Category Archives: Food

Happy 23rd Birthday Lofty

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It’s Lofty’s birthday today, or technically yesterday, so as a treat Jules, Akh and I decided to take her out for drinks and dinner. We wanted to try something different outside of our normal dining options and after much searching we settled on a short list of restaurants … all of which seemed to be located in the Mayfair area. We ended up going with Athenaeum (or Damask actually) which is in the Athenaeum Hotel.

Damask, I guess as befits a Mayfair postcode, is fairly a posh restaurant but is actually quite intimate and seems set up for small groups of quiet diners rather than big raucous parties. Jules and I headed to Damask early to “set up” which merely involved tying some helium balloons to Lofty’s chair and dropping off her presents. I was actually quite impressed that they allowed us to change tables AND leave all the balloons in the room. I thought they might turn their nose down at it but everyone was quite friendly about it.

That job done we headed off to meet Lofty and Akh to find someplace to have pre-dinner drinks. Its not too easy to find somewhere in Mayfair to have a nice drink (despite the fact we were already armed with a shortlist!) but after a bit of searching we ended up at Ye Grapes. Not the most spectacular of venues but it did the job.

By booking at 7pm I was hoping that Damask would be a little less quiet but it was really really quiet – no music even! Still the staff were very accommodating and extremely friendly even when Nemo kept hitting them in the face and when Sandra was pulling out all her silly little presents. The giant hand was a hit.

We were dining from the set course menu and I think it gave a nice variety of choice, if not necessarily adventurous, for all sorts of diners. Not sure what the others thought of their meals but my Asparagus soup, Grilled John Dory and Pudding were of good quality ingredients and presented nicely if not necessarily the tastiest. I think Akh’s Haloumi Cheese starter was the funniest out of all our meals.

Where Damask fails is in the atmosphere department. Even if the restaurant was empty they could have done At Henry's Barwith some sort of background music to create some sort of mood.

Overall Damask is not too bad a restaurant – great service, decent food (if not necessarily the best value for money in terms of portion sizes), plush surrounds – but it just needs to improve on the atmosphere department. Something that could change if you came on a Friday or Saturday night.

Finally, we wrapped up the evening with a final few drinks at Henry’s Bar before sending Sandra off home juggling her gifts and her balloons.

Tapas for a Tenner at La Tasca

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Tonight Pauline arranged for a group of us girls (Sandra, Natalie and I) to have a bit of a catch up at La Tasca. Tapas has so far been a fairly hit and miss affair for me and as a chain I wasn’t sure what La Tasca would deliver. For me tapas should not only be about the quality of the food but value for money because as anyone who knows me I hate leaving a restaurant hungry. 🙂

La Tasca delivered on both points with their Tapas for a Tenner deal AND 2-4-1 on Sangria. It was the best possible combination! I’m afraid we went a bit overboard with our ordering because we ordered the first lot (see Natalie below in the first pic) but still felt hungry and then went for a second lot which was almost as large an order (see the second pic below). Trying to finish it all was well funny.

The quality of the tapas was actually fairly good with almost everything we had quite tasy. If there was one negative, and its only a minor one, it was that the tapas wasn’t all that adventurous or creative which is where I think Navarro and Salt Yard have an edge.

Afternoon Tea at Claridges

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It was high time to have another high time experience. Akhlaq arranged for four of us to check out Afternoon Tea in The Foyer at Claridges. Walking in it was almost like seeing The Ritz all over again. It was a fairly similar set up though there was also a violinist and pianist to provide the background music. I can’t remember the Ritz having that.

We were taken to a room off to the side of the main room where the decor was much darker. Both rooms were equally full with patrons and I guess thats to do with the fact that Afternoon Tea is offered only once daily where The Ritz offered five sittings a day.

The tea menu offerred a variety of black, green, and herbal teas plus coffee. I tried two sorts of tea including a green tea which had a very strong taste of popcorn and a black tea that tasted of cinammon.

The food consisted of finger sandwiches (pretty much the same as what I had at the Ritz: Smoked Salmon, Egg Mayonnaise with Cress, Ham, Chicken and Cucumber with Cream Cheese), desserts (much better variety than the Ritz) and Scones with Devonshire Clotted Cream and preserve. All very good and all very tasty.

The Claridges experience was a lot of fun even though I felt like a fish out of water amongst all that finery!

Arang

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Arang is a Korean Restaurant just off the back of Piccadilly Circus. It had gotten fairly good reviews off London Eating so I was expecting quite a lot. On first impressions the restaurant is very modern with table tops of white marble and black bottoms. Our first hurdle was choosing from the menu where options were wide and varied. Our waitress, a native Korean, was very helpful on this point and made a number of suggestions in line with customary Korean eating. Our second hurdle was knowing what to do with our food. In prior Korean eating experiences we would have cooked the barbecue ourselves but on this occasion every piece of meat was cooked by our waitress. Good service but I felt it was a touch OTT.

We went with Spring Onion & Fried Korean pizza with seafood, Fried squid with vegetables & red pepper paste sauce (very spicy), and for the barbecue dishes Bulkabi (beef rib) and Bulgogi (beef) plus some rice and lettuce. We were also given some complimentary sides including Kim Chi and Potato Salad. Oh we also received complimentary fruit which was a nice end to the meal.

