It was Rita and Ade’s last day in the office today so I left it up to them to decide on where we should have lunch. Although I really like the lunch places we go to in Hammersmith it seems we always go to the same places – the Thai, the Iranian. Umm … yeah. So, when Rita suggested we try for something Indian I thought it would be great time to try Green Chilli. I’ve seen good write-ups of the place and with a 40% off deal from toptable it seemed like a good option.

Green Chilli is quite an attractive restaurant inside – all white table clothes and updated décor (all reflected in the prices by the way!) We were the only diners at lunch today. Not a total surprise as I suspect most of its custom is at night for dinner.

The service, as it should be I guess when we’re the only diners, was efficient and friendly without being intrusive For food we decided to go with the chef recommendation of the chilli paneer (marinated cottage cheese chunks in a sweet chilli sauce with some onions, red and green peppers) as a starter and three curries: lamb korma, butter chicken and gosht chicken for our mains. All were excellent and tasty. Very high quality food we thought. Portion-wise the starter was a very generous size. The curries were a little less generous and were served in quite small, though deep bowls. Having said that each curry came with a number of good-sized chunks of meat. Along with our naan and shared rice dish we were suitably stuffed at the end of our meal. Price-wise the food is quite over-priced for Indian food but with the 40% discount from toptable on food offers reasonable value for money.

If you want to have some excellent Indian food don’t overlook Green Chilli in Hammersmith – it may surprise you.

Four months ago I came to Gilgamesh and it was bright and airy. When I came tonight with my brother it was dark and moody. Amazing how four months can make a change in the atmosphere purely from the light coming from the outside! We were taking advantage of the same top table offer as last time (50% of set menu) so I was pleased to see that they had changed the set menu but still offering the meat and vegetarian options. Nothing really excited us from the vegetarian options so meat it was.

This time around our starters were:

– Smoked trout, mango & star fruit salad
– Prawn spring roll, tomato salsa & coriander
– Egg white soup dumpling

followed by mains of Thai crispy duck hot pot & Asian herbs and Double cooked pork, pak choi & chilli jam (is that what that was!) and dessert of Steamed coconut custard with coconut foam and tropical fruit. We were also a bit greedy and decided to have some salt and pepper squid (served in newspaper.)

I didn’t think the food was as tasty as it was last time though it was as equally prettily presented. The smoked trout, mango & star fruit salad was a touch on the tangy side, the dumplings were nothing to get excited about and actually where a bit mooshy and the spring roll was tasty but strangely reminded me of a prawn toast!

Our main dishes weren’t anything too spectacular though they were sufficiently tasty. Patrick wasn’t really impressed with the double cooked pork as he didn’t think it didn’t have much flavour and had too much fat. I thought it was okay though and surprisingly tender. The hot pot wasn’t so much crispy duck as soggy duck by the time we got to it. The duck too was quite tender but there wasn’t so much flavour in the dish. Our mains were served with some really tasty coconut rice and very well cooked green vegetables. Perhaps the flavour of these dishes overwhelmed our mains!

My favourite dish of the night had to have been the steamed coconut custard (served cold.) Never a being a fan of foam I was happy to find that the foam had quite a strong taste which was more tropical than coconut I thought but I wasn’t complaining. Well, actually I would like to complain – to say that the dessert serving was way too small! 🙂

We had a really friendly waitress from Denmark tonight so I was quite happy with her service. I was pleased to see that she kept topping up our water without us having to ask so this is good. She only let us down when we were trying to pay – at that point we were waiting quite a while and couldn’t see where she’d gone.

Once again I left the restaurant feeling way too full and relatively happy with my experience. A bit more light would have been appreciated so we could actually see what we were eating but I guess it went with the whole ambience of the restaurant to have dimmer lighting. All tables were full tonight so the restaurant is clearly having a good season.

This modern european restaurant in Farringdon tries very hard to achieve the kind of atmosphere you get in top restaurants – white linen cloth tablecloths, large numbers of waitstaff in their pressed black and white outfits, and modern clean chic lines in the interior design. It should be stuffy and pompous but surprisingly it wasn’t. Waitstaff do all they can to make you feel comfortable and at home and the atmosphere is quite relaxed and by the time we left was quite buzzy.

Head chef Andrew Thompson is out to impress with his simple yet creative menu. After we’d all decided on our first two courses we were pleasantly surprised by the delivery of an unexpected amuse bouche (I stole this phrase from my brother!) For those whose French is not up to scratch an amuse bouch (literally meaning “mouth amuser”) is a small dish served as a first course – not necessarily a starter but served by the chef’s choice. Our waiter did tell us what it was (I heard sweet potato) but I didn’t catch it all. Was probably the best dish of the night – I would have licked the remains from the glass if I could have but settled for wiping it down with free bread instead. Mmm …

For our starters I went with a Salad of crab and avocado with chilled gazpacho and the other two went for Country terrine of pork pickles and toast and Barbeque quail pickled cabbage and chili mayonnaise (which would have been my second choice – so luckily I got to sample this when my brother chose it – ha ha!) All dishes were nicely presented. Taste wise mine certainly had interesting contrasting flavours but if I were to be honest I couldn’t really separate out the flavour of crab (even though I could feel its texture) and the gazpacho was just a little on the tangy side. Pat’s quail was good though he was disappointed that it wasn’t barbeque so much as pan-fried. Claire didn’t have much to say about her terrine except it was good.

