Somehow scored some last minute tickets to a movie premiere tonight at the new Imax cinemas in the refurbished Swiss Cottage Odeon so of course I took along my regular partner in crime – Sandra, for this experience. But first, dinner! Situated just a very small stroll from the cinema and a nearby theatre I was surprised that Me Love Sushi wasn’t at all busy. Admittedly it was rather early abut even at about 6.30 you might have expected a few more than just us three or four diners. Not to worry – that wasn’t going to stop us tucking into our fare.

Me Love Sushi has a reasonably extensive sushi menu featuring all sorts of styles of sushi for your choice. Nothing on the menu though that isn’t comparable to Yo Sushi or Itsu in price or offering. In addition to sushi they also offer hot dishes such as tempura, kushiyaki (skewers of grilled foodstuffs), noodles, rice dishes and other odds and ends including a black cod miso dish served with rice. This was actually quite well-priced at £14.50 though as we didn’t actually sample it I have no idea whether the portion was reasonable.

Sandra was in the mood for sushi so we selected a mixture of ngiri and maki dishes and finished the meal with some of their own branded ice cream. The food we had was nice though I’m not convinced as to its absolute freshness. From a stomach filling perspective we didn’t feel the portions themselves were particularly generous and we left, if not feeling hungry, at least not particularly full. I’m not saying that you have to leave a restaurant staggeringly food-coma full, especially a sushi one, but in hindsight I would have preferred to have mixed my sushi with some of the bulkier items like a rice bowl to get better value for money, and save my ££ for more established sushi restaurants.

Me love “Me Love Sushi”? Well, not so much however I can see why I might come back – decent variety on the menu covering more than just sushi, service which is very friendly if sometimes a bit slow and distracted, and a cute little venue with sweet added touches such as the writing on our sushi plate, and prices are average for a London restaurant.

The search for that one really great Korean restaurant in London continued tonight with Sandra and my visit to Naru. Naru, located pretty much dead-centre between the three stations of Tottenham Court Road, Covent Garden and Holborn, is still somehow not that easy to find. I don’t think many people just stumble on to it at any rate.

The restaurant is cute with its silver chopsticks on the table, the pretty paper type lanterns and the wood framed calligraphy adorning the walls … but devastatingly no grills on the tables! Something we were a bit disappointed to see … or not see. But that wasn’t going to stop us eating of course and in actuality the grilling at your table is a bit a novelty and at least our clothes didn’t leave smelling of BBQ …

Dining at Korean restaurants, like dining at Chinese restaurants, always presents me with something of a dilemma – on the one hand I want to try all sorts of different and new things that I’ve not tried before, but on the other I also want to try the dishes that I always get so I can get the real measure of the restaurant. And as with many food journeys before this one, Sandra and I ended up taking the middle road – choosing some new and “old” dishes.

We started off with Kan so sae woo (which was basically deep fried prawns in a spicy sweet sour sauce) and Ke Sal gu jeoul pan (Pancakes with crab, mixed salad, sliced courgettes, carrots, mushrooms with mustard honey sauce) – the latter being my push for something “new”. The prawns were delicious if hardly challenging and the pancakes – well, not as exciting in flavour as I was hoping it would be – let’s just say they will never replace Crispy Duck Pancakes in Sandra’s heart (ha ha). At the very least it delivered some of those vegetable nutrients normally lacking in an oriental/asian meal …

We then followed these with our mains of Korean Fried Chicken (yep – still looking) and a Naru specialty – Special Sam Kyeop Sal (pork belly poached/braised in a special house sauce of chilli and soy) The KFC, again, alright without being exciting (search continues) but the Sam Kyeop Sal was divine though likely to be a little on the fatty side for most people’s taste (to me the fat just gave the dish that extra deliciousness …) Accompanying this was a fairly ordinary bibim bap (to satisfy our requirement for carbs.)

So overall food was pleasant without that O.M.G wow factor that would get me excited enough to get people to come back with me. (In all honesty we probably should have added one of the BBQ dishes to our meal to give Naru a proper test-run.) As a plus it wasn’t overly expensive (£26 each including a drink and service) and service was friendly and efficient (though sometimes getting the attention of the waitress was difficult .. like when we wanted to pay.)

I’m not writing this one off for a repeat visit just yet.

I keep looking for that perfect Filipino restaurant in London but alas my search still continues. Every Thursday I got to the markets for lunch at Hammersmith, specifically I go to the Port of Manila stall as they serve some of my favourite Filipino dishes: Lechon (roast pork), Bicol Express (pork stew of chillie, shrimp paste, and coconut milk) and afritada (meat stew in tomato sauce with vegetables normally including carrots, capsicum and plaintain.) Thinking that I could build on this success I thought it would be a good idea to also check out their restaurant located nearby.

