Surely by now everyone knows that Hawksmoor is easily the best meat restaurant in London? If you go there for lunch you’ll have this truth made plentifully clear to you thanks to the lunch special’s profuse personality of flavour fireworks and taste titillations.

Hawksmoor has undergone some re-development since my last visit; there is now a greater surface-area for tables. The denizens of London clearly have taste as the restaurant was practically full during our meal. I’m really happy when I see what I know to be a good restaurant doing well. As we arrived we scored some of their excellent Pale Ale and scoped out the menu. A new addition was 500g of 55 day-aged rump steak, which seemed both intriguingly aged and sized, but we were there for the lunchtime-only offering that has generated much excitement in the London food blogging scene: the Hawksmoor beef burger.

Of course, being healthy diners of solid constitution we needed a starter. All three of us chose the Tamworth belly ribs; a much-loved option that has only been below par once during my innumerable visits here. These were a colossal success. They were incredibly tender, with their intense, porky, fatty flavours enhanced by subtle spices. As each bite melted on my palate I felt enthused with the knowledge that my fellow diners and I were fine and noble beings for getting such corporeal and cerebral gratification from the consummately well-prepared bits of what were plainly very happy animals. These were ribs of outstanding quality, so naturally by the time I finishing up there was much sighing, groaning and writhing with pleasure.

Then came the beef burger.

If that picture doesn’t make you want to eat one now I worry, dear reader, for your commitment to the food aesthetic.

Yet, they were better than that picture can communicate. The meat was well-aged cuts from less well-known bits of Longhorn cattle enhanced with morsels of bone marrow, cooked medium/rare to medium so it was still pink and juicy in the centre. When I took my first bite I was immediately aware this was a stupendous burger. It was comprised of impressively beef-driven tastes with plenty of mature meat characteristics giving it a thoroughly deep panoply of rich, complex flavours. A psyche-enhancing, physically-fulfilling, top grade burger-patty.

The burger could be enhanced with one of two choices of cheese. The Stichelton (effectively Stilton made with unpasteurised milk, manifestly a first-rate cheese) I chose added creamy richness and fungal piquancy to the burger’s range of stimulating flavours. Stimulating in a not quite genteel manner if I may speak candidly; there is more than a suggestion of crude smut about the enjoyment of such a piece of food. The roll was indubitably up to standard and absorbent enough to soak up most of the lovely juices coming from the burger.

Hawksmoor may feel they have to put a leaf of some worthless plant and a slice of tomato in the bun just to appease those preposterous types who think plants are an agreeable alternative to proper food, but they didn’t really add to the experience. If you do want to try augmenting the experience without having someone perform an intimate act on your person there is also the opportunity to pay a few fun tokens extra and have some supplementary Ginger Pig streaky bacon added to the burger. Whilst we all greatly enjoy this bacon we felt the addition of it would be gilding the lily and so turned down this offer. You have the choice of either triple-cooked chips (I’d prefer frites, really) or some inane assortment of bits of vegetable matter alongside, which I suppose is nice enough but I was there for significant food.

For a beef burger of such depraved, dissolute, debauched quality they seemed completely reasonably priced at £15 (with side selections). I’ve never had a more utterly wonderful burger than this foray into the oeuvre by Hawksmoor; further evidence that even with more straightforward food the limits of pleasure are yet to be defined or reached. Service at the restaurant was (as ever) friendly, enthusiastic, but unobtrusive. Their wine list continually gets more interesting, there is the top Pale Ale on offer and the scrumptious selections from their 1920s-themed cocktail list are awfully tempting. You cannot go far wrong at Hawksmoor. Unless you don’t like meat, of course (you unhinged, disturbed person).

Contact details: Hawksmoor, 157 Commercial Street, E1 6BJ Telephone: 020 7247 7392

As soon as I had a taste of one of the three real ales on offer at the Harwood Arms in Fulham I felt confident we were in for a good meal; anywhere that can treat beer with such respect would surely do well with food. We were further re-assured by the elegant design of the dining room and the offer of venison Scotch eggs as a bar snack.

Needless to say, we ordered a couple of these Scotch eggs to sample as we looked at the menu; would they be as good as the Hind’s Head offerings? Indeed they were! Very meaty with a perfectly melting egg in the centre. Serving them on a little square of brown paper was perhaps a tad odd, but the sprinkle of salt crystals on top was most appreciated.

The menu had so many tempting dishes we found it easy to order three different starters and main courses between the four of us, only repeating choices that seemed so personally pleasurable it would be almost rude to turn them down. As is the current trend, it generally listed the sources of its main elements. This can sometimes seem a bit pretentious, but it wasn’t out of place on this ingredient-centric menu.

 

‘Non-Stinky’ Jeff went for one of the daily specials, some smoked salmon with horseradish cream. Smoked salmon is usually an easy ‘opt-out’ dish for a restaurant; they can buy it cheaply from the local supermarket and just dish out the flavourless pap and charge through the nose for it. Not so at the Harwood Arms, this stuff had real character. I was really compelled by my little taste and NSJ, who claims not to be enthused by horseradish, said the cream was a perfectly balanced accompaniment.

Daniel chose salted, braised ox tongue with a cauliflower cheese croquette and pickles. My three dining companions were all a bit sniffy about the cauliflower cheese action, claiming not to like the stuff and saying it might not get eaten. How wrong they were! The smallest taste proved this to be a really top example of cauliflower cheese; even super-anti-cauliflower Daniel ate it with limited moaning. It was finished up with impressive speed. The tongue itself, something I would normally avoid as I’m not generally wowed by it, was very tender and had a really satisfying flavour; so good, in fact, that I would happily order this dish again should it be an option when we return here.

