Finding somewhere nice to eat at 11pm on a Sunday night in Covent Garden is surprisingly difficult. Excluding all those tourist traps around Leicester Square tube in the end we were left with a choice of TGI Fridays or Nando’s. Nando’s won it. See how happy we were?
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Everyone has been raving about Gaucho for a long time and finally tonight I got the Gauch experience. To my surprise Rehana treated me to tonight’s meal so you could say the experience was even sweeter.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from a steak house and for some reason in my mind I was picturing some sort of chain style restaurant – informal but just happened to be serving good quality steaks. Instead I was very surprised by just how swanky and lush the restaurant was, from the darkened entrance and lobby to the beautifully decorated floor we were directed to. Apparently Gaucho is spread over four floors so it would have been interesting to see if all floors had the same decs as the first. I love how there is cow hide everywhere.
The restaurant was extremely busy when we got there (bookings essential) however even though we were a little bit early they were able to accomodate and pretty much seat us immediately. Service was very friendly and efficient if at times a little too quick. We’d barely finished our starters before they were whisked away and our mains delivered! I almost thought they were trying to railroad us out of the restaurant except for the fact that once we’d finished our shared cheesecake dessert they seemed happy to let us just sit at the table and talk. Its clear at Gaucho that even though high quality food is the draw they are also very concerned with customer service – we were asked at least two times by different managers if we were happy.
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I’m very impressed that they show you the cuts of steak and some sample sizes before you choose your meal. This definitely helps with the decision of what size and style to go for (I recommend one of the Churrasco ‘Cuts’ which is a spiral cut and marinated steak and you can choose between sirloin, fillet or rump – 300g was enough) though be warned if you go for a steak you will definitely have to get a side or two to share – all you literally get is the steak!
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I couldn’t complain about the meal at all. Our starters of salads (Palmito – Hearts of palm, avocado, red onion, cherry tomatoes, radish, black olives, coriander and sherry vinaigrette – for Rehana and Chopped – Roasted corn, chickpeas, crispy potato, sun blushed tomatoes and crispy shallots on mixed leaves with honey mustard dressing for me) were delicious and a very good size. The steaks (we both went with the Churrasco ‘Cuts’ Lomo which is a fillet) were cooked to perfection and so melt in your mouth that we were able to cut them with our bread knife. In fact I’m sure you could have pulled the meat apart. And our Dulce De Leche Cheesecake was the fitting end to the meal.
If there is one negative at Gaucho it is the price – sides and sauces are very over-priced for what you get though I was impressed with the value of salads we ordered and I guess you should expect to pay the price for good quality steak. Its just scary how a little bit of this and a little bit of that add up to a gigantic bill! (and we didn’t even have any alcohol …)
Gaucho is definitely recommended for a special occasion.
I met up with Caro, her former house-mate Sasha and Nate’s sister Jules for a bite to eat at PJ’s Bar and Grill tonight. Our first choice, Frankie’s, was unfortunately booked out with Christmas parties and what not. Sadly this second choice failed to live up to the initial expectations.
Upon first impressions the bar is very nice. Warmly decorated (gorgeous wooden floors and stained glass windows) the bar has a nice buzz to it. Service was very good including ensuring our plates were never empty of bread whilst we decided on our meals and also whilst Caro and I waited for the other girls. Then it kind of went downhill from there in terms of our food.
The food started off okay with the calamari starter that Caro ordered being of a generous portion and good taste. However, our mains and the small dish that Sasha ordered were simply awful. Caro’s mussels were grossly overcooked, at £10 for four measly spring rolls Sasha’s dish was waaay overpriced and my lobster linguini was awful and oversalted.
Based on what we had PJ’s Bar and Grill is really let down by its food. However if you’re happy to stick with chips (french fries) and calamari you are guaranteed a pleasant experience at least.
Today we celebrated the achievement of a milestone at work in our traditional manner – by going out for a 
meal (lunch). As per usual finding a venue proved to be difficult knowing the preferences of the team. We settled on The Roebuck, a gastro pub in Chiswick. It was quite funny to find out that we’d actually travelled past The Roebuck on a number of occasions before on the way to other dining venues, normally Nando’s, in Chiswick but never noticed it!