Both our starters just ended up being of the deep fried variety – White Bait and Lumpia Shanghai (Mini minced pork roll served with sweet chilli sauce.) Ok without being stunning. My Mum’s Lumpia shanghai are much nicer 😉

For main’s I thought we should try something that’s slightly unusual for those not used to Filipino dishes – Kare Kare (Tender Ox tail & tripe in peanut sauce with annatto oil, pak choi, aubergine, string beans served with sautéed shrimp paste) and of course a BBQ dish (chicken on this occasion.) Done well Kare Kare is a comforting dish (though without the shrimp paste could be a bit mild tasting for some) but I guess I should have known better than to order it in a restaurant where we were the first (and for most of the meal, only diners.) Kare Kare relies on the meat being tender, soft and fall off the bone and realistically unless the restaurant has a pot sitting there stewing away, the dish you will get is going to be tough and unsatisfying. The BBQ was alright though I would have been happier with more meat and less veg. heh heh.

I would have liked to have sampled dessert, since the Philippines is actually one Asian country that does good ones, but sadly we had to depart to make our movie.

Overall, Port of Manila was not a bad experience. The staff/owners are friendly (it was hard to measure true efficiency as we were the only customers for the most part) and accommodating. Food is reasonably priced. I still think I’m looking for that killer Filipino restaurant. Perhaps I just have to eat in the Kitchen of Dad and Mum …

Impossibly I’ve found a dessert which is actually too sweet even for my sweet tooth. MADD (I think standing for Mango ADDiction) is a dessert/coffee lounge which opened up about seven months ago and its twist is that every dish is inspired by mangoes. I imagine the venue was hoping to capitalise on the health benefits of mango as a fruit … probably overlooking the fact that all the extra sugar that went into all the other bits would outweigh the nutrition! Sigh.

The owners of MADD have tried to make the venue a place for you to hang out in with games such as Connect 4 and Jenga on the tables, jugs of tap water that you can help yourself to, and available electrical points (presumably to plug in laptops etc.) Having said that the shop is not particularly big and any more then about ten people would make the seating area quite crowded. Staff are quite friendly and relaxed (there is no rushing you out of here that’s for sure.)

To help you with your dessert choice the treats are on display in a glass enclosure at the counter. The largest dilemma is choosing which dish you want to deliver your sugar high. LOL. The Siam (mangoes with coconut sticky rice) caught my attention whilst the Crumble (a “healthy” combination of mango cubes, yogurt and honey with crunchy crumble layers) caught Pat’s attention. Both dishes were way too sweet though ironically our mangoes were not at all sweet. Guess I’m spoilt from the ideal of the beautiful tasting mangoes we have available in Oz! Oh, and Pat’s crumble was more crumbs … so an overly dry dish in the end.

From a pricing perspective desserts are about £5-7 which is comparable with desserts in restaurants. The portions are fairly reasonable but I suspect that dropping the price a little bit may entice more customers.

I’m not sure how long MADD is going to survive as a business (tonight there was us and two other people.) Admittedly it’s a Sunday night tonight and perhaps they get a lot more business at breakfast (they serve a selection of breakfast-inspired dishes too and shakes and all that jazz) or during the week. I do like the idea of a dessert lounge (and the Asian-styled offering such as sago and sticky rice) but perhaps expanding on just having mango as the central theme would be somewhere for the business to grow.

Su Yin arranged for a yum cha catch up today with Jonny and myself. We’d set out to go to Royal China since that was conveniently located for her. Unfortunately it was getting renovated – which was news to me and also news to the large number of people who also turned up at the restaurant expecting a yum cha dining feast. Dragon Palace, only a few stations away at Earl’s Court, was a venue I’d been wanting to check out for a while. It’s owned by a friend of Craig’s and came highly recommended. Admittedly he’d gone when both friend was around and it was the regular evening menu (it was a birthday banquet) so slightly different situation to yum cha.

Firstly the pros. Very reasonably priced, fairly modern but still cosy venue, service was efficient.

Then the cons. Probably the only yum cha place I’ve ever been to which gives only three steamed prawn dumplings (rather than four!) and the service was hit and miss depending on which wait-staff you got (yes it was efficient but was it really necessary for one waitress to literally throw one of our dishes on to the table as she rushed by?)

The dim sum itself was neither memorable nor horrible. I do like the fact the venue seems to be a relative unknown and the location, when the district line is working at least, is pretty convenient for me.

Overall, the quest to find another decent yum cha place continues but I would like to come back another time, perhaps when the owner is about.

