You could probably count the number of restaurants in London which have a Josper Grill in their kitchen on two hands and the French bistro that is Bistro Du Vin is one of them. The Josper Grill, for meat lovers, specifically steak, is a hybrid oven and charcoal grill rolled into one. It has been the in-thing with steak/meat restaurants for the past year – and you could well understand why with its ability to cook steak or meat in half the time, deliver a charcoaly smoky outside and a juicy tender inside. Supposedly it works equally well in roasting shelled seafood such as lobster, crayfish and mussels.

Bistro Du Vin has an appealing open plan kitchen so for food geeks like us it afforded us a view of the Josper Grill at work. Eating at the bar would be fun but tonight we sat at one of the tables surrounding the bar. The menu at Bistro Du Vin is typical of Anglo-French (safe) offerings including a mixture of meat, seafoods and salads with your foie gras and pates, sweetbreads, lobster bisques etc. and of course their Josper Grill offerings.

If only I’d had more of an appetite! For once I wasn’t that starving but knew I had to try something from the Grill. Both Pat and I opted for the “BdV burger with relish and fries”. The food is served on a chopping board and pleasingly comes with a side of Béarnaise sauce, whether it was for the burger of the fries I don’t know but I was happy to use it on both. The burger bread is almost a brioche type bun so sweet in contrast with the seasoned burger. And didn’t the Josper Grill produce a very amazing burger. Full of charcoal flavour but so juicy and tasty. I’d love to come back and try one of their steaks on for size! The fries that come with the burger come as a giant portion though they were slightly disappointing as they were kind of soggy though I did like the fact they were kind of in between the size of French fry and fat chips.

Definitely one to keep on the list.

I’ve always overlooked Savannah Jerk in Soho thinking it was a fast food type of venue (apparently it used to be Mr Jerk) but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was actually alright and definitely a step up from the McDonalds and even Nando Chickens of the world (although admittedly prices are on average £5 higher than Nando’s). And it is extremely popular! Admittedly it can cater for about 25 people at most and we were lucky that when we came in a couple were just finishing up so we slipped right in, otherwise we might have been in for a longer wait.

Thank goodness the venue doesn’t go over the top with its decoration (thereby entering the cheesy and tacky land) and though the walls are brightly coloured it kind of suited the atmosphere. Staff at Savannah Jerk are incredibly relaxed and friendly (and dare I say very Caribbean) – so relaxed that they’re happy for you to duck next door to grab fried dumplings and bring it back (because they only do boiled dumplings.)

They don’t let you stumble onto average dishes on the menu either – when I was contemplating the Pineapple Jerk Chicken my waitress was quick to recommend that I don’t get that dish as she knew I’d be disappointed! The menu has a range of chicken, meat and seafood dishes and a good range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktail-y beverages. To be honest everything I saw on the tables around me looked delicious but I decided on the braised oxtail in the end (Rehana took my first option of the brown stewed chicken) with a side of fried dumpling from next door 😉

Portions at Savannah Jerk are giant and extremely filling. Food is delicious. Both Rehana and I gave our respective dishes the tick of approval. The oxtail was tender and juicy and just the right level of seasoning. Special mention on the lovely plantain. Mmmm. The wait-staff absolutely loved Rehana and kept us talking at the bar way after we’d finished paying for our meals. I suspect they felt they’d met a kindred spirit.

I don’t often find myself in the Euston area for food however tonight Sandra and I made a visit to the little (and by little I mean tiny!) Sushi of Shiori on the advice of Laney who had positively gushed about her experience there. She was also backed up by the numerous positive reviews online so we were very much looking forward to our visit.

Sushi of Shiori reminds me so much of my time in Japan where you would stumble upon little treasures of dining places. Intimate, cute, often family-run and welcoming. At Sushi of Shiori there are a total of seven seats! with three facing the chef and four facing out onto the street. The menu is varied and it seems the vast majority of diners will pre-order an omakase (tasting menu) which start at £30 per person but how high you go is up to you and they will tailor your sushi accordingly to your price. Selections of sushi cover the usual suspects of ngiri, sashimi, maki etc.. The specialty is their canapé sushi or temari sushi (available on pre-order only.)

We decided to try out these little balls of fun and then ordered further items off the a la carte menu. The temari were pretty incredible and looked so pretty. We were handed this brush for application of our soy sauce – I guess too often people drown their sushi in the stuff, but also dipping the rice into the soy effectively works to separate all the rice bits so you end up with your sushi disintegrating. Our a la carte dishes came after and then a further round was required as we were still not full! This was the only thing that surprised me about Sushi of Shiori – we left, if not feeling hungry, less full than we normally do after a meal of sushi. That could be because we are just greedy. Heh heh. We roughly spent £35 each which included green tea but no alcohol.

The little Japanese woman who serves your food is so cute and so Japanese. I rather loved this. Japanese people are just so polite and sweet.

I’d definitely like to come back to sample the omakase … especially if its finished off with black sesame ice cream.

Cathy was gagging for sum yum cha (yay – another yum cha buddy!) so I thought it would be nice if we visited Shanghai Blues since they had a 50% deal. I also invited Craig and Lynley along since I know they enjoy their yum-cha too. The meal ended up being very cheap at about £12 each (including tea etc.) however! the yum cha was very poor. I wish I’d taken photos as on the whole most dishes we had were very ordinary – surprisingly since they sometimes throw dim sum making classes now and then.

The hau gau was falling apart with water from the steam getting inside the crystal wrapper as it wasn’t sealed properly (a sin), the cheung fung was unexcited and other dishes were just generally lackluster. Now imagine you paid full price on these dishes – you’d feel fairly ripped off. The one plus they did have some more unusual dishes such as the Tai Chi Dumplings (flour-made pastry with half black octopus juice to crest Yuan-Yang effect) and Quail Egg & Seafood ‘Sao Mai’ and which were good to try on a discount.

Overall a disappointing visit though we couldn’t complain about the price.