Category Archives: Food

Tis the Season …

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… to be booking office Christmas Parties. Well, the silly season is nearly upon us and the dilemma of finding somewhere for the work Christmas meal this year has fallen upon the shoulders of Sandra, James and Catherine. Some weekends ago Sandra and I did try and find somewhere around town but found it difficult to make a decision knowing the tendency of some people on the patch to complain and complain.

Tonight Sugar Reef were offering a tasting session where you could sample some of the food from their Christmas meal (their ultimate goal being to get you to book your Christmal meal then and there.) We’d actually pretty much made up our mind to go with Sugar Reef anyway but we turned up tonight for the free meal and also, as it turns out, for the free champagne. We weren’t sure what to expect but the sample platters of finger food sure wasn’t what we were expecting. Still, it was pretty good and did sort of keep on coming though I’m pretty sure the champagne was much more free-flowing than the food (I certainly felt the effects of it .. or it could have been the two cocktails we had in Tiger Tiger before hand…)

Hopefully everyone will enjoy the choices Sugar Reef will offer. It sure seems much more fun than last year’s venue at any rate.

Connie Turns 30!

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The birthday girl and meThis week Connie turned 30 and to celebrate we all trooped down to Galvin at Baker Street. Galvin is billed as a French Bistrot De Luxe with the restaurant boasting using the best of British and French regional produce in its seasonal menu.

Run by two classically trained Michelin-starred brothers – Chris and Jeff Galvin – you would expect to be paying through the nose to eat at such a restaurant. Especially when you see how classy the restaurant appears to be when you first walk in and the numerous wait staff dotted all over the small space. Instead to our surprise the three-course set menu for lunch cost a mere £15.50 (with dinner being only £2 more.) The Galvin approach to the restaurant is to keep things as simple and as low-key as possible and never was this more evident than in the way the booking was handled. When Connie first rang through to book the restaurant it was one of the Galvin brothers who actually answered the phone and he was in the kitchen cooking at the time! Its nice to see that they are relaxed enough to answer the phone when needed.

Our food was absolutely amazing. It was all kept very simple but clearly the ingredients were extremely high in quality. The Table 2 portions were just about right and I only just had enough room after my three courses to indulge in the birthday cakes baked especially for the two birthday celebrants by the chefs of Galvin.

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Galvin. If the restaurant was let down at all it was by their wait staff who just couldn’t seem to handle our two tables – there were probably about 22 of us and about 6 of them so I’m not sure how they could constantly keep getting our orders wrong. The funny thing was that it was always the same few people who kept getting the wrong dishes! Despite the mix-ups we all had a really great time. We had so much fun that we hadn’t even realised we’d been in the restaurant for about 4 and a half hours!

Chowki

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For a country where curry is now as popular as fish and chips it sure is hard to find a restaurant that serves decent good tasting reasonably priced curries. Ever since I read Time Out‘s review of Chowki in their Cheap Eats Guide I’ve been meaning to go there but for some reason had never gotten around to it. Tonight Rehana and I finally got around to eating there.

When you first walk into the restaurant it has a very trendy bar/Wagamama’s feel to it with long communal tables, dark colouring, and red leather cub stools as seats. This seems in direct contrast with the authentic Indian home-style cooking it seems to be promoting. Not that I would know what an authentic Indian restaurant should look like. Chowki is different from a lot of other curry restaurants for its constantly changing menu which samples from three different regions of India every month.

To make the most of Chowki’s offerings and get value for money its best to go with their regional set meal which allows you to choose three courses from one region for for £12.95. Considering you also get naan bread, rice and a lentil curry its very good value indeed. Mains are priced individually priced between £6.95 to £10.95 (depending on if you go vege or meat).

As we didn’t want to limit ourselves to just a couple of regions Rehana and I ended up with just a starter and a main each. Although I wouldn’t say the curries were the best I’d ever had (Rehana’s home cooking still beats the pants off anything I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant) I wouldn’t say they were awful. The Tilapia fillet starter was amazing though.

Service wasn’t too bad though at times I felt a little bit rushed to get through the meal and finish up (not that the wait staff or rude or anything.) The ambience is just average – its probably not the best restaurant to go to for a chat as it does get fairly loud but can be fun and funky.

Overall I would probably go to Chowki again if only to sample their ever changing menu.