I guess Tsuru Sushi is the kind of place that attracts the lunch crowd as from the time Laney and I sat down to the time we left there was probably a total of at the most three other customers next to us! Still, I hadn’t come to Tsuru Sushi for the ambience – I came as a reviewer had promised authentic Tokyo-quality tonkatsu (fried breaded pork cutlets.) I remember tonkatsu in Japan being these awesome juicy, crispy little parcels of goodness so I was very much looking forward to my meal tonight. Supposedly the curry sauce at Tsuru Sushi is also cooked for eight hours to really develop that good savoury flavour.

The service, at least, at Tsuru Sushi is truly Japanese. We were attended to very promptly and provided with some welcome wasabi peas. In fact the waitresses, non-Japanese, proved to be very conscientious of service indeed throughout the meal, for example, regularly checking if we were ready for the next course or, when Laney’s sushi was ready and the waitress was about to bring it out, the other waitress grabbed her to say no bring it out at the same time as the curry. I was very pleased with that.

Food-wise we started with some takoyaki. They weren’t too bad cold (they arrived hot but we were too busy gas-bagging to eat straight away!) so I imagine they would have been pretty good hot. Not quite up to the Osaka standards for these octopus balls but nothing to complain about.

For our mains, Laney says her sushi roll was delicious and fresh. I of course couldn’t go past the Tonkatsu Curry which I clearly had built up too much in my expectation because I was slightly disappointed! The curry sauce was tasty, though fruitier than I’m used to, and the katsu. It was alright. I would have preferred perhaps a less lean pork, fat is the vehicle for flavour after all, and a slightly thicker/heavier panko bread crumb coating.

Dessert, straight out of the freezer, was pretty cool though. Literally and figuratively – three little mochi balls (pounded sticky rice balls) with ice cream centre: green tea, sesame and vanilla.

Patrick’s friend had raved about this restaurant and as we are always looking for good Chinese restaurants were very happy to go along and try it. Admittedly I wasn’t feeling the hungriest having just come from afternoon tea but this was probably a good thing from my perspective as it meant I wasn’t too greedy when selecting from the menu.

New Mayflower serve some unusual dishes including a Honey Pepper Eel which came recommended by both Pat’s friend and many others on review websites. People have said its amazing … to me it was just alright. I think I’m used to the juiciness and moistness you get from Grilled Japanese eel (unagi) that wasn’t apparently in New Mayflower’s deep fried version.

Our other dish was a stuffed aubergine / tofu dish. Not particularly impressive in either texture (super deep-fried) and flavour (just salty without much else.) Similarly with their Fookien fried rice.

From a service perspective food came quickly and we were served quickly but when it came to finding someone to pay the bill staff were surprisingly awol. Unusual for a Chinese restaurant whose modus operandi is feed em/get em out the door.

I just don’t get why we didn’t enjoy our food. We didn’t choose particularly “tourist” dishes but must have still chosen wrong. So many people have said this place is Amazing, Best Chinese, Great – I wanna be able to say that too. Sadly on tonight’s experience I can’t.

Spuntino is part of a class of the new generation restaurant hitting London lately – a grungy casual diner which doesn’t wait on ceremony (no reservations, no telephone and honestly not even a proper website!) Its not particularly sign-posted either so we actually walked past it twice without realising!

With their twist on Nothern American cuisine served in tapas-style portions you could easily convince yourself to eat more than you really should!

Offerings include Spuntini (antipasti) such as spiced nuts, egg & soldiers and stuffed fried olives; Sliders: Pulled pork & pickled apple, ground beef and marrow; Plates: Mac & Cheese, Truffled egg toast, Zucchini, chilli & mint pizzetta, Spicy sausage grits; and Salads.

I wanted to try everything on the menu (of course) but Pat was my control. As a matter of course you’re served some chilli popcorn (though if I’m honest you should try and resist these as you’ll soon become stuffed!) We had Stuffed Fried Olives (which were way too anchovy. Pat’s choice anyway so I left him to finish.)

This was followed by Mac & cheese (Crumbs were great), Truffled egg Toast (toast itself was tough – not sure if it was over cooked but otherwise a delicious, extremely rich dish), Zucchini Pizzeta (mint nice touch but surprised to find it was way too salty for my liking) and then one of the Sliders: Ground Beef & Bone Marrow (extremely Juicy)

If all that wasn’t enough I had to try their Peanut Butter & Jelly “sandwich”. Two triangles of iced peanut-butter parfait with a lot of very sweet jelly. If my arteries hadn’t hardened during the main meal it certainly was well on its way after dessert!

My only bone on contention with Spuntino that rubs me wrong is that it seems to try too hard to be cool. But with food that enticing and good I’m sure I can overlook that to return again.

Our bill came to £45.