It’s not often that you hear about a Chinese restaurant that has a great atmosphere although it is more common in cities such as London and New York. I’ve always tried to save going to them for some special occasion. Fortunately it’s my birthday quite soon and since I’m heading to India, am going to miss celebrating it here in London so my sister and I had a small outing to Alan Yau’s Hakkasan. In terms of restaurateurs, Yau has quite a number of great restaurants under his belt, including the ever popular Wagamama and Busaba Eathai.

Finding out about the Michelin-starred Hakkasan is easy since it’s fine dining concept gets rave reviews on many different websites. Strangely enough it doesn’t have a website much like it’s sister dim sum focused restaurant Yauatcha. Hakkasan is located at the end of a street I frequent to avoid the crowds surrounding the Tottenham Court tube station. It’s out of the way and unless you’d be looking for it, there’s no real reason to stumble across it. You’re greeted by a couple of men upstairs filtering those with reservations and those without although you’ll end up having the same conversation with people downstairs.

The dining room is striking, very much befitting a modern Chinese restaurant. Ornamental black lacquered carved walls separate the dining room from the bar and the kitchen continuing the traditional Asian theme. The room itself is otherwise quite dark with each table lit with at least one strong downlight. Unfortunately photos weren’t allowed (probably as a way of maintaining the dining experience).

Their cocktail and wine list is extensive, and it’s no wonder people can spend a fortune at this restaurant with at least ten bottles of wine well over one thousand pounds and many of the cocktails matching club prices. Fortunately they also offer an extensive non-alcoholic cocktail list, and a long list of teas supplied by sister restaurant Yauatcha.

Hakkasan’s menu is quite large and definitely not at all like what you would have in most other Chinese restaurants. They offered plenty of unique dishes, yet none of them seemed to really jump out at me screaming to be put on trial. Perhaps it was because many of them seemed to be some proper Chinese dish supplemented by some sort of exotic ingredient such as foie gras. We definitely splashed out, starting with a mango roast duck in a lemon sauce and jasmine tea smoked ribs. Out of the two, my sister and I agreed the ribs were the best out of the two with the sweet sauce covering an absolutely tender meat – the waiter comes along to cut the ribs into individual pieces and he was literally pushing the meat off the bone clean with only a fork and a butter knife. Unfortunately although the duck was impeccably presented, the tangy mango and lemon sauce didn’t quite work well with the duck.

For mains we had a grilled sea bass covered in Chinese honey, black bean vegetarian prawns and a stir fried chilli and spring onion duck dish presented on a bed of crispy vermicelli noodles. Out of the mains, I really enjoyed the duck although the sea bass came in a very close second. The duck was unfortunately not the amazingly spicy one I’d hoped it was be – instead a very gentle heat accompanying a rather sweet sauce that was still enjoyable. The sea bass was perfectly cooked, slightly glazed and served with a few greens.l They also had some deep fried mushrooms that almost seemed a little out of place given they didn’t stay crispy for very long swimming in the sweet sauce. Nothing very remarkable about the prawn dish, other than it seemed a little sweeter than your classic black bean sauce and some nice fresh chillies to eat with it.

We both skipped the dessert option since the choices didn’t seem as good as what I’d read about. Chinese cuisine isn’t particular well known for their sweets and Hakkasan’s offerings on our night seemed to match this perception with nothing particularly exotic.

In terms of service, I didn’t feel the place met its 13% stated worth despite the number of people buzzing about. It wasn’t exactly terrible but I did have to wait for a number of very simple things (such as the drinks menu) throughout the evening. Overall it’s a great experience and although I think you’ll get much better value at a large number of other Chinese restaurant, the dining experience is definitely worth it at least once.

Details: Hakkasan
Found on: 8 Hanway Place, London, W1T 1HD
Contactable on: 020 7907 1888
Highlights: Exquisite dining room, plenty of cocktail choices, and lots of exotic ingredients in classic Chinese dishes.
Room for improvement: Despite exotic ingredients, some of the dishes are not as exciting as they could be.
The Kua Rating: 8.5 out of 10

There are so many gastropubs around London so before heading off, I thought a leisurely lunch at one near Westbourne Grove would be a good place to catch up with some people. Ben and Michelle made a huge effort to come out, especially considering they’d been hit really hard with the flu that’s going around at the moment. Thanks to everyone else that came along on Sunday – it was a great lunch and awesome to see you all.

