The premiere venue for brunch in London has to be The Wolseley, even if you may only be able to afford it once in your life. Let me point out from the outset that prices are on the high side but the pay-off is impeccable service, delicious food and a glamorous setting. The main room is normally booked in weeks in advance so you’re well advised that if you have a specific time you have set you heart on dining at then make sure to book it in as soon as you can. However, if you’re willing to chance it like we were, The Wolseley does have a policy of ensuring that some tables are available on a first-come first-served basis.

So, I haven’t seen Rita in a few months now due to various things happening in both our lives so I was pleased that we could meet up for brunch – one of my favourite meals of the day, along with, as I’ve said before, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Ahem.

We decided to chance getting a table in The Wolseley at about 10.30 this morning and it seemed Lady Luck was on our side and we pretty much walked in and were seated straight away. It was amazingly busy so we were surprised to be doing so. Admittedly it wasn’t in the main room but we were having brunch at The Wolseley all the same so no complaints from me. (I’m unsure if the policy of having some tables available on a first-come first serve basis includes tables in the main room.)

The interior is gorgeous and sumptuous and with the gold leaf, high ceilings, black lacquer, marble and chandeliers was a pleasant environment indeed to be having a catch up. Once seated service was immediate with menus presented to us and, shortly after this, a waitress to take our drinks orders. I noticed that throughout the service was efficient without being intrusive. In fact, after we finished our meals, we sat at the table for over an hour and were not bothered at all by staff either to ask if we wanted further drinks or even to move us on. Bearing in mind that there were always a bunch of people standing at the door waiting to be seated and that we out-sat about three other couples this concession was surprising but very welcome as we had a lot to catch up on. Service was very responsive as well because as soon as I turned around to request the bill a waitress was with us immediately. Impeccable, and classy, service.

For brunch neither of us could go past the Eggs Benedict which is a kind of signature dish at The Wolseley. Kind of on the expensive side at £13.50 for the “large” serving (that is, two Eggs Benedict) but extremely delicious and a pleasant surprise. (I’ve never tried Eggs Benedict before so was quite pleased to be trying it out The Wolseley.)

The Wolseley is just something so London that I’m glad that I’ve finally been able to tick it off my to-do list. The only minor disappointment was not being able to take photos. I’m sure I could have tried to take a sneaky couple but wasn’t in the mood to be shouted out by staff! I did, however, manage to take this pretty rubbish photo using my phone camera of my meal without being caught.

Everyone who’s ever eaten at Busaba Eathai has raved about it. I’ve been here once before and though the food was good I honestly didn’t think it had anything special over any of the other myriad of Thai restaurants available at London so it has always puzzled me that the lines out the door can often go down the block and around the corner. Which is where it went just after we joined the line. Tonight we got to the Wardour Street restaurant at about 7pm and the line was fairly reasonable with about ten or so parties before us but it didn’t take long before the line behind us had more than quadrupled. People are willing to wait though, a surprisng thing in hurried London, as the food is that good and in all honesty the turnover inside the restaurant is reasonble and the wait not that long – for us it was about half an hour.

The restaurant is overwhelmingly buzzy and loud once you get inside. Its not exactly the kind of place which encourages intimate dining and dates though I guess you could use the excuse of the inability to hear each other to snuggle right up close to each other to speak! heh heh. It is also communal style dining so you will definitely be sharing the table with others. Even in a group conversation is difficult and between the four of us, Pauline, Caroline, Leah we barely said a word at dinner it was that loud. Or it could have been we were so hungry we just wanted to eat our food as quickly as possible!

Busaba is known for its speed, reasonable prices and consistent quality. The service was pretty good tonight – friendly and quick (once our waitress turned up.) Food arrived pretty quickly too which was pleasing. We shared chicken satay (chicken thighs rather than chicken skewers which were okay but nowhere as good as those at Awana and Mango Tree) and vegetable spring rolls which were delicious. I opted for a Pad kwetio (rice stick noodle with smoked chicken, prawn and holy basil) which was indeed hot – but didn’t have as much flavour as I was expecting. Three good sized prawns and heaps of chicken though. With drinks (not including service) the meal was £15 each which isn’t too bad. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly as its sister chain Wagamama does the same thing, service is not automatically added to the bill which makes a pleasant change.

As food goes I guess its pretty good Thai though in all honesty nothing out of the ordinary. The options on the menu are fairly diverse with both typical and not so typical options. Service is also quick and friendly. My only objection is just how loud it gets in the restaurant which makes conversation really difficult. Go for a quick meal option.

