Category Archives: Food

Churchill Arms – What is Taken Is Given?

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There is a saying that goes something like this What The Lord Giveth The Lord Taketh Away (though I’m sure I’ve mangled this saying somehow as I seem to do with all sayings as Jenny knows.) Well, I’d like to happily report that in this instance I’ve experienced the reverse in my life – in this instance the Lord Taketh Away but also Giveth. Recently my brother moved to India for a few months to teach. I’m expecting him to come back early next year but in the mean time his leaving has left a bit of a gap in the life in the way that only a close family member can fill. Happily this past week has seen a new neighbour move in next door and all of a sudden I’m finding that I have my own sort of family comprising my current neighbour, Bertha, and my new neighbour, Mirela.

Today we went to what I guess could be considered our local (or one of our locals – ha ha), the Churchill Arms, for our first meal together and I must say that we all get along extraordinarily well. The Churchill Arms is known for being one of the most traditional pubs around and is always packed to the rafters. Its also supposed to be one of the first pubs to marry Thai food with the pub atmosphere. The pub is very attractive inside and out, with good service and great atmosphere, and the food is very reasonably priced. A great spot to come to grab a quick bite to eat (if you can get a table that is!)

Its nice having this family feeling and it helps that both Bertha and Mirela are very generous in their nature. I don’t mean in a materialistic way but in the way they conduct themselves. I’m truly blessed.

Shanghai Blues Lobsterfest

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Back in January this year I blogged about coming to Shanghai Blues for an evening meal and how basically I thought it was quite attractive both in the décor of the restaurant and presentation of the food but that the dishes we had (admittedly mostly of vegetarian leanings) lacked flavour and that prices in this restaurant were at the higher end of the pricing scale.

Well, today’s meal was an almost total contrast with the prior experience. With my brother’s imminent departure from London (Saturday – aargh!!), I quickly seized this as an excuse to both take an afternoon off from work and take in lunch at Shanghai Blues, and in particular to partake in their 3 course set lunch for £15.00 which, when including as an option Lobster Noodle, is very reasonably priced indeed.

As I said today’s meal was an almost contrast with our visit back in January. First of all we walked in to a restaurant that was fairly teaming with customers. Clearly Shanghai Blues is a popular venue for lunch. Secondly, and of course this had nothing to do with the restaurant, we could indulge in non-vegetarian dishes! Thirdly, our starters and mains were superbly flavoured. All the good things from our first visit, good presentation and good service, where thankfully still present. No special tea presentation this time around though I did try their Thousand-Day Flower which like Ping Pong’s Jasmine Flower Tea comes as a ball which springs open into a flower.

So, what was in our 3 course set lunch? We started with a selection of four dim sum dishes which unfortunately I can’t even guess at what we had! Terrible isn’t it but the picture I guess speaks for itself. It was all very good but I must admit the little fried hairy things closest to the bottom of the picture were the tastiest item. Then after this we had our Lobster Nooldles. Mmmmm … so tasty. The lobster was cooked perfectly and easily pulled from the shells even with my chopsticks and the noodles perfectly absorbed the sauce. Fair to say silence descended upon the table as we engrossed ourselves in the task of polishing off our meal! Finally these two course were followed by a some sort of red bean and tea flavoured jelly. Eh. It was alright.

The verdict – great lunch!

Hakkasan

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19th on this year’s 50 Best Restaurants in the world and beaten only by The Fat Duck and Nobu in the UK, Hakkasan is a Chinese restaurant that exudes style and class by the oodles. A birthday, my brother’s, seemed like the perfect opportunity to test it out.

At first I thought that we weren’t going to be able to make our booking because a film crew had taken up residence on Hanway Place and the policeman who was “guarding” the entrance wasn’t letting anyone through. Luckily for us one of the crew realised that they were blocking access to the restaurant and quickly arranged for the blockade to move up slightly. I still don’t know what they were filming there, as Pat quickly dragged us away (clearly being stalkarazzi is not in the blood – ha ha), but it looked fairly intense and they were still at it when we left a few hours later.

But on to the restaurant.

At the entrance of Hakkasan you are met with two bouncer-esque characters who check your name on the reservation list. I’m not sure what their purpose is because there is a bar down stairs where you can wait for a table to become free when you don’t have a reservation and also, when you reach the bottom of the stairs, you are once again asked for your reservation details anyway. I guess it all adds to the experience.

The impact of Hakkasan is immediate – it is dark, yet shiny, with spot lighting on each of the tables and otherwise “night-club” lighting. The otherwise cavernous room is split into more intimate areas by large wooden poles which may or may not have been bamboo poles painted black. Its supposed to be a very modern take on the Chinese motiff. Unfortunately no photos allowed!