The Roebuck is large and spacious inside and out. Unfortunately it was too cold to go outside to enjoy the brilliant weather we were having, even if they did have giant heaters available, so we had to settle for a long table on the inside. The Roebuck has very high ceilings, dark wooden tables and chairs and at first look was immediately welcoming.
Despite being a gastro pub the offerings on the menu, though not stunningly adventurous, is suited to a 
wide variety of pockets and tastes – from the very reasonably priced lunch specials which included soups, sandwiches, baked chicken etc. (£5 each) to the more extravagant main meal offerings (including a very nice bit of steak – topping out at a reasonable £12-£13.) However, I knew what I wanted as soon as I saw the menu – the roast belly of pork. It proved to be a popular choice with four out of the seven of us going for it. It was, simply put, divine. Perfectly seasoned it was incredibly tender with fantastic crackling and even though I’m not the biggest fan of lentils was actually well complimented by this unusual accompaniment. Drinkers are also not forgotten with a wide variety of beers on tap, what seemed like a reasonable wine selection and plenty for those not wishing to partake in alcohol. Service too was friendly and efficient.
The only disappointment was in not being able to taste their dessert menu. However, as Jenny and Ray had been kind enough to bake us some (yummy) cakes for afternoon tea, we didn’t miss out on our puds.
Morrocan food has not always left behind a lasting memory when I’ve eaten it in the past though that’s not to say it wasn’t a pleasant experience. For some reason it just doesn’t make me think – mmm … I’d love to have that meal over again. Perhaps it has to do with the food selections or perhaps Morrocan food is nice but just not memorable.
Well, tonight Akhlaq took Jenny and I to Maghreb, a Morrocan restaurant on the Islington high street, so I had another chance to review my opinion. Maghreb is a very pretty welcoming restaurant all decked out in warm colours and decorated appropriately. The menu is actually nice and varied but all three of us went for tagines – Jenny the duck tagine with apricots and raisins, Akhlaq the
chicken and vegetables tajine, and I went for the rabbit with raisins and pears.
My rabbit was amazingly tender and literally fell off the bone. The raisins and pears gave the dish a sweeter quality and was generally quite tasty – though it could have done with a bit more bit and also a thicker clingier sauce. Jenny’s duck was similar tasting though as a meat the duck had much more flavour. I was happy with the meal if unexcited. The cous cous side was bland but the rice was nicely fragrant.
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I was pleased that service was extremely friendly and efficient and the atmosphere was pretty good tonight – though it probably helped there was a large group sitting nearby having a celebration of some sorts. Otherwise I’m not sure how busy it normally gets. Price-wise once we included a starter of hommous (which came with lots of nice crusty warmed bread), sides of rice and cous cous and drinks the meal was actually quite a bit more than I expected at about £17 each but to be fair I was nicely stuffed.
My final conclusion is that the food, though it came in nice sized portions, was fairly tasty and of good quality, was nothing out of the ordinary. I might have to try something more adventurous next time.
I’m ashamed to admit it but I don’t know my neighbourhood at all. I’ve lived in my shoebox for over three years and I can probably count on one hand the number of local restaurants (and by local I mean within a 500 metre radius) I’ve actually been to. This of course does not include the conveniently located KFC 
Restaurant. 🙂 Tonight Bertha treated us (that is, Mirela, her family and I) to dinner at a local Italian Pizza and Pasta placed called Sugo. I didn’t think I could fit anything in to my stomach after the feast that was Ping Pong this afternoon but dim sum is tricky – at the time you eat you feel really full and you feel like you’ve stuffed yourself but not too much later on you actually realise you’re hungry! At any rate it wasn’t until about 9.30pm that we sat down to eat.
I can honestly hold my hand up and say that I’ve never noticed Sugo before despite how many times I’ve done my grocery shopping at Tesco and M&S on the opposite side of the road. The restaurant has quite a homely atmosphere with the walls covered in lots of paintings of Italian landscapes and peoples. The menu seemed quite authentic and naturally offers a range of pizzas, pastas and risottos as well as other main meal type dishes. It was unfortunate we were too full to enjoy something from the dessert menu which also looked quite delicious. As dishes are purportedly cooked from scratch you are also welcome to make requests which the kitchen, within reason, seemed happy to accept.