Overall I was pleased with the quality of the food and the service was fantastic. I would have perhaps liked to cook the food myself next time as it felt like the waitress was there for the WHOLE meal. Arang is a very popular place and booking is recommended.

Monsoon Restaurant welcomes Christy and Scott

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Some good friends from back home are back in the UK so tonight to officially welcome them back we went out for a typically London thing to do – a curry at Brick Lane.

Brick Lane is what non-Londoners seem to associate with curries in London so its surprising that I haven’t actually eaten at any of the restaurants at Brick Lane in my nearly three years here.

Navigating up Brick Lane is made extremely difficult and slow as each restaurant has their own little touter shouting out discounts to you and sometimes even following you and hassling you up the road. I find it hard to just say no and ignore such people so I always end up carrying on some sort of conversation with them.

Finally we had had enough of the touting and chose Monsoon at 78 Brick Lane.

We were the first diners in the small restaurant but it soon filled up and actually got quite rowdy with both the conversation and sound system. The prices are fairly cheap but I’m sure are inflated to incorporate the “discount” being offerred on the street. No doubt the “discount” is to get you to come in and then buy big on the alcoholic or other drinks.

I’ve read some reviews where a lot of people weren’t very impressed with the service but I can’t say that we had too much of a problem, in particular I was happy with how our bill dispute with dealt with, though I’m not sure how they’d cope on a busier night. The food was actually pretty tasty to my uneducated palette and, though not giant portions, we couldn’t actually finish all that we’d ordered. You will have to definitely choose the right curries to suit your taste to get the most enjoyment out of it.

In the end Monsoon offerred pretty good value for the quality of the curries. Probably best to avoid when super busy as you will no doubt be on the receiving end of harried service that may possibly try and push you out the door to fit in another group of diners.

Shanghai Blues

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Shanghai Blues is a very posh Chinese restaurant located in Holborn. Dark and mysterious on the outside it is equally dark and mysterious on the inside. More like a club than a traditional Chinese restaurant it certainly made for an interesting meal. I’ve walked by this restaurant so many times before but was always turned off by the prices which are fairly prohibitively expensive unless you have a business account or pockets lined with money. Its not a place you’d visit at the drop of a hat.

As expected from the atmosphere the service was superb – friendly and accommodating though at times slightly over-bearing. That could have had something to do with the fact we were in pretty early (just after 6pm) and were the only diners in the restaurant for over half an hour. Beautiful dĂ©cor if you like the dark wood, deep red, dark blue, club-like feel to your restaurants.

Unusually for a Chinese restaurant there were a surprisingly large number and wide selection of vegetarian options for the diner’s choice and thus we decided to check it out tonight. Well, when I say “large number and Mini Golden Pumpkinwide selection” I mean certainly more than just one dish! It didn’t feel right to be eating meat when my brother wasn’t so apart from a starter of Crispy Eel Fillets, which I had all to myself, we stuck with all vegetarian dishes. From a presentation perspective Shanghai Blues was spot on … unfortunately, and I don’t know if it was to do with the nature of the dishes we selected, as from the taste perspective it wasn’t so crash hot. Though not Buddhist Monk's Vegetable Crispy Noodle, Vegetable Rolls with Enoki Mushrooms and Soft Gold Bricksparticularly bland no flavours stood out especially. The tea service was funny. At the regular Chinese restaurant you may share a pot of tea (endlessly refilled with hot water) but at Shanghai Blues it’s a whole performance with personal service of the tea which comes on its own trolley at first and everything.

The Shanghai Blues menu is very diverse and quite unusual and there will definitely be something there for everyone’s palette. For all the lack of flavour in their vegetarian dishes I think its certainly worth another go to try out some of the other dishes (and maybe to check out their interesting twist on cocktails) but I may have to save up some pennies before I can come back and enjoy myself properly!

Salt Yard

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Sandra has wanted to go to tapas for absolutely ages and so tonight, in my last week in London for a month and half, we finally went. Salt Yard had some pretty good write ups/reviews from London Eating so it seemed like an okay restaurant to try out.

From the outside it looks fairly nice – nice dĂ©cor, though wading through the smokers upstairs were a bit offxputting, fairly intimate and dark, and modern. The service was pretty good with our Aussie waiter fairly attentive and friendly when we needed him but otherwise was welcomingly absent for the rest of the night (it was a pleasure not to feel too much pressure to leave once we’d finished eating.)

Unfortunately the food was a bit of a let down and very pricey. The menu is apparently constantly changing but for tonight we went with:

– Courgette Flowers stuffed with Monte Enebro cheese and drizzled with honey
– Crispy Squid with Alioli
– Chargrilled Beef Rump with Black Pepper Gnocchi and Horseradish Gremolata
– Pan-fried Salmon with Mustard Seed Crust, Jerusalem Artichokes and Blood Orange Vinaigrette
– Chorizo cooked in red wine

Everything was presented beautifully except for the strangely barren Chorizo. Ironically the most simply presented (the Courgette Flowers, Squid and Chorizo) were definitely the tastiest dishes whilst the dishes with the more complicated presentation (the Beef and Salmon) were disappointingly tasteless.