We were quickly seated at our table and the waiter immediately descended to ask if we wanted any drinks. At least he gave us a menu at the same time but please people – let us have a chance to check out the menu! The Hakkasan drinks menu was very impressive and contained a good balance of non-alcoholic and alcoholic cocktails not to mention a staggering wine list. When you check out some of the offerings its no wonder that people can easily spend hundreds, or even thousands, on one dinner here!

The food menu was also fairly impressive, with diverse and sometimes unique offerings, but surprisingly nothing shouted EAT ME which is terribly unusual for me not to mention the fact that the prices were outrageous if not unexpected.

As this was supposed to be a celebration we decided to go just a little bit crazy. We started with Jasmine Tea Smoked Organic Pork Ribs and Roast Mango Duck – both priced at just under £10. The Smoked Ribs were DIVINE. The sauce was perfect and the meat literally fell off the bone – making it very easy to eat even with chopsticks! The Duck was, honestly, a rip-off. No doubt it looked great but what we got in essence were thin slivers of duck (not the greatest tasting) and mango with quite a tart sauce which I think, rather than balance the dish, overpowered the flavour of the duck. So, going into the mains were were 1 for 2.

We had some difficult deciding on our dishes for our mains and ended up with Peking Style Duck, Roasted Sea Bass in Chinese Honey (at £38 our most expensive dish of the night) and Stir Fried Black Bean Vegetarian Prawns. The Sea Bass for me was the star of the mains which maintained the beautiful sea bass flavour coloured by a most delicious almost smokey honey flavour. The other two dishes were fairly average though I was quite entertained by the vegetarian prawn making a fairly good imitation of the actual thing. I still don’t know what it was made from though! This is not to say that the dishes weren’t good in their own way but nothing extraordinary which, at the prices being charged, I was expecting.

To my surprise there was nothing on the dessert menu that we were interested in, even if we could fit more food into our very full bellies. Instead we opted for a second round of non-alcholic cocktails – very yummy.

Shockingly Hakkasan imposes a 13% (!) service charge on the bill which took our dinner to just over £120 for the two of us. Considering we didn’t have any alcohol this was pricey indeed, though also very much expected. I guess they needed that much service to cover all the waiters and waitresses that seemed to be all over the place and maybe to cover the cost of the girl whose sole job appeared to be to open the door to the restrooms (!) because we certainly didn’t receive service that was fantastic. It was just okay.

Overall Hakkasan is definitely a place to be experienced at least once but my recommendation would be to save it for a special occasion though if you’re minted, well, I guess you could make it an everyday experience!

Imperial China

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It is a strange coincidence that a month before we are going to Imperial China for a work do involving the odd combination of a club called the Curry Club, Chinese and Karaoke my brother and I decided to drop in to Imperial China for a bit of yum-cha.

The first thing that strikes you about Imperial China is its looks – its all very glammed up with its pretty entryway with fish pong and a classic chinese bridge, the giant glass windows on the ground floor, the intimate lighting, the dark colours and the waiters and waitresses dressed to the nines. We were hoping that the food would live up to first impressions.

Yum-cha at Imperial China is ordered as it is in many restaurants these days by marking your selection on a slip of paper. Interestingly, unlike other restaurants, there were a number of options which were “Not Recommended” …. interesting. I’m sure there is something lost in translation there and the fact that our choices just happened not to include any such dishes is mere happenstance!

The yum-cha offerings at Imperial China are fairly stock standard but did contain a few distinguishing dishes rabbitssuch as dumplings shaped like rabbits, goldfish or butterflies and fish belly rolls. From a taste perspective the dishes we had weren’t extraordinary so were not the best I’ve ever tasted nor were they the worst. Prices were fairly average for what you got.

Overall I think Imperial China was a pleasant, if ordinary, experience. It will be interesting to see how this experience will contrast with that of our work do in a month’s time.

J. Sheekey

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J. Sheekey belongs to the same group of restaurants as The Ivy so Jenny and I were expecting big things from our meal tonight. Rehana has also raved about the restaurant so my expectations were very high.

J.Sheekey is located just near Leicester Square and, as with The Ivy, is “guarded” by the little man in the top hat. The windows are covered up so once you step into the restaurant the sense of privacy and intimacy is immediate. Something I’m sure the celebrities appreciate. The restaurant is much longer than it appears from the outside but is sectioned off into a number of areas with about 5-7 tables filling any one space. This definitely made it hard to star-gaze! Just last night Kylie and Mick Jagger had dined here apparently but sadly no luck for us tonight. Besides we were so busy gaping at what everyone else was eating to have time to search the restaurant for any celebrities.