In a weekend of late birthday celebrations today it was Nate’s turn to celebrate his. However, he wasn’t nearly as tardy as me being only about five weeks overdue instead of three months! We had such a good time at Ping Pong the last time we came here that he opted to repeat it again but this time taking advantage of the Lazy Sumdays offer of all you can eat dim sum for £16.50. The weather today was atrocious so actually it was the perfect spot to spend the afternoon drinking and eating. I’ve said it before 
and I’ll say it again Ping Pong have the most amazing drink concoctions. Even though I was limiting myself to the ice tea coolers it was still absolutely delicious. The kumquat mojitos on the other hand were going down a treat with everyone else.
For today’s event we were once again in the upstairs section near the bar which provided much more comfortable and casual seating than in the downstairs restaurant section. Surprisingly, though it was absolutely heaving downstairs, we pretty much had all of upstairs to ourselves. Unfortunately this had a little bit of an impact on the service we received. Our female waitress, admittedly only on her second shift on the job, was absolutely rubbish as she gave us confusing instructions, wasn’t very friendly and just generally didn’t pay sufficient attention to our table so we were often left waiting with empty drinks and an empty table (that is, once we’d gobbled down the round of dishes we’d ordered.) However I have to give special mention to one of the floating male waiters – not only was he aware enough to realise that the temperature upstairs was tremendously warm (immediately adjusting the air-conditioning system), he was extremely friendly and he tried to give us the better deal on our bill by showing us what our bill would be with ordinary charging and under the Lazy Sumdays offer. Turns out without the deal our bill would have been cheaper (which was a great surprised because its fair to say we definitely pigged out.) Of course this was a bit against Ping Pong sop, though he didn’t realise it at the time, and as a result we ended up getting an even better deal because to make up for it although they eventually had to charge us under the Lazy Sumdays offer they took off one person’s meal meaning it was the cheapest deal yet! Bargain.
Just like the new Korean Restaurants popping up all over London Koba employs the modern, dark, sombre and minimalist thought in their interior design. Walking in you immediately notice the clean and distinctive lines in their main restaurant. The main restaurant seats approximately 45 people (plus a further 10 at the bar) so its also a rather intimate atmosphere.
As it always seems with Korean restaurants when coming to our food selection we were almost overwhelmed by the options on the menu. However, aided by our friendly waiters and waitresses and also by suggestions from the editors of Top Table, we soon came up with what seemed like a fairly balanced meal.
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We started with Pajun, a Korean pancake with spring onions and seafood, and Samsaek Milssam, wrapped pancakes with meat & vegetables stuffing. Both were extremely delicious and probably just right as a starter. This was then followed by the classic Korean meal of BBQ. We were hungry so we went for the Koba Modeum which was basically a giant platter of meat and seafood. Mmmmm … although Sandra did get a bit freaked out by the baby octopus squirming around on the hot plate. As with Arang our BBQ was cooked by our waitress though this time I felt we had a bit more time to manage the BBQ ourselves. We also went for a noodle dish Yaki Myeon (beef noodles) which was very tasty.
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I thoroughly enjoyed my meal at Koba though at nearly £30 each for our meal without alcohol (but including service) it is a touch on the expensive side. We did have a lot of meat and seafood though so it was reasonable value for money. Also there is of course the novelty factor of having the food cooked right in front of you. A fun meal.
I’ve written about the Curry Club before and I’ve written about Imperial China before and tonight the two have been combined to create a night that will go down in history as Curry-oke night. As the Curry Club’s traditional MO is to, well as the name indicates, find a nice curry house to explore a visit to Imperial China seemed a bit odd. I guess after over 50 Curry Club events it was time for a change.
A surprisingly large number of people seemed up for this outing (with over 30 expressing an interest) though as expected by the time tonight arrived we lost a few including Jules (“sick”) and Jenny (“celebrating passing her driving test”.) No matter, we still had a decent turn out and managed to fill the three tables in our private karaoke room.