We arrived at The Fat Badger right before the rush hour. It’s found right up the far end of Portobello Road, right past where all the markets would normally be. Being a Sunday, it start getting quite busy after 1pm. We scored a couple of very comfy leather couches downstairs. Unfortunately the restaurant upstairs was booked out already although they serve most of the same foods downstairs where we picked a few from the main menu and, I think, almost went through most of their gastro bar snacks such as Quails Eggs with Celery Salt and Kentish Cobnuts. A few of us, including myself, had the smoked haddock served with a mussel and bacon chowder. It wasn’t as chowder-like as it could have been, though extremely tasty and filling.

The Fat Badger is found on 310 Portobello Road, W105TA and is open on Sunday from noon through to 10:30pm.

After using a deal from the AllInLondon site, I recently ate at the Thai restaurant Lemongrass found in Hackney. I can’t say that it was terribly easy to get to, first requiring a tube ride to either Angel or Highbury Islington and then a bus ride. The restaurant itself is quite spacious, with a skylight-lit dining room accommodating quite a large number of tables. During our evening it was surprisingly quiet, which is why I guess they offer a deal for dining during weekdays. I imagine it could be quite busy during the weekend.

Lemongrass’ menu offers an extensive range of your typical Thai dishes, split into two sections – for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In addition to their standard range of dishes they offer quite a number of very unique dishes including a number of Ostrich dishes and House Speciality ones. They also offer a number of very unique alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails and blended ice drinks that are well worth trying (the melon was was especially good).

Given that the deal was effectively 50% off the main meals, we tried a wide variety of their dishes including Hoi Joi (dumpling-crab meat minced chicken wrapped in delicate bean curd pastry served with dumpling sauce on top), an Ostrich Green Curry, their Chef Special Tiger Cry (a traditional Thai dish of char grilled beef steak, sliced and served with chilli sauce) and their Chef Special Tornado Scallop (stir fried win a special mild curry paste, with asparagus, pepper & spring onions.)

Out of the dishes that we had, I would definitely recommend the Ostrich Green Curry or the Scallop dish and stay far away from their Tiger Cry dish. The ostrich dish, though slightly gamey had the difference it needed to make it your out of the ordinary green curry. The scallop dish had at least twenty or so scallops in it, and although the curry mixture was very subtle suited the dish quite well. The Chef Special Tiger Cry was hugely disappointing, served on a sizzling plate though wasn’t sizzling when it arrived and though asked to be served medium had been cooked to over well done. More than that, it simply had nothing going for it like very bland strips of excessively toughened beef.

Details: Lemongrass Thai Restaurant
Found on: 58 Stoke Newington Church Street, London. N16 0NB
Contactable on: 020 7254 2473 or info@lemongrassuk.com
Highlights: Bright airy dining room, extensive menu with unique dishes including many unique drinks at reasonable prices
Room for improvement: Very disappointing chef special and considering how empty the restaurant was, lacking in reasonable service.
The Kua Rating: 6.5 out of 10

The Japan Centre is nestled in the heart of bustling Picadilly madness. It’s a multi-storied building fully kitted out with a Japanese grocery store, a book store, travel store and with the main floor being their restaurant called Toku. On a Saturday, the crowd inside is almost frenzied with plenty of people moving in and out of the main floor, as well as going up and down the stairs. Fortunately it wasn’t raining on the weekend I went, so at least the waves of people could escape outside.

I sat at the sushi bar, located to the left of the entrance as you walk in and where three chefs were preparing all of the sushi and what looked like, all of the tempura orders as well. As soon as you are seated, an attendant will draw a small bowl of wasabi peas from a large container – probably the one thing that pushes the service charge up from your standard to their 12.5%. Admittedly it’s a nice thing to snack on these things as you peruse the impressive menu choice. The first two pages are all drinks with a huge selection of sake, Japanese beer, plenty of normal soft drinks and juices and many Japanese drinks, including my most favourite ones – Ramune and Calpico.

The sushi menu is vast, though ordering by the piece is expensive such as £6 for two pieces of the eel nigiri! Other dishes, particularly the lunch sets or the don (rice bowl) dishes offered more value. Not able to turn down the chance of trying the eel, I still ordered the expensive nigiri sushi as well as the Katsudon dish that comes with miso soup.

The sushi was the first out of the dishes to arrive and though beautifully presented, was also the smallest bit of eel I’d seen for a while. The typical sauce, not quite lavishly dripping off the eel itself, was artfully dotted around the wooden platform it had been presented on and accompanied by the typical ginger and wasabi paste. The katsudon was much more pleasing with the perfect amount of egg and dashi sauce covering the kastu on the rice, and not too much rice that you ended up with a whole heap at the end of your meal.

