Daddy Donkey Mexican Cuisine

Patrick Farringdon, Food, UK Life

Just like Japanese food, London doesn’t do Mexican cuisine very well with only a handful of places around London serving a pitiful Tex-Mex selection and a few others that are either poorly themed or otherwise over priced. Thankfully a new place opened up that I read about via an entry in one of my current favourite blogs, Londonist.

I thought it would be good to support a new venture whose goal is to establish more accessible and authentic Mexican cuisine. If you follow the link above you can find out more about what the owner (Joel Henderson) is trying to accomplish.

Daddy Donkey

I’m lucky enough that my current client is just a few streets away from Daddy Donkey’s current location in Leather Lane so I arranged a small outing with a group of us from work. Finding Daddy Donkey is easy – it’s the white cart playing Mexican music that helps make it stand out amongst all the other stalls. After ordering, they even have a couple of tables where you can eat your food at. These worked out well for us since the London’s lunchtime weather actually stayed shining for our entire lunch.

The choice of foods are simple at Daddy Donkey with £5 giving you either a burro, a fajita burro or a burro bowl (salad bowl) with the choice of chicken, meat or vegetarian fillings. All their ingredients are obviously very fresh and although £5 seems expensive for a meal without a drink or side dish, the size of each offering is enough to keep you full for the rest of the day. Levels of “hotness” seem properly adjusted for the English palette (i.e. hot is not really that hot) so make sure you ask for extra chillis if you really want some heat.

All of us who went out for lunch really enjoyed it and I think everyone would highly recommend it to anyone dropping into Leather Lane. One person did point out it could be made even more perfect if they sold Coronas.

Details: Daddy Donkey
Found on: Pitch 102 Leather Lane Market, Farringdon, London
Highlights: Fresh ingredients, large filling serve with simple offerings that hit the spot.
Room for improvement:Slightly more expensive for a standard lunch out compared to other places and could benefit from serving some beer as well.
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Japanese Canteen

Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

Ask people who live in London and I’m sure a few of them would have eaten at the Japanese Canteen. It’s one of those chain stores that specialises in, well I suppose obvious from the name, Japanese Cuisine. I’ve eaten there twice and been disappointed both times trying some of the different dishes. The katsu dish I ate was well over-fried, resulting in a very dry meat that should really be nice and moist, and wasn’t really helped by the excessive drenching of katsu sauce. I love katsu sauce on its own though its far too easy to get since it comes bottled in lots of Asian grocery stores. The katsu dish wasn’t even served with anything extra (no pickled ginger or side) other than lots and lots (and lots!) of rice – which helps to explain the cheap price tag. The other dish I’ve had there was sushi and it was definitely rather ordinary as well – they didn’t really have much variety and I definitely had concerns around what looked like, not-so-fresh seafood.

Details: Japanese Canteen
Found on: Lots of places in London
Highlights: Cheap, westernised version of Japanese
Room for improvement:Don’t expect this to come close to authentic Japanese cuisine.
The Kua Rating: 3.5 out of 10

I know it’s the wrong season but…

Patrick Food, UK Life

Is it ever wrong to have a BBQ? My texan friend Ajit has been talking about having a BBQ for quite some time now, and it was this weekend that he organised for a bunch of us to come around. Luckily for me I’ve gone back to eating meat, and meat there was indeed with a plethora of pork chops, steak and delicious Spanish chorizo sausages as well as all the sides. He’s got a great patio as well to grill meats which helps keep the smoke outside.

Weber

Meat, Glorious Meat

Patrick Food, UK Life

Well it’s been a month since I vowed to become a vegetarian so I thought it best to let you know how I went…

Being a vegetarian has been quite easy and I haven’t found myself any more tired or any more restless because of it. In fact I think I’ve actually felt a whole lot better overall since I think I’m getting my variety of fruit and vegetables every day. I don’t think I’ve eaten out as much and certainly haven’t had much Chinese in the last month compared to what I normally would (probably better for my sodium intake). Eating out with people hasn’t been as hard as I thought – generally it’s easier to choose because you don’t have as many options, and I’ve tried a whole new variety of things. I’ve also tried cooking a few things that I normally wouldn’t cook, and that has been very nice learning experience.

