprisingly, the wine list goes up quite quickly. There is an Argentinian Torrontes for £44 and a Spanish Macabeo for £36, but I select the Rioja Verdejo at £48. There were also French rosés at £48. 

The menu is pretty wide-ranging, and there is a selection of specials - halibut (£40), oysters and lobster roll (which was quite popular). I pass over the oysters and caviar quite quickly, and though B does suggest a couple of tempura fried oysters we just go straight to starters. B unusually decides against the scallops, and instead has baked spiced crab, presented attractively in the shell. From the first mouthful she is sold. It is indeed delicious, a good hit of chilli, but with the crab flavour coming through.  That allows me to choose the scallops, seared in their shell with Thai green butter. These are excellent too, though much less spicy than B's crab. 

For main course B has the char-griddled tiger prawns (which are also available as a starter). These are also spiced, coming with jalapeno and tamarind. Deemed very good but a bit "cotton-wool", suggesting they were frozen, all eight of them were nonetheless polished off without trouble. My fillet of hake, with romesco sauce and salsa verde, was excellently cooked with a crisp thin layer of skin and very flaky fish.  We had both been tempted by the monkfish and tiger prawn masala, but thought that the sauce might have been too overwhelming - it looked good on another table though.

We also had some very good fries (at Vinnie's prompting) and a tomato salad, which included some very sweet (in both senses) yellow tomatoes.  The fried aubergine with tamarind yoghurt at another table also looked amazing.

We opted not to have desserts. Cinnamon doughnuts appeared elsewhere and we quickly despatched. 

All the other tables on the Terrace had been occupied, some had a second sitting. One table moved inside for their dessert, maybe asked to do so as new people arrived soon after. There was no pressure on us to move though. So the booking window seemed justified, rather than perverse as it had seemed to me at the time.

After a second bottle, and two bottles of Eira sparkling water, I tried to guess what the bill would be. Inexpensive was not what I expected. And it wasn't. It did come in under £250, with 13.5% service which seems to be increasingly common. Scott's is part of the Caprice group, so I guess it's no surprise that it has the same service policy as the Ivy.

Value for money? Well it is a lot. The excellent table on the Terrace in good weather was a big plus - maybe without that we might not have felt so well-disposed. I did look in on the main dining room as we left - it was elegant and imposing, but few tables had a river view. So definitely one only for very special occasions - or when someone else is paying!