Okonomiyaki is a Japanese speciality dish best described as a savoury pancake mixed with a pizza. Traditionally you cook it in front of yourself on a hot teppanyaki grill and even though the base typically includes cabbage, flour, egg and water, you can put pretty much anything else into, or on top of it. Abeno, located closest to the British Museum, is the only place I know of in London that serves this Japanese speciality. They also have a second store aptly name Abeno Too (the latter word meaning the equivalent of ‘also’ or ‘as well’ in Japanese).

I have eaten at both of these places and both are quite good. The clean and smooth table tops and real Japanese attendants indicate that they will serve you good quality Japanese food (appropriately Westernised for taste). Its prices are decent although typical for what you pay for Japanese in London and any of the super-deluxe okonomiyaki mixes are good value for money. Both of these places are small, so I recommend you make reservations for dinner or lunch if you intend to go on busy day or night like Friday or Saturday.

The two times that I have eaten there, the service has been good although I have heard it gets more difficult if you are eating at peak times. The staff speak to you in polite and soft tones and can explain the concept if you are new to okonomiyaki. Staff will cook the food on the grill in front of you and finish it off in the traditional manner topping it with okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed flakes and bonito flakes that dance entertainingly from the heat off the hotplate. You then use mini spatulas to take pieces off the grill to your plate you can then liberally douse it in additional sauces (I highly recommend the hot sauce) for additional flavour.

Details: Abeno (7 Museum Street, Bloomsbury, WC1A 1LY) or Abeno Too (7-19 Great Newport St, WC2H 7JE)
Highlights: Okonomiyaki has strong layers of flavour and there’s nothing like eating off a hot grill.
Room for improvement: The premises are quite small and can be crowded
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10

Persian cuisine is easy to find here in London with lots of restaurants serving it all over town. I’ve been to quite a few now but I read that Mohsen at Earl’s Court was quite a good so that’s where I went for lunch yesterday. I find Persian cuisine difficult to describe as they serve quite a number of different things such as shish-kebab style meats, lots of dips and bread, salads with lentils, and various stew type dishes, and its definitely too cliché to deem it middle-eastern.

Having been to several restaurants specialising in Persian cuisine, I can at least confidently say that there are some consistencies between them. One guarantee is that I always tend to leave feeling extremely stuffed (especially if I have rice because the serves can be massive). If the restaurant serves rice you they will always offer butter (intended for melting into the rice), and there is usually some paprika floating around in addition to the normal salt and pepper. If you order bread (Taftoon), the restaurant will generally cook it freshly in a stone oven called a Tanoor, which usually sits next to the entrance. Though very close to the same process of making Naan bread, the Taftoon is slightly different in texture being a little bit thinner and probably more intended for scooping up dips and assorted items than absorbing curry sauce.

Mohsen is located up Warwick Road away with the closest tube station being Earl’s Court. It is exactly opposite the Homebase store that can be quite odd if you get the window seats, and the restaurant is quite big all round with outdoor tables out the back that would be ideal in warmer weather. The restaurant has nice tables and intricately decorated plates all surrounded several paintings and numerous articles from various magazines and newspapers surrounding it. The food on offer is quite standard affair, and though not necessarily as cheap as several others, the quality of the food was quite good. I went for a chicken and lamb kebab that comes served with rice with both being deliciously moist and with that char-grilled flavour that comes only with real care. The lamb was probably one of the better ones I have had, and was juicy definitely from the meat and not the fat that several other restaurants I’ve been to seem to serve. The saffron rice was nice and fluffy and there was enough to finish the meat off easily. The orange juice they serve, though slightly expensive at £3, seemed like they had actually squeezed it themselves fresh and was both tasty and had just the right amount of pulp. I literally had to roll myself out of that place after eating there but was pleased that I had been to. Overall it’s good quality and although for value for food, I would still prefer Madhi, is nice if you’re in the area.

Details: Mohsen
Found On: 152 Warwick Road, W14 8PT
Contactable On: 020 7602 9888
Highlights: Good quality food and nice decor
Room for improvement: Slightly strange location
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10

Nowhere in the world has as many New York Delis as, you guessed it, New York, but it certainly doesn’t means other places do not try. London has a few New York-style delis and today I visited one of the newest of them, Zvika located between Tottenham Court Road and Soho. Zvika is less deli and probably more Kosher as their menu offerings are quite wide, many of the items on offer including different types of curries and Middle Eastern foods though there is plenty of pastrami, salami and salt beef to keep people happy.

Zvika, just like any NY deli seems to focus on really big portions and it was quite a mistake for me to order a soup and a sandwich as you can tell from the pictures. I found the prices though a little bit excessive for London and found myself paying quite a lot more than I thought I would for an extremely filling lunch. They have quite a lot of varying things on their menu although you can tell that the sandwich combinations must be quite popular, with many of them named after famous people like the Victoria Beckham (Turkey, Lettuce & Tomato), the David Beckham (Salami & Pastrami), Madonna (Turkey & Pastrami) and the Wayne Rooney (Big Salt Beef). They serve goulash, hot dogs, spaghetti and meatballs, a variety of salads, sandwiches and soups and by the time you’re finished with your meal you’d be unlikely to reach for dessert though they have them too.

The Matzah Ball Soup is a clear, chicken soup broth served with three large bread dumplings. The soup was well seasoned and full of flavour without tasting extremely salty. It was the first time that I had ever had Matzah Balls and though I found them to be quite meaty, I found their texture slightly off putting because I had no idea what in them and though they because they didn’t taste like any meat I could think of, found it overly strange. Since then, I found out people typically make them out of a combination of matzah meal, eggs, fat and seasonings.

I had no idea what to really expect when I ordered the NY sandwich other than the fact that there was going to be a lot of meat, and even that was a gross understatement. What arrived between two thin bits of rustic bread was a massive portion of meat, including pastrami, salt beef and a hot dog. Thankfully a large gherkin and coleslaw came with and the waiter was kind enough to give me a bottle of mustard to help keep the meat from overwhelming my palette. When it arrived it looked quite impressive and was obviously freshly heated as you could see steam rising from the meat barely contained by the white slices of bread. The hot dog was solidly deliciously and unlike the very fatty English sausages simply tasted meaty. The pastrami and salt beef was somewhat overly chewy but then it could have been just because I had never eaten so much meat in one sitting before and my jaw was probably tiring out. As you can see I had a great attempt at actually finishing the sandwich but alas, failed and gave up before my body did so that I could walk around only slightly uncomfortably instead of the alternative I dare not face.

Overall it was quite a nice experience and I can’t really compare it to anything authentic since it’s been a while since I had a proper New York Deli sandwich I thought it was a decent effort if nothing else. I do recommend that if do you decide to eat there and price is an issue, its best if you go for take away and eat it in the nearby Soho Square park as there is a significant difference in price between dining in and takeaway and it doesn’t even include the typical service charge.

Details: Zvika (Closed)
Found On: 8 Great Chapel Street, London, W1F 8FG
Contactable On: 020 7434 2733 or info@znydeli.co.uk
Highlights: Huge filling kosher portions of food. Good for those atkin-dieters out there. Has additional space upstairs and the dining room is quite nice for a deli
Room for improvement: Seemed to be a little bit overpriced for what it is.
The Kua Rating: 7 out of 10