In the last few days I’ve dragged everyone from the team out to lunch to sample the Ealing offerings. It was kind of a Round the World journey with samplings of Japanese, Nepalese and English food.

Okawari

This smallish restaurant serves a wide variety of Japanese dishes from sushi, noodles, rice dishes, curries and teriyaki dishes. The most entertaining aspect for me was walking in to see that everyone appeared to be sitting on the ground to have their meals tatami-style!. In actuality it appeared that there had been holes cut in underneath the tables so you could sit comfortably at the table though Amelia opted to go the cross-legged sit anyway!

The restaurant was fairly packed when we walked in so you could see that it was quite a favourite for Ealing lunching. They have a lunch special which gets you a main dish, miso soup and green tea (free refills.) Portions were generous and food was fairly tasty so good value for money. Staff are friendly. I would have liked to have sampled their sushi and sashimi.

Monty’s

In contrast with Okawari our experience at Monty’s was slightly disappointing. Though the curry that I had was tasty the portion sizes were very small. D’s was so tiny that I doubt he even felt the slightest bit filled. The service too was a little blah as our waiter was quite indifferent. All the good reviews of this restaurant, however, want me to give it a second chance. I guess time will tell whether I visit again.

North Star

North Star is located right near Ealing Broadway so is guaranteed to be quite the popular hang out. They have a food/wine menu printed on cute browned paper which, we presumed, doubled as placemats. The service was a little bit slow both in placing our orders and in actually getting our food. Unfortunately for Jon the person who took is order didn’t pay attention to his request to remove the mayonnaise dressing from his fish finger sandwhich but that, other than the delay in getting our food, were the main negatives to the lunch experience. Food was quite tasty.