How can you not love a restaurant with a catchphrase like that!

Hummus Bros is one of those restaurants that I’ve been meaning to go visit for quite some time but always got pushed behind other restaurant choices. Finally, Catherine took things into her hands and arranged for us (her, Jenny and I) to check out this houmous bar. We were all, if not quite dying of curiosity, at least very curious as to how a houmous bar could operate – after all houmous has probably always been considered to be a side dish or starter of sorts.

The way it works is that they get a bowl and slather houmous around the sides and then throw some toppings on top. All the houmous is the same but it’s the toppings that differ – chickpeas, fava beans, vegetable salad, mushrooms, guacamole, chicken and chunky beef are the regulars and they also have rotating specials. Tonight’s was mexican beef spiced minced beef topped with shredded cheddar cheese & crushed tortilla chips.

The “small” serve (which is actually a regular serve) come with one warmed pitta bread and the “regular” (what I consider large) comes with two. I was pleased to see that the pitta was both wholemeal and quite chunky. A “small” and a side is recommended by the website as a decent portion. To be honest one “small” houmous each and two sides shared between the three of us was more than enough to fill. Though I must admit I couldn’t look past trying the Malabi dessert.

I was quite pleased with my chunky beef houmous. The beef was perfectly tender and very chunky, as promised. Saucy as well. With the beautiful pitta it was perfect. Though I was tempted to go for another pitta actually one was more than enough. Two would have probably left me bloated though I’m sure I would have happily finished it off. Jenny went for the mexican beef, which she seemed happy with, and Catherine the guacamole. We shared a Greek Salad and the Smoky Barbecued Aubergine with pine nuts. Both served cold the salad was nice but the aubergine wasn’t very smoky or barbecuey. My Malabi dessert (basically like a pannacotta with date honey (tasted like golden syrup) poured over it) was very pretty but nothing stunning. To finish our waiter was really nice and served us with small (complimentary) glasses of mint tea.

In fact the service was perfect tonight – attentive, not pushy (even when we were finished and there was a line out the door we were never rushed to leave) and very friendly and patient. The atmosphere is quite nice in the restaurant. There is only enough seating for 24 on long benches although there is also a bar facing the street where people can sit. Strangely they haven’t tried to fit too many tables into the restaurant and there is more than enough space to sit comfortably and move around which is a nice change although due to the nature of the tables be prepared to sit quite close to your neighbour.

Our bill came to £15 each (including service which we happily handed over) which I think is a touch on the pricey side for what is essentially an item you can buy in a tub from the supermarket or grocers for a few quid plus some extras. Still, I can’t say we weren’t stuffed after our meal and we did enjoy our toppings.

Hummus Bros is ideal for a quick and relatively healthy meal (not the kind of place you’d really linger.) Great friendly service in a good location.

First there was Wagamama, then Busaba Ethai, then Hakkasan, then Yauatcha, and then the end of 2007 brought us sake no hana. Will the Alan Yau juggernaut ever stop? (Well, I know it hasn’t as his latest, Cha Cha Moon, recently opened in London! Not to worry, this one’s next on my list. Ha ha)

We all know he has had great success with cheap Japanese and Thai and sophisticated Chinese but what about sophisticated Japanese?
Taking advantage of a toptable offer (50% off food) my brother and I decided to check out how Alan Yau could deliver. Sadly we were grossly disappointed.

They say that first impressions are everything and sorry to say but sake no hana’s first impression on me was not great. We arrived in a grand foyer and were directed to take an escalator up to the restaurant located on the first floor. Expecting to be seated straight away we were instead directed to the bar for an inordinately long time considering the fact that the restaurant was barely full. I know the tactic of a lot of restaurants these days to get you to sit at the bar first but for over 20 minutes. Ridiculous.

Finally we were seated and things went along okay for a while. Thankfully we were sat at the normal tables though a little bit of me was slightly disappointed that we weren’t sitting on the faux tatami mats (actually sunken tables to imitate sitting on tatami mats with less of the discomfort.) The menu of sake no hana is split into ten sections including sushi, soup, noodle, appetisers, sashimi, grilled, tempura and fried. This I read is an improvement on the original menu from when the restaurant first opened upon which everything was lumped together so that appetisers sat next to main meals and sushi so you couldn’t tell just exactly how much you were ordering.

