The food court at Westfield Shopping Centre is a crazy place. A few times we’ve gone to have lunch there but have always been discouraged by the large queues that seemed to go on and on and on. Finally we decided to head there for dinner and finally managed to check out the Mexican offering: Nineteen ten. It was actually recommended to Pat by a friend who’s friend or brother, I forgot which, owns it.

Even two weeks before Christmas the food court was surprisingly quiet compared with when we tried to come here for lunch on a weekend so thankfully finding a seat was relatively easy and there wasn’t a huge queue at Nineteen ten.

Choosing your meal at Nineteen ten is fairly straight forward – choose your style (for example, burrito or fajita), choose your meat, choose your stuffing (cheese, beans, rice, guac etc.) and choose your heat (sauce) and presto you have your dinner.

I totally enjoyed my burrito at Nineteen ten. It was delicious, ingredients were clearly fresh and fairly filling. Nice to have this option for fast food rather that just the usual burger, chips and pizza.

I’m not sure why the Hard Rock Cafe is linked with the Victoria Palace Theatre in Victoria because, unless you take the bus or tube, it is a decent 15+ minute walk from the theatre and therefore unless you get to Hard Rock quite early for a meal (say 5.30) chances are you will be rushing your meal and to your show that no doubt starts at 7.30. But anyway, I wanted to see Billy Elliot and this currently seems to be the best offer around. For £60 we got excellent seats in the Dress Circle and a 2 course meal plus softdrink (from a limited set menu) at Hard Rock.

We arrived at Hard Rock Cafe at around 5.45 and it was absolutely heaving. There was one guy handling the seating arrangements and my first, of two gripes, with the Hard Rock Cafe was that this guy was not great at handling pressure and totally unhelpful. The conditions of our deal was that we had to make a reservation, which we did. Obviously there were a lot of walk-ins to Hard Rock Cafe and not enough tables so fair enough the walk-in lot got sent to the bar to wait for a table (the wait at the time was given as between 45 mins to an hour!) When I informed this guy that we’d made a reservation his reply was to add us to the waiting list, to give us a buzzer and to assure us that we would get the first free table. My issue with this was that he didn’t even bother checking our reservation which, if he’d done his job properly, he should have seen that one of the few empty tables was allocated to us and seated us straight away. Normally I wouldn’t have minded but as we had to be out of there by 7.15 at the latest to make our show we were a bit concerned we would be late. Further, its not like this is a new offer so staff should have been aware of the time constraints for diners on this deal. When I asked for a menu so we could at least choose our meal and have it ready for when we were seated he couldn’t even do that and just ushered us to the bar. He quickly scooted away so I tracked down another more helpful member of staff. This is my second gripe – the person who had taken our reservation had failed to make note we were on the Billy Elliot offer so the staff didn’t know which menu to give us. Although the girl was very helpful and in fact arranged that we be seated straight away she had no clue which menu to give us and as a result there was confusion as to what we could order. Finally after about 15 mins we received the right menu and placed our orders.

From that point on the service was perfect though I did have difficulty understanding our Eastern European waitress. However, she was excellent, extremely efficient and super-friendly even allowing us to upgrade one of our desserts for nothing! She also gave us tickets to enter the museum (which unfortunately we didn’t really have time for.) Food was delivered quite promptly and it was very delicious.

I would like to give Hard Rock Cafe another go because the food (selection includes burgers, grills, barbecue, salads etc) we received was quite good and the meals that other diners around us received looked equally appetising. The restaurant itself also had a nice vibe (if a bit loud) and most staff, barring the first hopeless guy we encountered, were generally fantastic. But I really was a bit turned off by my two gripes above.

The weather was absolutely horrible today as it was cold, wet and miserable. The perfect kind of day to spend under your doonah at home having a lazy one. Instead I braved the weather and ventured out to the “country-side” to visit with Jules and Sandra. But it was not without a target in mind – Apple Tree in Gerrards Cross.

Probably over a year ago Jules and Sandra had talked about how fantastic a place Apple Tree was from the generous sized portions of delicious Sunday Roast to the equally generous and delicious desserts so me, being the greedly little eater that I am, was excited to go try it out.

Arriving at Apple Tree you can tell that the clientele are generally the more, shall we say, well-to-do with the car park littered with expensive cars. Jules says that the locals are considered one of the wealthier around with the largest disparity between earnings and household values in the country I think or was it Greater London. Although a generalisation, based on that statement, its probably fair to assume that most of the families around Gerrards Cross were born into the money.