A day spent in around town

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So a plan of checking out ski clothes ended up being a day spent around town eating, enjoying the sun, some checking out of ski clothes and then watching other people run their guts out.

The eats. Good dim sum is hard to come by in London it seems. Laureate is an old standby that I like to go to for their consistently good quality food, generally good service and pretty much fair price. And not to make an undiverse comment or anything but its always a good sign to walk into a Chinese restaurant to find it is filled with Chinese diners. I think Sandra was a bit surprised to find that when we walked in at just before 12 today she was the only white person in there. Again not to be undiverse but its fact!

Laureate offers a good diverse selection of dim sum so there is something for everyone. In an unusual move, unusual because normally I am so stuffed with eating our mains I have no room, we went for two dessert dishes. A yam and tapioca dish (which you can see Sandra enjoying to the right) and a mango puds dish. Both of these are pictured to the left. Both were actually pretty tasty dishes and though Sandra did seem to enjoy them both she somehow convinced herself in the middle of eating it that she didn’t like the yam and tapioca dish after all. We still aren’t sure how she did that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that “[her] mum makes the best tapioca dessert in the whole world.”

The shopping. After stuffing ourselves slightly at dim sum we headed off to a couple of ski shops in Covent Garden. Now, unless you’re a serious skiier that will definitely be hitting the slopes all season long it doesn’t seem reasonable to spend a kazillion dollars on buying ski gear that you will wear for 5 days only. Yes you may try to convince yourselve that you will wear it “the next time” you go skiing .. but seriously when that time comes around again I’m sure you’ll be wanting the latest season gear anyway! We started off at the Mountain Warehouse which was a discount store that Sandra found online. Its not top of the line gear but it’ll get you through a ski holiday and the prices are fairly reasonable. I was most impressed with one of the shop assistants who, rather than bully us into buying expensive items we didn’t need, gave very good advice on what to look for in ski gear and actually told us to come back in a few weeks time when more ski gear would be coming in. We did try on some ski pants and jackets for sizing and you can see Sandra to the right in a dead sexy pair of ski trousers. Yowzer!

It turned out that going to the Mountain Warehouse first was a bit of a mistake as when we went up the road to the North Face and Ellis Brigham the prices in there seemed utterly ridiculous instead of just being a touch on the expensive side. Didn’t stop us trying on some really cute ski jackets and caps but we were definitely not going to be sourcing any of our ski gear from either of those shops unless they have a giant fire sale dropping prices by at least 60%! Well, that’s how I felt anyway.

Looking cute in our ski jackets was hot and hard work 🙂 so next on the agenda was a drinks break. Why is it when you want a shop to get a nice icy fruit shake or milkshake you can never think of a good one to go to? So, sadly (ha ha) we ended up at Ben & Jerry’s in Leicester Square. A milkshake was just the ticket. It seemed a bit strange to mix two potentially obscure flavours but somehow it worked. We took our shakes down to Trafalgar Square to enjoy what was turning out to be a fabulous day. The sky was so blue and I even had time for a bit of cloud gazing spotting a horse in the clouds. Or something horse-like. Or not. You may have to use some imagination.

You must surely be wondering by now where we get to the watching people run their guts out stage? Okay maybe not but here it is anyway. We walked from Trafalgar Square through crazy Piccadilly Circus up Regent Street to Nike Town and found that they were having a Nike Festival of Air. It sounds much more dramatic than it actually is and its all about promoting a new range of Nike Air shoes. Part of the Festival is to “Run on Air”. Basically, they have these three treadmills set up and the challenge is to run for as long as you can at the average pace that Paula Radcliffe runs a marathon. This average pace ladies and gentlemen is a “slow” 11.6 miles an hour. I joke you not. Holey dooley! I can’t even run at 11.6 kilometres an hour let alone do it over 26 miles! The longest time every day wins a pair of the new shoes and the longest time at the end of the festival (Thur, 28th Sep) gets a one-on-one training session with Paula Radcliffe. Not a prize to be scoffed at.

So, anyway, we watched a few people try it most of them averaging about 1-2 minutes at that pace and some finding it so fast they literally flew off the back of the treadmill. Okay – that was just one guy but still. You can see in the pic to the above right the guy in the middle is already struggling and they are only 3 seconds into the run! He lasted maybe another 20 seconds and the other two didn’t last much longer – I think the girl went over just a minute and the guy on the left maybe two minutes. When you see how fast their legs were going you realise just how fast Paula runs in a marathon. Hurts just thinking about it.