For my main I couldn’t go past the Crisp confit pork belly and fricassée of coco beans and new season garlic. Claire went for the Potato gnocchi primavera grilled asparagus and shaved parmesan and Pat, once again going for what would have been my second choice, went for the Roast monkfish, chorizo, broad beans, peas and gem lettuce. The overall consensus was that all our dishes were overly salty. My pork belly was a little overcooked and though the garlic was beautiful there was just too much bean! I don’t think Claire and Pat were much impressed with the taste of the dishes though no doubt we agreed that all were presented beautifully.

I unfortunately couldn’t fit dessert in (after going out for lunch with the work crew pretty late on today) but the first two courses didn’t stop Pat and Claire going for it. Claire went for the intriguingly named Rum baba with tropical fruit and coconut (turns out to be fancy name for donut) and Pat, a boy after my own heart, the Ricotta Lemon cheesecake with pine nuts and raisins. Both desserts were very rich but the donut in the Rum Baba was unimpressively heavy and remained intact by the time we left the restaurant. In the first failure in service for the night I didn’t receive the Mint Tea that I asked for. This should have been served at the same time as dessert but required my asking for it twice before it was delivered. By the time it arrived we were ready to pay the bill and I wasn’t in the mood to finish it.

As a finishing touch to the meal a selection of chocolates were served to us on a long rectangular plate. I did appreciate these extra touches by the chef but in the second failure for the night service wise when we wanted the bill there was no waiter around to signal to! Strange considering all night they’d been hovering around (not intrusively) and readily accessible to us. It seemed that although we had one main water there were many other staff floating about who had their own roles – one to serve food, one to serve wine, etc.

Our bill came to just about £35 per head (which includes the 12.5% service charge) and drinking pure tap water. Admittedly the other two had three courses but I think this price is a bit hefty. You’d do well to take advantage of the offers available to get 50% (such as on toptable) – then its great value for money.

There were many things that impressed at the Clerkenwell Dining Rooms, the initially attentive service, the inventive menu, the extra touches by the chef, portion sizes but when it counted most, in the taste of our food, it was a bit let down by a heavy handed salting.

Fancying another go at Malaysian we decided to try out Satay House at Paddington. This is a more established Malaysian restaurant (having been around for at least 30 years) and was all buzzy when we arrived at 8.30 this evening. Whether its urban myth or not even the Malaysian Prime Minister used to frequent this restaurant when he was in town.

The Satay House has a decent selection of Malaysian food though quite a bit pricier than other restaurants I’ve been to. It was pretty late so we didn’t eat too much tonight sticking with chicken satay skewers, Mee Goreng (our test dish for all things Malaysian) and Nasi Ayam (which is a fairly simple steamed chicken with rice cooked in chicken broth.)

In a reversal of our meal at Jom Makan the dishes were all served hot, all tasted pretty good and came out in the right order. Strangely what was lacking tonight was the service. It was friendly when we finally got some attention but the waiter seemed more interested in making conversation with diners who had finished their meals and clearing tables than in taking our order. It was almost condescending how he would nod at us as if to say “yes I acknowledge you are there but I will not actually serve you anyway.”

I don’t want to let one waiter turn me off from the Satay House because to be honest good Malaysian restaurants in London are few and far in between. Prices for the services you get are a bit higher than average but I guess that’s to cover the recent update that the restaurant has gone (apparently by the designers behind GBK and Wagamama.) Good atmosphere but be warned that tables are very close to each other so be prepared to hear the conversation on both sides of you and for them to hear yours!

hGood Malaysian … at a price.

If it looks like Wagamama, and it smells like Wagamama, and they draw on your menu like its Wagamama, is it Wagamama? It seems that Jom Makan, a new entry to the London and Malaysian food scene in 2008, is trying to capitalise on the popularity of Wagamama style of cooking which ensures a quick turnover of patrons yet delivering decent quality food. In this case the restaurant, apparently backed by the Malaysian government in a bid to promote Malaysian cuisine, unfortunately does not deliver.

The menu is promising offering a wide variety of typical Malaysian dishes. We were very excited when we placed our order. Just like Wagamama they don’t guarantee that food will come out in any sort of order. And it didn’t. What I would call our mains (Beef Rendang, Mee Goreng and some Tofu curry dish) came out well before our satay sticks which, admittedly not being called starters, I still would have expected to come out first – not least because it should have been quick to cook.

Food is cooked fresh and to order (though really I hope that every restaurant does that) hence the no guarantee about food coming out in the right timing. Given this we expected that food would be piping hot when we received it. To our dismay no dish was hot – in fact no dish was even close to hot and, to make matters worse, I think the hottest thing on our table was my “iced” tea!! It was even fast. Taste wise the Beef Rendang was actually pretty good but the Mee Goreng (tasteless), Tofu Curry dish (way too watery) and chicken satay sticks (tasty but dry dry dry) were extremely disappointing.

The one redeeming factor at this restaurant. The service. It was superb and though wait staff are distinctly not Malaysian that didn’t really matter – service was present without being intrusive, very responsive and super friendly. Oh thinking about it our desserts of Pandan Cream Caramel and Sago Gula Melaka (Tapioca pearls topped with palm sugar and coconut cream) were actually pretty good (if a little over-sweet) and cheap (£2.85) though small in serve.

Would I go back? Well I love Malaysian food enough to maybe give it a second chance but the jury is still out.