Good brunch places are strangely not easy to find in London which is a place which has so many restaurants that you could eat out every day and every meal for a year and still you wouldn’t have been to every restaurant. Every time it comes to finding a brunch venue I’m on google looking for something – you’d think I’d know the places to go after over six years here!

Automat, recommended to me by my brother, is an American Brasserie in Mayfair. I was expecting it to be quite posh – instead it seemed quite down to earth with lots of little separate areas for dining. The front area, with the warm brown wooden panels was packed, but the rear area, more light and area was relatively unoccupied though by the time Laney and I finished with our meal it was nearly full.

Actually, today’s meal was less brunch and more linner (we ended up eating at 2pm!) but the concept still holds since the brunch menu at Automat applies 10-4 on weekends. Yum! Laney and I were looking for a big meal as we were heading off to the Mercedes World concert later that afternoon and as we were not really expecting to have any dinner we wanted to make sure the meal was substantial.

Laney’s meal was a gorgeous Eggs Benedict with a side of Home Fries which were simply delicious and I couldn’t resist the Mac and Cheese with Bacon AND spinach. I went large and large it certainly was! I could barely get to the end of it though taste-wise I would have happily eaten it all day – American comfort food at its best.

If there is one downer at Automat it is that prices are a touch on the high side. Guess they have to pay their rent somehow 🙂

Circus is so discrete that I don’t think you’d realise a restaurant was there unless you were specifically looking for it. I only saw where it was the other day as I happened to be strolling around the Covent Garden area and for some reason started really looking around me. Rehana and I were looking for a different dining venue and with Circus we definitely got it. A cabaret/cocktail type venue I didn’t have high expectations of the Pan-American food – to my surprise it was totally awesome.

Our booking was later than we were used to (8pm) but perhaps that’s because it doesn’t really start to liven up until then. The restaurant offers a pre/post theatre menu but either there weren’t any tonight or its something people don’t really know about, when we arrived at 8 we were nearly the first ones there!

The cocktails at Circus are pretty decent. Price-wise alcoholic ones are around about £8.50 – £9.50 and non £5 so pretty much average if slightly cheaper than other cocktail bars in London (don’t know if they have a happy hour.) Rehana and I started with a cocktail at the bar until our table was ready. The venue isn’t actually that large from what I could see though there are plenty of mirrors around so it was probably even smaller than I thought! A visit to the toilets is a must … it took me a while to work out where the door for the ladies was!

So what’s the hook about this restaurant? Well, it’s the entertainment. The website never tells you what’s on but you can tell from the name of the restaurant that its highly likely to involve some sort of acrobatics or circus like acts. It kind of reminds me of supperclub but the venue is a lot more intimate, the action seeming to happen over the large table (which, if you’re a big enough group you’re privileged to have it happen right in front of and above you!) and the action seeming to happen a lot more often – kind of every 45 minutes, though I suspect that its not set in stone what time the performers came out. We saw about four acts though the lighting makes it difficult to capture the action.

During this entertainment we were engrossed in our food which, to my amazement, was extremely decent! Though it was so dark as to know really be able to see what we were eating the taste and texture was perfect. I’d definitely recommend the very tender sticky pork belly as well as the 24 hours slow cooked beef ribs. Alongside the cornbread and corn hush puppies we were very happy girls indeed.

The dessert options looked enticed as well though the choice was strangely taken out of our hands! I’d told the restaurant it was Rehana’s birthday and I thought they would wait for us to order a dessert but instead they strangely brought out cheesecake, complete with candle and birthday salutation. It was good that they’d done the whole its your birthday thing but I fond it odd they didn’t ask us what we want, and even odder (because they are effectively losing money) they only brought one out for us to share!

Other than this strange blip on dessert I found the service good, efficient and friendly. It was good that they were quite responsive as well as I’m sure in the dark it would have been hard to see us signaling for attention.

We had a great time at Circus and with the added bonus of the food and good service I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it for a different night out.

What a pleasant treat, Sandra surprised me with a cupcake today!

For Sandra’s birthday we headed to Roka, Charlotte Street, for a meal.

Roka is an attractive restaurant with the open kitchen and the chefs in their black get up, overspilling bowls of fruits and veg and garlic, lots of tables and chairs outside and the floor to ceiling open air walls (basically the restaurant was opened out to the street). The front of the restaurant was a hive of activity which is why I found it strange that when we arrived for our reservation they brought us right to the back to an empty part of the restaurant – not sure if that’s where they place reservations as opposed to walk-ins but I found this actually a little off-putting.

Its been a while since we’ve had fine Japanese so we were very much looking forward to our meal and though we weren’t expecting a Nobu like experience (a comparison which is a little unfair) we couldn’t help but have the expectations.

To take the decision making out of the process we decided to go for their tasting menu – the tokujo menu sounded more appealing and seemed like decent value for £75 per person.

We started with Moriawase San Shu (3 sashimi selection with fresh wasabi – I was gratified to see that indeed it was fresh grated wasabi!); Botan Ebi (extra large sweet shrimp served with oscietra caviar) and Hamachi No Tartar (yellowtail, lemon, chilli and ginger tartar).

The three dishes all came served in a giant bowl of ice – it was really pretty – but in a pattern of what was to come this evening I was disappointed that the waiter didn’t really explain what we were eating. The sushi just kind of got put on the table and we were left on our own to work out what we were eating. We hadn’t even been left a menu to help us! I suspect if we’d asked the explanation from the waiter would have been a rote recital without a proper understanding of the food.