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By the time we got to Imperial China at around 7pm I was surprised to find that the other karaoke rooms were already in full swing and full voice! Our fellow karaokers included companies such as Disney and Mitsui and I think its fair to say recoding artists in the making they were not. Ha ha. Interestingly Imperial China have not opted to sound proof any of the rooms, or it didn’t seem that way, as the music and singing was very loud in the corridors indeed. It made for a good energetic atmosphere though.
The food
Before we could get into the singing or wailing or whatever you choose to call it we first had to get down some nosh and, for those requiring it, a bit of dutch courage. Though lets face it the alcohol was going to flow irrespective of whether or not people were nervous about the karaoke! The set menu course we’d gone for offered the following:
| Mixed Hors D’oeuvres. They could have tried to make the presentation a bit nicer. |  |
| Aromatic Crispy Duck served with Pancakes | Unfortunately no photo was taken of this but the plate for the duck was huuuge |
| Deep Fried Squid with Pepper together with Spicy Prawns, Sweet & Sour Pork, Lemon Chicken, Fried Scallop with Broccoli, Fried Beef with Double Mushrooms, Fried Lamb with Ginger & Spring Onion, Fried Rice, Fried Noodle |  |
The food was all fairly tasty and good generous portions. Unfortunately our table had no lazy suzy so it was a bit hard for everyone to get access to all the dishes easily. Still we managed and I think seriously over-ate. The service was a little slap dash and for a place like Imperial China a bit disappointing. Maybe they were trying to balance availability of staff with giving the groups in the rooms privacy. Still, it didn’t seem to difficult to keep the flow of wine bottles constant.
The songs
Supposedly singing tonight was on a strictly volunteer only basis so to aid that a hat went around and people could write down what song they wanted to sing and then when it was 
drawn out of the hat it would be their time to shine. This system worked fairly well as a lot of people seemed happy to get up and make a fool of themselves. When I say make a fool of themselves I’m not knocking their ability (or inability for the most part) to sing but more the fact that some people when they got mics in their hands just were out of control. From all this karaoke, I’ve realized, is not about having a great voice but about being an entertainer so no one cares if you’ve got a crap voice, only that you are good at hamming or camping things up.
Sandra and I really really really didn’t want to get up and sing but unfortunately got dragged up to do a spice girls number with Pauline, Kelly and Ali:
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I was not impressed but once we got up there it wasn’t so bad as most people, as everyone had done all night, were singing and dancing along with us anyway.
All good things must come to an end eventually and after a long medley of Beatles songs, where everyone got very emotional and touchy-feely it seems (some more than others!), it was time for the night to end.
Overall it was a fun night though I think I will take care next time not to sit under the speakers. My ears are still ringing!
Roadhouse is one of those cheesy bars you roll into after all the pubs close and you don’t necessarily want to go clubbing but you still want your night to continue on. Situated in Covent Garden it is conveniently located. The bar is 1980s themed in both style and music played. Late at night it becomes a definite drunken meat market. Still, it can be quite good fun 
despite the cheese factor and sometimes you just need a place to not take yourself so seriously.
Tonight Pauline and I were looking for a budget venue for dinner and surprisingly Roadhouse popped up as a option. With their 2-4-1 cocktail happy hours and the 2 courses and a cocktail for £11.95 we didn’t think we could go wrong. Be warned that the 2-4-1 cocktail deal depends on you both getting the same cocktail – we didn’t realise this and made the mistake of ordering different cocktails so ended up with four cocktails instead of two! A bit much on an empty stomach but I guess a cocktail is a cocktail and you can’t throw them back!
The menu options for the two course deal has a fair bit of variety for everyone though the focus is on Americanised food (bbq and Mexican.) I was actually surprised that the portions we received were very generous and the food itself was surprisingly good tasting (even if my salmon appeared deep fried rather than grilled!) I didn’t see the full price a la carte menu but fair to say we definitely got a bargain tonight for what we ate (and drank!) Service was fairly friendly if a bit forceful.
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So, overall, the Roadhouse is not a bad place to grab a quick bite to eat. Especially during happy hour.