Portion-wise I guess with tapas you can expect to eat quite a few dishes to get your fill and I was just glad that we’d had a gigantic lunch so I was feeling adequately satisfied sharing the above with Sandra. Of course, not having stuffed ourselves on the tapas, we went with dessert. My dessert was absolutely divine and I would definitely recommend the Calasparra Rice Pudding BrulĂ©e with Rhubarb ice cream. I’m not sure how Sandra felt about her dessert wine and biscuits though I think she did comment on how very alcoholic her wine tasted/felt.

Salt Yard for me was just okay. Navarro’s is still the number one tapas restaurant for me.

The Courgette Flowers The Squid The Beef
The Salmon The Rice Pudding The Dessert Wine and Biscuits

Restaurant Sauterelle

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Restaurant Sauterelle is the youngest in the stable of London Conran restaurants opening in only November 2005. Promising simple classic French food and a constantly changing menu depending on the season it was opened at The Royal Exchange in Bank to compliment stable mate, and the very popular, Grand Café and Bar.

The location of the restaurant is superb offering views into the courtyard or alternatively on to the hustle and bustle of the streets of Bank. It was relatively early when we sat down for dinner so we were able to obtain a table overlooking the interior of The Royal Exchange and so had views over the gorgeous courtyard and Grand Cafe. The interior is quite sumptuous and made for a fine view over dinner.

Fine dining can get quite expensive but tonight we were taking advantage of a lastminute.com tasting menu offer which our friendly waitress informed us was actually fairly new. My brother was still in the middle of his “going veggie” experience and therefore had a relatively straightforward decision to make with his main although surprisingly two out of three starters were vegetarian friendly (rather than the requisite one.)

The food was very high quality but not actually all that adventurous but I guess with simplicity you can’t go too crazy. Or it could have been my options which where:
– Ham hock terrine, celeriac and apple remoulade
– Roast fillet of salmon, crushed potatoes and sauce vierge
– Chocolate fondant with hot chocolate sauce

Portions weren’t gigantic but the three courses were definitely enough to leave you feeling satisfied. And I was especially glad to see that the salmon appeared to be of a very high quality.

The service was very good from the maitre d’ to the waitress to our drink waiter. It was all very responsive and friendly without being overbearing. Hard to say how it would cope when the restaurant becomes a little busier.

It might seem strange to open two Conran restaurants in one establishment but what Restaurant Sauterelle is able to deliver over the Grand Café and Bar is a sense of intimacy, elegance and relaxation. This is not to say that Grand Café and Bar are not elegant but the sense of the hustle and bustle and business making seems to melt away in the face of the floating candles, white linen and quiet of Restaurant Sauterelle.

New Wag’s at Earl’s Court

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I must be getting used to full meals at Wag’s because the free meals just don’t fill me up as much anymore. Heh heh. A new Wag’s opened at Earl’s Court tonight and as usual the buzz of an opening night is hard to pass up. I was pleased to see that this Wag’s was disabled friendly with the steps having chairlift of sorts up the eight or so steps of the entrance.

This time around both Sandra and I signed up for the opening and did consider for a split second going tonight and then going tomorrow night taking each other as the “guest”. But reasonable heads prevailed and instead we convinced (okay – didn’t take much – just a promise of a free meal!) my brother and Jen along for the meal.

Strangely, considering its placement at what must be one of busiest tube stations, the restaurant was actually quite small, relatively speaking. Service was pretty good but they STILL they haven’t got their timing right with a main and three sides being brought out first instead of all sides or all mains or all both! Maybe Wag’s actually make a conscious decision to just get the food out as quickly as possible rather than get the food out in the correct order. Either way the food is consistently tasty so there are no real complaints from me.

Curry Club

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At work there is this club called the Curry Club. So, every so often (perhaps monthly) the club will get together as a group and go out and grab some curry. Speaking to a few people at work the club seems to have a reputation for being a bit cliquey because its a bit of a mystery how one gets membership. At any rate I kind of gate crashed tonight’s apparently 55th or 56th event thanks to Sir Jules getting me on to the list. After we lost some people after leaving the pub we were still left with a good size group of around about 30 people.

Tonight’s resturant was Tandoori Nights at Holborn. It was clear that the restaurant struggled with managing the size of our group. We were spread out on three tables and getting our orders in was pure havoc. To their credit though they didn’t make too many mistakes and although our table always got our food last – we did get it all eventually if a little later than the other tables! The curry was pretty yummy when it came and I was stuffed after a starter, curry, some rice and of course a naan. The price tag was pretty hefty at the end but that probably had more to do with the bottles of wine and beer on the table rather than the food. It would be interesting to visit as a smaller group or even as a couple to see if the service, food and price tag compares with tonight’s experience.

As for the Curry Club experience. It was certainly … interesting. Though you could sense the separation between the regulars and the not so regulars based on who sat at which table we still had a lot of fun – even if we didn’t really mingle too much (hard to do in a restaurant really!)