Its probably a bit of a cheat to eat haggis for the first time in London rather than Scotland but beggars can’t be choosers. Albannach is a modern Scottish bar restaurant situated just off Trafalgar Square. My first impression was not a particularly good one. We walked up to the desk at the entrance of the bar/restaurant. There were two men there – a guy in a suit and a guy in a kilt. The guy in the kilt was busy so the guy in the suit said hello to us and asked us all the usual questions – do you have a booking, what time, who for etc. When I finished giving him all the details he pauses and then says, okay well, the guy in the kilt will sort out your table. Fine. The guy in the kilt finally was through doing whatever he was doing (not entirely clear what) then he asked us all over again for our details in actually a rather arrogant manner. Hello? We just told the other dude! I kept my comment to myself.

No entirely unexpectedly he sat us in the bar area and said our table would be a few moments. Unexpectedly the
few moments turned into minutes, into fifteen minutes, into nearly half an hour. I was not super-impressed.

Finally we were seated at our table. I could kind of understand the wait. The bar restaurant is taken up mostly by the ground floor bar. The restaurant is situated on the first floor but probably takes up about a third of the bar space. It makes for an attractive looking spot but means not much space for the dining. There are not many tables in the upstairs area and at least we were seated on the balcony with a kind of view over the bar area. Kind of because the view was blocked with white string type curtain which was nice to give the diners in the restaurant some privacy and a bit of a sound barrier (only a small one) to the noise downstairs.

Albannach have an all day menu (so not distinction between lunch and dinner) with dishes ranging from oysters for starters, to salads and sandwiches, to meat dishes (such as steaks and veal chops) and a few Scottish “classics.” I opted for a mushroom ravioli followed by “Macsween haggis, neeps & tatties” and Pat smoked haddock fish cakes followed by a main of steak with fat chips and supposedly béarnaise sauce.

Starting with my dishes the mushroom ravioli ended up being one giant ravioli which was, admittedly, stuffed with quite a bit of filling. Served over asparagus and with a hollandaise sauce it wasn’t too bad a dish. Just a shame that it didn’t look like the best dish in the world. For example, Pat commented that the ravioli shouldn’t have been served burst like it was. Equally not so greatly presented was my main of haggis. I was confronted with a pile of haggis which looked like it had been hastily slopped over some mash within which neeps were deeply buried (I had to google exactly what neeps were because they were not exactly recognizable within the mash.) Again the dish was quite tasty (maybe a tad over salty) but to look at it your appetite would hardly be stimulated.

The prettiest dish was probably Pat’s fish cases which were huge, light and fluffy. The tartare sauce was nicely textured though Pat thought not as strongly tasting as he would have expected it to be. His steak dish was pretty ordinary. The béarnaise sauce was like a little smear at the front of his plate. The fat cut chips were indeed fat but were unseasoned. Neither of our dishes were particularly colourful (mainly browns) so it was good that we ordered some sides of steamed broccoli (seemed to be drenched in oil) and beans in garlic.

We didn’t follow through with any desserts because we were both suitably full plus the dessert menu was rather uninspiring.

The service at Albannach tonight was hit and miss. The waitress was a bit scatty I thought but it was alright and they were happy to let us sit at the table after we were finished for as long as we wanted.

Despite some negatives with the food I have to say that at 50% off from top table the value was extremely good value for money so it’s a decent option in the touristy west end if you have planned ahead. Oh! You must also make sure to visit the toilets. The mirror with the antlers freaked me out a bit but its pretty funky.

For the 4 year “anniversary” of when Sandra and I met we decided to have a dinner to celebrate. Normally we would have tried for a Chinese restaurant and crispy duck but since I chose Royal China Club where prices are, shall we say, slightly elevated (crispy duck at RCC is £22 when you could get it for about half that at any decent Chinese restaurant) we opted for something outside our usual suspects.

Royal China Club has been on my list for a while and though I mainly wanted to try their yum-cha dishes some of their mains took my fancy too. When we got to the restaurant I was disappointed that they weren’t offering the yum-cha menu at dinner (some Chinese restaurants do) so I would have to come back again to try those dishes out. 🙂

We had our booking for 6.30. I thought the restaurant would still be quiet at that stage but not deathly empty like it actually was. We suspected the credit crunch has something to do with it. Still, it didn’t stop the restaurant having lots of waiters and waitresses milling about.