Normally you should probably book if you want to guarantee a spot at Apple Tree on a Sunday (or probably any day) though today it wasn’t overly crowded with just about the right type of busy-ness. Not too crowded that you felt rushed to finish your meal but busy enough to have a nice atmosphere. It’s a beautiful pub – all nicely done up in warm tan colours, plenty of wood on display, and lots of colourful paintings (look out for the nude drawings in the ladies’ toilets!) There is even a fireplace splitting the dining room though today, despite the cold, it was not lit.

The staff at Apple Tree were very friendly and took all requests to change options in our dishes in stride such as adding an extra thing here, swapping a thing or two there, without even having to blink and consult with the kitchen, which is a nice change. I’m afraid I didn’t really do Apple Tree justice as I hardly even glanced at the normal a la carte menu or their specials instead just going straight for their Sunday Roast options. They had roast beef, roast pork, roast chicken and roast lamb from what I recall. All ranged in value from about £11-£12 which, for what we got in terms of size and quality, seemed reasonable. I went for the roast pork with an additional yorkshire pudding (which came as an extra.) You can see from the picture that the pudding is absolutely massive and worth paying that extra pound to get it. It was nearly half the size of my head! The roast pork came with some delicious roasties, parsnip, and sides of greens (mange tout, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot etc.) The roast was perfect and the crackling – melt in your mouth. Down side – could have done with more. ;P

Despite being quite satisfied with our Sunday Roasts we all still opted to get desserts. Averaging £4.50-£5.00 the desserts at Apple Tree are pretty good. Sandra consoled me by saying that my raspberry crumble, at least, was mainly mostly fruit so I could justify having it on that basis. Heh heh.

So, was it worth traveling that far to get out to the Apple Tree (its about a 25-30 min train ride from Marylebone so all up about an hour of travel from me door to door)? I thought so. Being out there made a nice change to the hustle and bustle of central London and of course it was nice to catch up with Jules and Sandra in a non-work setting since its been a while since I’ve seen the two of them together!

Both Leah and Pauline are finishing up at work this week so Pauline thought she’d organise a “leaving meal” of sorts. Unfortunately due to work commitments the meal ending up being the relatively small group of Leah, Pauline and I! But that didn’t stop us having a good time. The selected venue of choice was the attractive Pasha, not to be confused with Pacha the club, near South Kensington.

Pasha is situated over two floors with the upper floor dedicated it seemed for the more casual bar/lounge feel and the downstairs for the restaurant. I ran a bit late tonight but I was happy to see that the restaurant was more than happy to accommodate our needs – even, as it turns out, reserving a nice intimate table for us in a private alcove at the rear of the restaurant. We started off with some drinks upstairs. The drinks menu, for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, is rather extensive with a matching price to go with it. The girls were in an exuberant mood and ended up with three cocktails each for the night and though they were extremely delicious they didn’t seem to affected by the alcohol in the drink. I would hope that it was more the fact that the alcohol content wasn’t high rather than them being used to drinking that much. Ha ha. So the conclusion on the drinks is that they were very delicious, but expensive and not too strong.

The food contains the typical offerings for a Moroccan restaurant including a very large selection of cold and hot mezze (with options such as hommus, tabouleh, pastries, chicken wings, falafels, fritters etc.) and a fairly straight-forward mains menu which was dominated by dishes from the grill plus one tagine, one cous cous and a few other main type dishes. I guess the focus on this style of eating is on the sharing so you would expect that the focus is on the mezze. We opted to share three mezze and have a main each. In all honesty I was full before we even got to our mains. We opted for hommus, Lahambil Harissa Doloo (smoked beef ribs) and Garaa Bil Jibneh (Courgette & cheese fritters with mint yogurt dip.) All three dishes were delicious but a special shout out for the smoked ribs. Tender, smoky, tasty – it was perfect. Both Leigh and Pauline went for a mixed grill for their main and I went for something similar except mine was served on a bed of cous cous with some vegetable broth. I really liked my dish but it was so gigantic we three could have had it to share between the three of us.

The service tonight was very friendly and efficient and we must have been served by at least five different people. The head waiter or maybe manager for the evening even checked in with us a couple of times to make sure we were doing okay which was a nice touch. We were also entertained by the, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR belly dancers! When they came on (some time after 9pm) you couldn’t really miss it because the music was blaringly loud and they danced for what felt like at least half an hour. Most tables got their own individual dance from at least two of the girls. It felt even more personal for us because we were trapped … um, I mean, situated in the alcove. They were very good dancers and we were very impressed by their skills.