And then along came Mr Marathon. Otherwise known as Ryan McKinlay. Now this is one guy intent on winning the grand prize. According to the Nike Air Festival website before today’s performance he had already clocked 25 mins 30 seconds and 32 mins and 31 seconds in at least two previous attempts. (He may have had more attempts but they are the ones currently in the top 5.) So, before Mr Marathon started his run today some other guy, Chris Kantos, held the record at 35 mins and 31 seconds.

Mr Marathon proved he was up to the challenge and more. The pic to the left is him at 28 minutes. Still looking really easy, still relaxed, giant strides, and close to the front of the treadmill. I was getting tired just watching him. Another 22 minutes (!) later we thought it was all over at 50 mins. Seemed he had something to prove though as he pushed himself that little bit further. Record: 51 mins and 3 seconds. That is going to take some beating. If you’re keen to try – you have until Thursday to do so!

Conran’s Butlers Wharf Chop House

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My brother has a friend (“He Who Knows”) who challenged him to give the Kua-rating on a number of experiences to be had in London. One of the experiences was The Conran Restaurants. Conran Restaurants are synonymous with fine dining and as anyone knows there are a LOT of Conran Restaurants to choose from so my brother had a bit of a challenge just narrowing it down to even one. He thought that there are actually not a lot of English fine dining experiences in London so today we ended up at Butlers Wharf Chop House which is known for making the best of British ingredients.

The Chop House has an amazing location right on the Thames with views of Tower Bridge. Today its outside seating on their riverside terrace was the perfect place to enjoy the fantastic late summer weather we seem to be experiencing of late, even if we had loads of tourists walking by gawking at our food.

Food-wise I was determined to try something a little bit different instead of going with the usual something safe. For a starter I went with Potted Morecambe Bay shrimps. Something very different to be sure. I love my seafood but even these potted shrimps for me were almost too shrimpy. The triangles of toast that accompanied the shrimps were definitely needed to break up the buttery shrimpiness. Not a bad starter and I don’t regret choosing it but I’m not sure I’d eat it again. Oh – I can say I’ve tried sweetbreads now (which my brother had as starters.) I was prepared not to like them but they were actually fairly tasty with none of that strange taste you get with other wierd innards you might eat (giblets, livers, etc.)

Choosing a main was a little hard. English food isn’t all that adventurous and while the usual suspects: Fish and Chips, Fisherman’s Pie, Roast Rib of Beef & Yorkshire Pudding and Steak & Kidney Pudding were all very tempting to go with choosing them would definitely break my rule of going for something different. Just as well they had a seasonal game menu and on it was partridge as pictured above. I can’t remember the description but the partridge sure was fun to eat. Its a lot gamier than I thought it would be but it was very tasty.

Of course we fit in dessert as well. I wouldn’t say that the first two courses were overly filling though to be honest if we’d stopped after our mains it would have been enough but who can resist the call of Apple and Blackberry Crumbled served with warmed custard. Yum much?

The experience at Butlers Wharf Chop House was pretty good but unless you’re made of money it won’t be an every day experience. The food was very high quality. The waiters were very attentive (almost overly so) though ironically they were slowest when we asked for the bill (not once but twice!) – the good thing was we never felt pressured to leave once we’d finished eating and drinking though to be fair the restaurant wasn’t exactly packed solid. The astmosphere was fabulous (great views!) I would definitely recommend it – but mostly for that great summer day where you can make the most of the blue skies and warm weather.

Princess Gardens

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This is definitely a yum-cha at the top of the price ladder. Situated just off Oxford Street I don’t think it is positioned to capture the hordes of “common” people after ordinary yum-cha – I think its more about capturing the dinner crowd or the business meal crowd. It is posh, modern, stylish and almost too polite. Real yum-cha should be a noisy and dirty affair. You will definitely know you’re in Mayfair when you sit down in Princess Gardens.

That is not to say that the Princess Gardens experience was necessarily negative. The food is delicious and fairly good quality. The service is efficient and extremely polite. However, you will definitely pay for all of this including what I believed to be 13% service charge (optional I’m sure? Yea right.) Even the current 12.5% standard across London is ridiculous.