The menu was mostly decipherable though contained some items written in romaji (Japanese language written in the latin alphabet) so for example, grilled onigiri and unagi you might be interested to know is rice and eel (to put it simply) so if you’re keen to know exactly all the offerings on the menu it may be a good idea to brush up on some common Japanese dishes. But in the main the menu is in English. We decided on a range of dishes covering a few of the cooking styles including mixed seasonal tempura, fig tempura with yuzu salt, sesame aubergine (appetiser), the aforementioned grilled onigiri and unagi, and braised pork ribs. At full price these five dishes cost £53 which to me was staggering. Admittedly we were quite full at the end of the meal but quality and taste-wise there was nothing special or spectacular for that price. Admittedly the fig tempura was quite tasty and I would definitely recommend the sesame aubergine but the rest of the dishes? I’ve had equal quality or better at other Japanese restaurants.

So, that’s the food. Back briefly to the service. I found the service a bit slow and laboured. They seemed to employ the multi-tasking approach to service with one person taking your order, another bring the food from the kitchen and then another taking it from that person and placing it on your table. Excessive much? If it had been efficient and unnoticeable fair enough but I could see that there was constant confusion about which dishes belonged at which table. Further, tap water was given very sparingly. Once at the beginning of the meal it was delivered to us in minute glasses and they weren’t refilled until we asked for more. Paying took at least another half an hour with half that time spent waiting for the bill and the rest of the time waiting for someone to come to take our payment. Ridiculous. Not the first time I’ve used this word in this entry! Did I also mention it was a 13% service charge – at least they only charged it on the reduced price and not the pre-discount price.

Worse than all of this I couldn’t even take photos! Though I did manage to sneak one in quickly during the time they sat us at the bar. Ha – take that!

If I had one word for our experience tonight I would say “disappointing”. There’s no doubt the restaurant looks good – but looks aren’t very filling I’m afraid! I was expecting so much more from this Alan Yau product. Mainly in the food and the service. I guess it was worth going at least once to tick it off my to do list!

One of the only benefits of working near Wembley Central was the opportunity to get to Sakonis which is Number 34 on Timeout’s Top 50 for 2008.

This institution is known for bringing in the crowds on weekends and to be honest it was fairly crowded for a Thursday late lunch too. The restaurant isn’t much to look at – almost clinical looking with its white tiles and interior but the food on offer was fabulous. It offers a great selection of very tasty Gujarati vegetarian food and strangely enough even some Chinese dishes (mainly noodles.) The fact that it was a buffet meant we could also sample to our delight (and peril … I know I certainly overate!) Half the time I wasn’t actually sure what I was eating but I was definitely a fan of the masala dosa and the simple bhel mix. The food was actually so tasty you almost forgot you weren’t eating any meat!

Sakonis isn’t a flashy place but for decent vegetarian Indian food at a decent price I would definitely recommend. The service ain’t all that bad either – efficient and relatively friendly.

Pat and Claire are currently working their way through Time Out’s 2008 Top 50 London Restaurants and J. Sheekey makes it on to the list on the strength of their fish. They have kindly invited me along to all their dinners and even though I’ve been to J. Sheekey before on that occasion I didn’t try any of their signature dishes (the Fish Pie and the Spotted Dick) so of course I couldn’t refuse to go 🙂

In the last five months since I last visited there hasn’t been any change at all to the restaurant – its still old-school, discrete and classic. The only change was to the menu and I was glad that this time around Spotted Dick made it on to the menu. Ironically we were even seated next to the table where Jenny and I sat last time!

As I mentioned above this was my chance to try the dishes I wanted to try last time but didn’t – the Fish Pie and the Spotted Dick. My starter tonight was pan-fried scallops with wild garlic mash and crispy bacon. The scallops were divine, if a touch salty, and the mash and bacon were equally up to the task. A good starter but at 15.25 was actually pricier than my main of Fish Pie! (12.75)

The Fish Pie was what I was looking forward to most and though very well put together (with a beautifully light and fluffy mash topping and creamy filling) something made it a little too salty for my taste. It could have been all the smoked fish. Generally as pie the fish inside it was very generous.

Finally, and even though I could barely fit it in, I finished with a dessert of Spotted Dick. This is one dish I have no trouble recommending. Accompanied by butter and golden syrup and loads of custard (for once a serving of custard which was more than enough) it was delish and hardly as rich as I was expecting it to be.

Tonight, as per last time, the service was very spotty – friendly when we got it but visits from the staff were far and few in between. I’d expect somewhere like J. Sheekey to ensure our glasses of water were topped up constantly at the very least but they weren’t and we had to keep requesting water just to keep hydrated …