We totally enjoyed our night at Pasha which was obvious as we were surprised at how late it was when we finally left the restaurant. My only gripe, as I always gripe about these style of restaurant, is the £2.00 cover charge added to the bill for bread, olives and pickled vegetables. In addition to the 15% discretionary service charge these are the kind of small costs that add up to present you with a big bill at the end. Not that I’m saying the bread we received was not worth the £2.00 but I’d like to have the option to refuse it if we wanted to.

A Filipino Buffet? Who would have thought! Located near Tooting Broadway this was one buffet which was worth travelling for to check out. People are always asking me to describe Filipino food and I generally have a difficult time describing it. There are clear influences from the Oriental cuisines but it also has an identity of its own but how to describe it? The food often consists of stews, or barbecues (with meat which has been especially seasoned), noodles, rice and also its fair share of deep-fried foods (such as spring rolls.)

The menu at Kusinang Munti changes on a daily basis with offerings including: Adobo (chicken cooked in soy sauce, vinegar and pepper), Afritada (chicken with potatoes, bell peppers and tomatoes), Dinuguan (pork cooked in black pudding – a Filipino specialty), Kare-Kare (beef or ox tail in a slight peanut sauce), Lechon (roast pork belly), Lechon Paksiw (roast pork belly served in a vinegar and pepper sauce), and Pancit Bihon (stir-fired noodle dish.) The offerings sometimes also include elements of Chinese and Indian cooking. There are also a couple of dessert dishes (including lecheplan basically a cream caramel) and a soup of the day.

The restaurant is brightly lit and welcoming. When we arrived at 12.30 (they recommend if you come on a Sunday that you make a booking) the restaurant had a couple of other diners but didn’t get too much busier. What was clear that most of the diners were repeat (Filipino) customers and they had a good relationship with each other and with the restaurant staff. At the back there is a large tv that is hung from the upper wall and screens footage of the kitchen but from the sound system and the style of music being played I have the suspicion the restaurant also doubles as a karaoke lounge!

As I piled my plate high with the offerings from the buffet menu I was struck by how meat dominated Filipino food is. Sure there was A stir-fry vegetable dish (or maybe two) but my plate was filled with pork, ox tail, chicken wings, more pork, more chicken, and rice and noodles. Perfect for me but not so perfect for Pat who I think was feeling a bit of pork overload! I was in Filipino food heaven but I could agree with my brother that I couldn’t eat all this food all the time. The best dishes of the day were the Lechon (the pork belly was melt in your mouth and the crackling! Just perfect) and the Kare-Kare though the other dishes were pretty tasty.

The journey out Kusinang Munti makes it an event though I think it took us less time to eat there than it did to travel there! so it may be a while to come out again but it is a definite eat again. It’s fairly cheap as well so even though we had a 2-4-1 voucher courtesy of Time Out we didn’t bother with it as we would have felt well povo using it!

Because we couldn’t be bothered waiting in line at the food court at Westfield to have lunch we opted instead to take the tube in to Chinatown to check out Leong’s Legends. The specialty of this restaurant are these dumplings called Xiao Long Bao. They are kind of like ordinary dumplings except that encased in the dumpling is a delicious soup which oozes out when you pierce the dumpling. To eat these dumplings you carefully place it on your soup spoon, then pierce the delicate things with your chopstick end allowing the soup to spill out of the dumpling but safely into your spoon and then carefully taking the whole thing into your mouth.

They really are delicious and are best eating straight out of the steamer as soon as its served. Leave it any longer and they get cold quickly – which also increases the chances of the dumplings sticking together and as a result a premature piercing which causes the soup to ooze out of the dumpling before reaching your mouth!

We also tried a few of our usual dim sum dishes and though they were okay I wouldn’t say this is where the strength of Leong’s Legends lays which is a shame. We also tried one of the noodle dishes (which turned out to be a soup like concoction) – supposedly very spicy it was actually surprisingly flavourful too.

Leong’s Legends is a new entrant to the Chinatown scene (under six months at least) and I think it should be here to stay for a bit. The restaurant itself has a very cosy decoration – quite different and cool actually to most of the other Chinese restaurants in the mall with lots of dark bamboo, and wood scattered about the place.

Service was probably not as great as it could have been. Though not necessarily rude – they could have been a bit more responsive in clearing dishes we’d finished with and, when placing new arriving dishes, could have found a way to settle them on our table rather than dumping it on the corner at our elbows and letting us sort out the placement.