The dining room is separated from the door by a long line of big aquarium filled with live sea creatures from crabs to fish to lobsters to eels. Tables are surprisingly spread out which is a welcome change to the usual crammed atmosphere of typical Chinese restaurants. But Royal China Club is no typical Chinese restaurant, especially if the menu is anything to go by. Choices include Lobster and Spinach soup, Pan Fried King’s Scallop with Foie Gras, Frog’s Leg Stir Fried with Wind Dried Ham, and Fried Ho Fun with Veal. Prices are not exactly typical either with pots of ordinary jasmine tea being £4.80 per person! rather than the usual £1-£1.50! They do have a rather extensive tea menu actually and in addition to a range of potted teas you can also get a wide variety of ice teas and flower teas (the teas where you have a tea ball which becomes a flower.)

Sandra and I decided on a nearly all seafood menu tonight starting with Salt and Pepper Squid (£12) and Frilly Prawn Balls (£18.) The Salt and Pepper Squid was absolutely divine – an interesting twist it had fried leaves of some sort as the garnish. I think it was a basil but it worked well. The squid was perfectly cooked – light, tender and with just the right amount of seasoning. The Frilly Prawn Balls turned out to be four giant prawns deepfried with a nest of noodles and served with some sort of vaguely sweet and sour sauce. It looked really pretty but actually I was surprised the prawns were slightly overcooked and a little tough. Oh yes and before they brought our starters out we were served an amuse bouche of some sort of fried tofu skin and with radish. Nice touch.

The waitresses are very insistent on serving you. Each time they brought a dish they wanted to serve us both the first spoonful. Though of course me being me I wanted to take a photo of the dish first! We were finishing up the starters and then the mains were being delivered as we were still eating our final mouthfuls. I felt a bit rushed to be honest. Something I was surprised at in such an obviously high class restaurant such as this.

For mains we went with Tempura Lobster in Creamy Sauce covered in Crispy Rice £35.00 (a chef summer special) and Sauted Veal on Skewers with Lemongrass £16.50. I loved the lobster because it reminded me of rock shrimp tempura dishes I’ve had in Japanese restaurants in the US. Mmmm … delish. Sandra took a particular liking to the veal which I did enjoy but was a touch on the salty side. We also had the pleasure of the smallest serves of rice I’ve ever seen. The more to savour the ingredients in the main dishes I guess!

We thought that whilst we were spending we might as well go ahead and order some dessert as well. Sandra tried the Lychee Jelly with Fresh Rose and I went with the Coconut Moss and Black Sesame. I absolutely adore black sesame. If you don’t know what my dessert is supposed to be its basically a rice flour dumpling filled with a warm oozy black sesame liquid filling. To my pleasure it was cooked perfectly – but in a place like Royal China Club I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Overall we had a lovely time at dinner. The service was generally on the good side but at 15% service I would expect that they would be a lot better at refilling our glasses of tap water when our glasses got low and that food, and subsequently we, would not be rushed. Food-wise, other than what I thought was a slight hiccup with the prawns at the start, it was pretty bang on. There was obviously great attention paid to the detail in the dishes which were perfectly balanced and tasty. Was it worth the price? I would say so though I don’t imagine that coming to dine here for me would be an everyday thing. A restaurant to be saved maybe for a special occasion … say an anniversary? 😉

We were supposed to be going to see Hamlet tonight but Rache unfortunately missed out on the standing tickets (of which they release about 30+ everyday.) She got to the standby queue for about 9am with tickets going on sale at 10am but apparently even that was not early enough! She said she would try again on Friday but that she’d try to get there for 7.30am instead!

At any rate, we decided we should still have a catch up. Of course naturally our thoughts turned to food.

Specifically Mango Tree.

I’ve eaten at Mango Tree a few times in the past however a couple of those times have been off the free menu so not exactly opportunities for exploring the vast and varied menu. I’d forgotten just has vast and varied the menu was. For about 15 minutes we sat their trawling through the menu and still I couldn’t come to a conclusion as to what I wanted. Seriously I think there must have been at least seven pages to the menu with season specials, starters, mains, etc.

We decided to share our meals so we could sample a wider variety. Rita chose Lamb Satay, Rache a Glass Noodle Salad and I one of the Chef’s summer special Lobster Tempura. For mains we chose a prawn curry, a lamb, I think rendang, curry, and a chilli pork belly dish. All were quite tasty but surprisingly I enjoyed the lamb curry dish the most. I say surprising because I hate lamb!