Taste-wise it was all very good and very fresh. I particularly enjoyed the Hamachi which was nicely dressed by the lemon, chilli and ginger.

Minutes later our Wagyu Gunkan (wagyu sushi, oscietra caviar, spring onion and fresh ginger) was served. I’m sure I still can’t tell wagyu from any other dish but this gunkan was delicious. I was left wanting more.

Next up was something a little more unusual, to me at any rate, in a Japanese restaurant: Foie Gras To Umeshu No Ume To Nama Nori (foie gras with umeshu plum and nama nori). We weren’t quite sure what the black fried to a crisp longish sticks which accompanied the foie gras were but they did well to give balance and contrast to the richness of the foie gras – something that I’m actually now getting used to eating, though of course morally I still object to the method of its production.

Our first hot dishes were next with the Gindara To kani No Gyoza (black cod, crab and crayfish dumpling) and Yaki Hotate (scallop skewers with wasabi and shiso). The gyoza, though extremely tasty and delicious, I think suffered from having too many ingredients such that I could actually separate out the flavour of the cod from the crab and crayfish which was a shame. However, I definitely wouldn’t have said no to another one of these babies! Roka is actually built around being a robatayaki (basically a grilling kitchen) so the scallop skewers were the first example of this in our tasting menu. They were perfectly cooked though I couldn’t really get the heat from the wasabi.

Kobu-Jime Kamo No Kunsei Yaki, Kinkan To Kaki (smoked duck breast with barley miso and kumquats) and the Kankoku Fu Kohitsuji (lamb cutlets with Korean spices) continued the grilling theme. Both were delicious though the duck breast was surprisingly tart. The lamb was surprisingly palatable to a non-lamb-liking palette as mine.

By this stage Sandra and I were starting to feel slightly full but we were faced with the heaviest dish of the night – the Kama Meshi (rice hot pot with king crab). There was a floating island of wasabi paste on top of this dish but once mixed in the heat really got lost in the porridge. Though I liked the idea of the hot pot the dish actually could have used a bit more seasoning. It’s a good portion though and we nearly struggled to finish it!

But we had one more dish to tackle …. the ROKA dessert platter!

In honour of it being Sandra’s birthday they put a rather nice candle on top and had the chef write out some birthday greetings to Sandra. The platter had on it seasonal fruits (including rambatan), a raspberry and white chocolate mouse/sponge, three scoops of ice cream, and the pinnacle of the dessert – a dark chocolate which had a surprising maccha (green tea) oozy liquid centre. Hot damn it was good!

Roka as an experience was nice. Service was no where near the class of what you’d get in a place like Nobu with dishes unexplained (as I explained before) and sometimes rushed to our table, water wasn’t topped up on a regular basis and wait staff did not appear to know about the food at all. Food-wise all the dishes were quite tasty but at a place like Roka I definitely wouldn’t go for the tasting menu again as I think you could get a bit more creative with other offerings on the menu, especially for the price we paid. There were, however, some standout dishes including the Wagyu Gunkan and the chocolate dessert which I would be happy to see repeat performances.

The Hix Oyster and Chop House at Farringdon is Mark Hix’s first restaurant. In his prior life he competed in the Great British Menu in 2007 and oversaw restaurants of the Caprice group including The Ivy. I don’t know if was with the Caprice Group at the time I dined there in 2005 but I can see a similar laid back style as his Hix Oyster and Chop House.

As the name might intimate the focus of the restaurant is oysters (I’m not the hugest fan of oysters so maybe this restaurant was a bit wasted on me!) and meat. Being located near the Smithfield markets its well placed to take advantage of the good and fresh meat available.

For my started I decided to try the mussels, close but not quite oysters!, but which sounded intriguing for the sea greens that it was served with. It looked a pretty picture and I did enjoy the mussels and the sauce but the greens were very very salty – not sure if it was a lack of sufficient washing or the seasoning!

For my main I couldn’t go past the beef and oyster pie. It too was very salty but the beef was perfectly tender and I could overlook my dislike of the oysters to enjoy the whole dish – thank goodness I didn’t find too many oysters in there. ha ha. Oh and the pastry was perfectly flaky which was lovely. Alongside our meal we also had some gorgeous onion rings – mmmm.

I was so stuffed from the first two bits of our meal but Pat was keen on dessert. The best I could do was a scoop of “Credit crunch ice cream & chocolate sauce” – very rich and creamy I struggled to finish it! It’s a shame I couldn’t fully enjoy the ice cream – the bowl was uncomfortable to eat from, it almost felt like when I scooped from the bowl someone was running their nails down the black board. *shudder*

Food wasn’t the most exciting at Hix but it was tasty (though maybe over-seasoned at times) and presented very well. Service was friendly and efficient. The waiter had a good chat to me whilst Pat was in the toilet – that’s a good sign of taking care of your customers! The restaurant itself is light and airy with a good atmosphere though it was dead quite until about 7.30 on a Sunday night. A visit to the toilets is a must – if only to check out the random photos on the back of the toilet doors – who would imagine facing drawings of tens and tens of d!ldos as you sit on the lav. I’m tempted to go back just to check out whether the pictures have been updated!