If you don’t like your fish than you won’t have too many options to choose from on the J. Sheekey menu – this one is definitely all about the fish and seafood though they do have one or two other dishes for the non-seafood eaters. All around us it seemed the popular starter was the fruits of the sea platter which was filled with all types of cold seafood including oysters, pippies, prawns etc. The platter is maaassssssive! However, not being the biggest fan of cold seafood I went instead with the crab bisque as a starter. It was superbly delicious and creamy but very rich. For mains, at the recommendation of the waiter, Jenny and I shared a grilled fish platter. With it we got bream, salmon, tuna, john dory and cod. A very good selection. We didn’t think we could get full on just fish but surprisingly we did though to be fair there was a lot of it and it was very rich (read oily!) The fish was quite tasty, though I think in future I’d like my platter to have a mix of shellfish rather than all fish because after a while it almost felt too sameish.

We forced (ha ha) ourselves to have some dessert – I tried the raspberry crème brulee (as unfortunately spotted dick was not on the menu). It was nice enough but I must remember in future that tart fruit just does not go with crème brulee! Still finished it however :).

To my surprise the service was a bit hit and miss tonight at a restaurant which supposedly values it quite highly. That’s not to say that it wasn’t unfriendly or unresponsive but I just felt it was … spotty. First of all before we even sat down we were asked if we wanted any drinks without being offered any sort of drinks or wine menu, then we sat for a while without any menus whatsoever and then our drinks that we did eventually end up ordering took very long to get to us. The waitress later apologised for the oversight but still. Finally, we were often left alone for long periods of time. Respect for the customer aside and all but I still expect a restaurant like this to check in with the diners now and again. However, it seems our experience is at odds with everyone else who has dined here in the past if the reviews I’ve read are anything to go by.

So, in the end were my expectations met? I think not to be honest. However that’s probably more from my having such high expectations in the first place. For three courses and a juice and service it was about £52 (which included an outrageous £2 per person cover charge) so for that price you would expect to be dazzled. I wasn’t. Merely satisfied with the experience. I must say however that despite the reputation and seeming poshness of the restaurant you never feel like a, pardon the pun, fish out of water so for that it has to get some marks.

Girl’s Night Out – Benihana and Jewel

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Pauline decided it would be a nice idea to have a girl’s night out so she got on the case to see who would be interested. Pretty quickly we had a pretty good size group of 11 of us. Somehow, in all this organization, Pauline convinced me to find a venue for dinner! Catering for everyone’s taste (read pickiness – ha ha), finding an interesting

The meal

Benihana is a Japanese teppanyaki experience where they cook the food on grill tops live in front of you. There are few venues scattered across London but the venue we selected was near Piccadilly Circus for is central location. Upon arriving at Benihana they guided us to the bar which is a good idea for when you are meeting a large group of people but also quick way of spending your money! The (non-alcoholic) pina colada was very tasty though so I didn’t mind 🙂 We’d booked for the offer of “7 courses for £16.50” off top table – the booking stating that it was imperative that you arrive on time otherwise they would cancel it. A bit harsh but I think in most cases, especially when there’s a large group of you, the restaurant won’t mind if you’re a little bit late. As it was they kept us waiting anyway for our table.

Because there were 11 of us we couldn’t all fit around one cook top so we were split into two groups and taken care of by two chefs. Our chef was very cute, and very Spanish, whilst the other girls got the head chef. I think we were better off because our chef was quite flashy including setting fire to the food (deliberate of course) on numerous occasions, creating a little flaming volcano of onion rings and generally tossing food all over the place. At one stage he even did the throw-the-food-into-your-mouth trick with Jenny. Thankfully it was her and not me! The head chef did try some tricks but I get the impression it wasn’t impressive as the display we received. Our chef was very flirtatious and friendly too and somehow I ended up with his chef’s hat (which I promptly returned as it was extremely warm to wear!) Fair to say there was a lot of interaction with our chef.

As for the food, the “7 courses” got us two “meats” (choice of beef, chicken, salmon, prawns, and another fish), fried rice, salad, vegetables, soup, and California rolls (the rolls were delish!) I didn’t think it would be enough food but actually I was fairly filled up by the end of the meal. The only negative to the concept was that the meats were cooked at different rates so we were all eating at different times and sometimes the food was overcooked. I couldn’t complain about the service which was at all times friendly and impeccable.

Overall I think Benihana is a good fun place to go with a group of people to experience something a little distinctive from the usual dining experience even if the food is not the highest quality or best tasting you’ve had. Its definitely a place to be entertained if you get the right chef. Be warned, however, that it can get quite pricey if you add bottles of wine to your meal.