Although meals here are reasonable, stay away from ordering sushi for the piece, and even then, the sushi sets are pretty expensive compared to many other places (like Donzoko). The bowl dishes and the the non-sushi sets offer much better value.

Details: Toku
Found on: Japan Centre, 212 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HX
Contactable on: 020 7255 8255
Highlights: Authentic Japanese food with a huge variety of everything
Room for improvement: Sushi is overpriced and it’s really busy
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

It was only recently in the blogosphere that I read about food places in Selfridges other than the Food Hall. Seeing as Saturday was a lovely day and I did need lunch at some stage, I thought it would be good to head down there to try out the Garden Cafe. Set out like a much more upmarket brasserie, there are plenty of options to try for, including crepes, soups, baked potatoes, indian, Chinese, British and American cuisines.

Not wanting to miss out on apparently the “best” Char Kway Teow’s in London I just had to try it out. I will admit that the Chinese stall can be particularly confusing since they don’t really have that many instructions. On the other hand, talking with another English lady there it also seemed the most interesting since there were so many combinations and they cook it really fresh in front of you.

On the wall, you pick your noodle dish and type of meat, or pick a rice and type of meat. What they don’t tell you on the wall is that when you order your noodle, you also choose what sort of style you would like including Pad Thai, Char Kway Teow and a couple of others and you wait while they cook it fresh for you. Interested in the other dishes they had there, I also got one of the sticky spare ribs and thought would try out a couple of the dumplings sitting in the steaming baskets.

The noodle dish ended up costing £8.95, a comparable price to many of the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown and while the spare rib at £1.50 was great value, each dumpling at £1.25 was far too excessive. The Char Kway Tweo was pretty good as the Culinary Hags wrote about, though I can’t say how authentic it was because I’ve only had the dish in Australia and London. The King Prawns that mine came with were perfectly cooked, nice and juicy and had plenty of flavour from the sauce. I would definitely repeat having the spare ribs, and I could guess one might even be able to make a meal out of them if you had enough of them with some salad or something. I would stay far away from any of the dumplings, many of them not being very standard and really nothing special for the price you pay for each.

I’d probably go again sometime and try a couple of the other dishes as it’s nice to sit and look outside at the hustle and bustle on Oxford Street from the tables upstairs.

Details: Selfridges Garden Cafe
Found on: 4th Floor Selfridges, 400 Oxford St, London, W1A 2LR (follow the cutlery signs as the cafe is not explicitly listed)
Highlights: Good variety of food and freshly cooked Char Kway Tweo. Great room seating area overlooking Oxford street.
Room for improvement: Dumplings far too overpriced
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

After walking around Picadilly trying to find a restaurant called Toku with little success and getting hungrier by the minute, I ended up giving up and heading to Kingly Street to try another one called Ramen Seto. I’d been past it several times before on the way to Donzoko and I’ve never been able to work out if it was authentic or not, sometimes full of Japanese people, and many other times full with obviously not Japanese people. The restaurant is pretty small, maybe fitting about 20 people though since it was quite late by the time I got there, the lunch rush would have been over.

The menu offers a standard selection of Japanese dishes including sushi, tempura, gyoza, some “don” dishes, and of course ramen. Since I always like to try the quality of sushi, I ordered a sea bass nigiri sushi in addition to the Pork Katsu Curry and Miso Soup set. I really can’t say that the sushi was anything very special though I was suitably impressed that they’d put a slight touch of wasabi between the rice and fish – something that more Westernised places tend not to do. A table next to me had the gyoza dish and each of them looked plump and very satisfying.

The pork katsu curry arrived with the miso soup shortly after. The soup was well made though maybe a little bit salty and had just the right amounts of tofu and spring onions. The pork katsu dish looked impressive with a huge mountain of rice surrounded by a pool of curry sauce and the pork katsu. Unfortunately the katsu was disappointingly overcooked and even drenchings of curry sauce didn’t make it any more moist.

I’m not sure if I would go back to Ramen Seto since it wasn’t particularly impressed by anything and there are plenty more Japanese restaurants to try in the area. Oh, and if you’re wondering the Asian waitresses are definitely not Japanese after over hearing them speak to one another.

Details: Ramen Seto
Found on: 19 Kingly Street, London, W1B 5PY
Contactable on: 0871 3328396
Highlights: Sushi was pretty much on par with Yo Sushi and a decent menu offering. Gyoza looked pretty impressive.
Room for improvement: Over cooked pork katsu
The Kua Rating: 6 out of 10