So, go to Princess Gardens if you want to maybe impress someone or have a pleasant, if not genuine, yum-cha experience. Be sure to bring your platinum credit card though as you may end up paying a fairly high price.

Food Poisoning … yet again

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So, for the third time in the last 15 months I’ve been struck down again by some sort of awful awful food poisoning. Everytime it strikes it seems to get worse and worse. This time around I was wiped out for five days so even I was starting to get worried and actually contemplating a visit to the doctor – and those who know me will realise this is absolutely the last thing I’d do – or even more drastic contemplating taking medicine – which is even more less likely than a visit to the doctor!

Its not that I object to the concept of doctors per se but the thought of sitting in the doctor’s surgery for hours waiting for my appointment to be met only to be told all I need to do is keep my fluids up and get lots of rest .. well, clearly this is not anything new.

Anyway, I’m finally feeling better and if there is a plus side to being sick its not having any appetite or feeling hungry … ever.

PS I don’t think it was from The Waterway by the way!

The Waterway II

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A friend from university was visiting London so Elvira organised a group of us to get together for a bit of a catch up. I won’t say exactly how long it is since I’ve seen her but it was a very very long time ago. The initial plan was to grab some dinner and catch a show at a comedy club in Maida Vale. After much wandering around looking for somewhere to eat we actually ended up at The Waterway. Just like the last time I visited it was heaving. Clearly a popular spot. And just like the last time I was here the food served, though delicious, was still on the cool side. I really struggle to understand how they couldn’t serve my steak hot consider the grill was literally right next to me!

Anyhow it was great to catch up with Kirsti and I’m looking forward to her coming back full time next year.

La Pampa Grill

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I’m always up for a great steak and this Argentinian restaurant is famous for them. I’d read a few of the reviews of this restaurant before and it has always gotten fabulous ratings for the meats but no so great ratings for anything else – starters, wines, service so I wasn’t expecting much.

There are actually two branches of La Pampa Grill near Clapham Junction and I think we were at the Battersea Rise one. Being a weeknight and relatively early, especially on these long summer days, we were one of the first into the restaurant so we had the wait staff all to ourselves. As a result the service was, if not super engaging and effusive, at least not unfriendly and relatively efficient.

Though tempting to go all out with starters, main and dessert we limited ourselves to a simple steak and sides. Probably a good call because the steak was filling and the sides of chips and vegetables more than enough to fill any gaps in our stomaches. The steak was indeed one of the best I’d had in a long while – tender, tasty and juicy it was all you could ask for in grilled meat. The chips were nice and chunky though the vegetables were seemingly a little overcooked. After all that I still felt like having dessert – apple crumble – which probably was a bit of a mistake as I ended up waddling out of the restaurant. When will I ever learn …

Overall, I can definitely recommend this restaurant for its steak. Value for money … well, I think it does tend to be on the pricey side. As for service I think it would really depend on the night and time of night you’re at the restaurant. As I stated we had no problems with it but I think other visitors haven’t had so positive experiences.

Papageno

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Quirky (or whacky), original and dramatic, Papageno’s is one of those restaurants you have to visit just to experience. As it boasts on its website, Papageno is appropriately located in the heart of theatre land with its very busy colourful interior filled with “stage props, flamboyant artwork, gilt furniture and heavy drapes.” The opera music playing in the background simply adds to the atmosphere. I’m sure that they get a lot of tourists with their cameras in there so I guess I fit right in. Heh heh.

For a Friday night they didn’t appear to be too busy – which was a good thing as that meant Rehana and I weren’t pressured to leave despite having finished our meals and drinks a very long time before we left. To that extent I was very pleased with the service which was attentive in the beginning but when they realised we were there to have a bit of a gossip session pretty much left us alone.

Food-wise I think it was pretty decent, if not spectacular. I had a starter of calamari followed by a grilled salmon, which literally was only a grilled salmon so needed to order a side of veges, and both were well cooked and tasty. I think Rehana was also pleased with her meal. When I visit the sister restaurant, Sarastro, I might try and be a bit more adventurous with my choices (though to be honest I think their menu is exactly the same) and see how they fair.

For something a little different be sure to drop in to Papageno’s.