The after

Only Pauline, Jenny, Agatka and I made it to Jewel for a drink after dinner. Jewel is actually a lot bigger than it seems when you first walk in and, what I really liked about it, was that there are plenty of places to sit and be comfortable. It seemed quite good for small groups of people. Unfortunately table service was quite slow which was surprising because you’d think in a place like Jewel they’d try to push as many drinks on you as possible.

Lemongrass

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Lemongrass prides itself on offering a bit of Cambodia in London (the location might as well have been in Cambodia for how hard it was get to!) so I was hoping the journey was worth it.

The menu is large and vast and appears to offer quite a range of Thai food options. Most Thai food I’ve had has been pretty good so I was looking forward to the meal. We had a full three courses starting with Hoi Joi (a crab/chicken dumpling) and going onto mains chosen from the Chef’s house specialties of char-grilled steak, ostrich green curry, and a scallop curry. We finished with desserts of pancake and ice cream, and sticky rice with sweetened mango.

For taste the food was so-so with the scallop curry being the winner for the night. The other dishes, though not exactly horrible, weren’t exactly special or extraordinary. The service, friendly when we did get it, was actually quite lax considering how few other diners there were in the restaurant. Unfortunately there was little in the way of atmosphere in the restaurant though it is an attractively well-lit space.

I’m still of two minds whether I would recommend Lemongrass. I guess it was worth the journey to try it out but I think it would take a special occasion or a special offer to get me out there again. Then again, they do have lobster on their so maybe I should give it another chance just for that …

The Ping Pong Experience – Southbank Style

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Ping Pong restaurants seem to be popping up all over the place nowadays (at last count they’re up to 6 venues I think?) and I’m not sure when the one at Southbank opened but I can tell you the position is perfect if the number of diners is anything to go by!

Especially perfect for a quick bite to eat before catching a show at Royal Festival Hall which is the reason we went with Ping Pong. When Jenny and I walked in the place was heaving with a line nearly starting to go out the door (when we left the line did go out the door and they even had bouncers!) so even though Caro and Nate had yet to arrive we decided it was prudent to grab a table where we could. We ended up being taken to a table upstairs near the bar where it was extremely noisy and strangely rather dark!

As I’ve said before Ping Pong have quite an extensive cocktail and drinks menu so its perfect as a pre-theatre venue if you don’t want anything too heavy food-wise and yet want to have a nice drink too. I think though we managed to eat a good share of dim-sum though that didn’t stop Jenny and I wondering if we could somehow slip into the corporate group that were standing at the bar near us and help ourselves to the nibblies that were coming out for them …

Mango Tree

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Its been absolutely AGES since I’ve been out for a meal with Rehana and AGES since I’ve had any Caribbean fare so when Rehana suggested Mango Tree it was a definite yes.

The Mango Tree felt like a very upscale and modern restaurant so didn’t have the homely feel that Bamboula had despite the website talking about you being “lulled by the Caribbean warmth”. I was, however, excited by the menu which I’d naturally checked out during the day.

Here are the starters and mains we shared. And yes I’ve posted the same pics for our desserts – originally I’d gone with Mango and Banana Brulee but apparently they had ran out! But more on that later.

Starters
Grilled Tiger Prawn Skewer with Ciabatta Bread Marinated Ebony Wings in chilli, pepper and garlic
Mains
Grilled Seabass Fillet Camden Famous Curry Goat
Desserts
Jamaican Rum Flambeed Bananas .. .. with Cinnamon Ice Cream & Mayple Syrup

The presentation of the food was the fu-fu that you expect in a modern restaurant with everything that came out looking quite stunning. I really liked our starters in particular the King Prawns which were simply amazing and our mains of goat and sea bass were equally tasty if a little light on the portion-sizes. I would definitely recommend the goat curry. Mmmm … Our desserts were a little disappointing. Firstly, as I mentioned above, I wanted to try the Mango and Banana Brulee. About 20 minutes after we’d ordered the waitress came out to tell me that they’d run out. I then went with the second option of Rum Flambeed Banana. Once again we had quite a wait before we got our desserts and instead of coming out flaming, which I would have expected, they came out alread flambeed. It was also apparent that they had been prepared at different times so one was cooled with the ice cream melting all over the place (not cool.)

Overall I think that the Mango Tree was strong on presentation and looks, not too shabby on the taste front not that great on the value for money front, service, though friendly, was so-so in terms of efficiency but probably had more to do with the hen’s night next to us than anything. Would I go back again? Not probably as an every day meal kind of place but maybe on a special occasion.