On the negative side of this experience, it’s meant missing out on a whole selection of foods that I could have tried at new places I ate at. I also was very conscious about not eating lots of cheese and eggs since that’s an easy choice but means that my saturated fat intake would have rocketed. I don’t have any cravings for meat, but the one that I think I’ve missed the most that would have made eating out much easier was really seafood – especially fish and prawns.

I haven’t decided if and when I will go back to eating meat – I might give it just a little bit of a longer chance to play out.

Shanghai Blues

Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

Earlier this week I dined at the decadent Shanghai Blues found in a part of the Old Town Hall on High Holborn. It’s very close to my office and I’ve walked past it many many times and since the prices are significantly more expensive than many other Chinese restaurants I’ve never really had a good reason to eat there. Since my month of vegetarianess (is that even a word), I noticed that they offered an impressive range of vegetarian dishes, at least in comparison to your typical Chinese restaurant. Admittedly their normal menu looks superb as well. One unfortunate thing for me though was a special for the month of January where all of their four varieties of Lobster Noodle, typically £40 only cost £25. I was extremely tempted to turn pescatarian just to have them.

The inside of the restaurant is intentionally dark, adding to the atmosphere created by the black lacquered tables and chairs. Everything is very well presented and the menu is presented with both a bowl of nuts and a bowl of kim chee to nibble on as you decide. The offerings are wide and tempting although my task was made much easier with only a page to choose from instead of the overwhelming different ways in which all the meats are served.

Ordering tea is quite the experience as well, with each pot served in “one person” sized pots. A tea trolley is wheeled to your table, with the tea pot and the tea cup cleansed in front of your eyes with boiling water before being filled with the fresh tea leaves (presented to you first, strangely like a newly opened bottle of wine). The tea was nice and fresh and at least for such a small pot of tea, the waiters work constantly to ensure it is filled up during the meal.

Details: Shanghai Blues
Found on: 193-197 High Holborn, WC1V 7BD
Contactable on: +1 20 7404 1668
Highlights: Distinctly different dishes, a wide variety of offerings in a much more upmarket and stylish restaurant. Service is extremely attentive without being the excessively in your face. They also host jazz on certain nights of the week.
Room for improvement:Expect to pay a little bit more than your average Chinese restaurant.
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Ginger

Patrick Bayswater, Food, Restaurants, UK Life

Ginger is an Indian restaurant easily located on Westbourne Grove. It serves a few typical Indian dishes but by far, the highlight of their menu are the bangladeshi styled dishes served in a much more fancy dining experience than many of the other Indian restaurants around London. Everything in this restaurant is branded beyond belief, from the dishes and table clothes down to the cigarette tray that everyone around us seemed to be using. It’s a very spacious restaurant although I think it was a little too dimly lit for my tastes. Large wine glasses line the white tablecloth as you enter, and although it looks like a very fine restaurant it wasn’t as busy as I thought it would have been on a Saturday night.

Food is priced on the higher side for Indian food, with naan and rice starting from £2 and mains averaging around £10-£12. Ginger certainly offers a wide range of very unique dishes, although many of them had meats or seafood, but even some of the vegetable based dishes were quite unique. Food portions are at least reasonably sized except for the rice and the naan both a little overpriced for what you get.

The three staff gave pretty terrible service all night, such that we almost had to seat ourselves from the start, and ask for most things like a top up of water, and the second naan bread that disappeared. The staff generally had to be flagged down to be asked for something and took their time producing the bill which we were most eager to pay.

Details: Ginger
Found on: 115 Westbourne Grove, LONDON, W2 4UP
Contactable on: +1 8713 320 878
Highlights: Different offerings for Indian cuisine presented in a nicely decorated restaurant.
Room for improvement:Prices are slightly excessive for the sides you would normally have, and the service was downright awful when we went.
The Kua Rating: 6 out of 10