After these two courses I was actually stuffed beyond comprehension but the girls were pretty keen for dessert. I of course couldn’t say no. I kind of wish I hadn’t though because I was practically in pain at the end from eating so much food. I swear that I’m eating a heck of a lot less now than I used to but I still can’t fit as much into my stomach as I used to be able to!

Lovely meal but when will I learn the lesson about not overeating!

Rita loves her dessert so she took it upon herself to find us a dessert bar for the evening’s entertainment. Surprisingly dessert bars in London are hard to find with the main and obvious choice being Häagen-Dazs in Leicester Square. We were hoping to go to William Curley’s but it had been closed down! It was only opened early last year!

So, we ended up at Belgo Kingsway (Holborn) to try out their “Baked chocolate pudding with a warm dark chocolate centre and [vanilla ice-cream].” Not being a chocolate dessert fan I still quite enjoyed it … even though Rita still maintains its not as perfect as the same dessert at the Clapham branch:

Rehana and I were on the way to see a play at the Young Vic so were looking for somewhere nearby for a bite to eat. I left it Rehana’s capable hands to find a venue as I don’t really know the Waterloo area. She chose Cubana – a Cuban (no surprise there) Bar-Restaurant. As we were walking to the restaurant from Waterloo we heard this rather loud Cuban music playing and lo and behold there was actually a mini-food festival going on and Cubana had a stall there. Kind of strange timing. However we skipped the festival and headed to the restaurant as we wanted to have a proper sit down meal.

If the website and menu is anything the focus at Cubana is on their “juicy, fresh, tropical cocktails” with about 36 different cocktails (including seven types of mojitos and five different daiquiris) and 10 different smoothies and shakes. The food menu is reasonably extensive and you can choose to do the traditional starter/main/dessert or opt for tapas.

Neither Rehana or I were particularly hungry and with our two for one cocktails also filling the belly we decided to focus on a main each. However, I couldn’t resist trying on of the empanadas (beef) too. The same main caught both our attention – the Pollo Criollo, which was “free-range chicken, browned in the pan and casseroled in fresh orange, sherry, onions and garlic, served with fried plantain and black bean rice.” It was pretty darn tasty though when it arrived it did have the feel of a home-cooked type meal – very rustic and very roughly thrown together. Not sure if it was because of the colours of our plates!

Fairly reasonably priced meal (especially coupled with happy hour drinks prices). Service was quite friendly though not particularly organised or efficient. The restaurant is quite colourful and attractive and the one (unisex) toilet is worth a visit even if only to see the decoration inside.

Good for a quick meal if not a particularly posh one.

London is such a great place to find discounts and deals that I try not to pay full price unless I need to. I hope that doesn’t make me cheap but if the offer is there why not spend a bit of time finding it. When Rita and Rachel said they wanted to go see Sister Act I knew straight away that there was going to be some sort of offer out there. Being a new production there weren’t that many but we managed to find one offering best available top price, but not premium, seats normally £60 and a two-course pre-theatre meal at Ascot Bar and Restaurant at the Berkshire Hotel for £60. So effectively we were getting the meal for free.

When we got to Ascot Bar and Restaurant it was pretty much empty so we thought we’d be in and out of there pretty quickly. However service turned out to be a little on the slow side, even if it was friendly. At one point our waiter remarked that “it was really busy.” I thought he was joking so laughing at him (at the time I thought I was laughing with him) I turned around to check out the room but it was empty but for one table. He was actually being serious about being busy! Rita thought I was mean to laugh at him but I honestly thought he was joking.

The pre-threatre menu is not extensive but still manages to offer a meat, fish or veg dish for starters and mains. With the promise of waffles for dessert we decided to go with a starter and main for our two courses. We all three went with the Poached egg and baby spinach on toasted muffin with hollandaise sauce followed by the 10oz rib of rare breed pork with Savoy cabbage, mashed potatoes and grain mustard sauce for Rita and I and Tartlet filled with spinach, young vegetables and morel sauce, watercress salad for Rachel. Our serves weren’t gigantic but they were fairly tasty. For the portion sizes, even considering the relatively good quality of the food, I’m not sure the two-course meal is worth the £19.50 that Ascot’s charges for it normally.

Unfortunately due to the rather slow service by our waiter we didn’t have time to get any waffles for dessert. Poor Rita. Instead we settled for ice-cream at the theatre.