Dan’s and my choice of starter was thrustingly, pulsingly, throbbingly brilliant: snails braised in stout with oxtail and bone marrow. This re-defined the entire snail genre for me. Sure, the classic Burgundian and Alsatian styles with garlic, butter, parsley (and Riesling  in Alsace) will forever have a special place in my heart, but this offering opened our eyes to new possibilities of snail brilliance. The richness of bone marrow and oxtail coupled with the intense flavour of the stout only added to the meaty, grassiness of the snails. The result was a dish which had us grinning with gustatory hilarity and positively chortling with aesthetic mirth. The only disappointing thing about the dish is that there were only six snails; we wanted, no needed more. These really were Snails par excellence. Wake up Alsace and Burgundy, your snail crowns are under threat from a boozer in Fulham.

 

We felt really rather satisfied with the starters, so expected more good stuff from the main courses. We were not disappointed. Daniel chose a grilled chop and braised shoulder of Lockinge estate fallow deer with crisp garlic potatoes, black cabbage and mushroom ketchup. The chop was served very rare and was unusually flavoursome. The large croquette of braised shoulder had a brilliantly soft texture and a rich, meaty flavour which was further enhanced by the mushroom ketchup. This was a quality venison dish.

NSJ and I ordered glazed leg of Gressingham duck with smoked ham hock, split green peas and and crisp potatoes. The duck was so tender it yielded to the slightest touch from a fork; totally scrum-tastic too. This piece of duck sat on the crisp potatoes, which were nice enough, and they were on top of the peas and ham hock which were mixed together in a decadent melange of loveliness. NSJ and I were totally content with our selection. Then we tried Dan’s option.

Beef cheeks stewed in ale with clotted cream mash was an inspired choice by Dan. Beef cheeks are super-fashionable at the moment and the Harwood Arms are clearly at the bleeding edge of food trendiness. The cheeks themselves were stewed to the point that they almost dissolved on your palate, releasing super-beefy flavours of richness and complexity. These were mind-bendingly good things to be eating. Mash is a good accompaniment to stewed meat and this one had both the required light, fluffiness and the much appreciated rich decadence. The lump of clotted cream on top of the mash was an amusing addition, and it added more of that lovely, lovely dissolute character. We all thought this was the best main course and I will find it very difficult to turn this option down should it be on the menu on our next visit.

We are generally not terribly thrilled by desserts in most restaurants, but all but one of the offerings on the menu seemed interesting and as cleverly constructed as the preceding courses. We ordered four different desserts and passed spoonfuls of them around so we could all share in the experiences. There were moans and sighs of pleasure from all around the table.

Daniel chose baked custard with stewed Bramley apple, cider sorbet and Grassmere gingerbread. The custard had a good vanilla character and the cider sorbet and apple gave it a fresh, invigorating feel rather than making it seem heavy, ponderous and overly sweet. The ginger character of the gingerbread was quite fresh and intense; good if you like ginger, I don’t.

Dan went for a buttermilk pudding with pears and raisins poached in mead. The buttermilk pudding was creamy and attractively flavoured with a very agreeable consistency. The raisins were powerfully characterful, but Dan found it hard to discover any pear in the dish. This was a bit of a pity as the inclusion of pear was what had drawn him to ordering this dessert. He still loved it.

 

My bowl of warm marmalade doughnuts were real comfort food. The sweet but light doughnuts had marmalade in their core and they were quite scrumptious when dipped in the provided bowl of whipped cream. It was good cream rather than the thin, watery, rubbishy cream normally associated with pub desserts; good cream can make all the difference in making a dessert delectable rather than merely average. I was quite pleased with the portion size. There were enough doughnuts to pass one each to my fellow diners with enough left for me to horse down with great satisfaction. I really was satisfied; I rather like doughnuts and these were truly superior examples of the genre. I was sad to eat the last one; I would happily have eaten a bowlful even more epic in terms of size.

The final dessert was NSJ’s sticky toffee and date ice cream with caramelised brown bread and lemon curd. I loved the rich ice cream, sweet and crispy brown bread slices and agreeably acidic lemon curd. Yet, whilst each of these components were awfully jollity-augmenting in themselves, they worked together synergistically to create a downright complete dessert experience. Yet another bull’s eye from the Harwood Arms kitchen; there had been many during our meal.

With an embarrassment of riches on the menu and each dish executed with not only a high degree of competence but also definite élan it is easy to see the hand of The Ledbury in this establishment; they have the one of the same owners and their chef is an ex-Ledbury geezer. It is also not terribly surprising that the Harwood Arms has a star; high praise indeed for a gastropub. Although to be honest, this is only euphemistically a pub; even though they have tremendously well kept real ale on offer most of the floor area is taken up with dining tables with little space dedicated to the committed drinker. But when the food is this good who cares if the booze hounds are cramped with nowhere to sit? The wine list was short and very reasonably priced for London. Among the  wines of interest was a Mac Forbes Pinot Noir (albeit the generic) and as we love his wines we drank a bottle of this with much gratification after we had finished our thrillingly lively beers.

The service was friendly but unobtrusive. They did get a bit rushed when the restaurant was full, but it wasn’t too difficult to collar a waiter when we needed to. The prices are closer to a one-star level rather than a boozer, but when we got the bill it was once again remarked upon that quality dining is one of the most under-priced recreational diversions one can engage in. The Harwood Arms has our most enthusiastic recommendation as a destination for food of an obscene pleasure quotient.

When we stepped out of the pub one of the wilder locals was waiting to bid us goodnight.

Contact details: The Harwood Arms, 27 Walham Grove, SW6 1QR Telephone: 020 7386 1847

When we heard this Argentine meat restaurant did not have properly dry-aged steaks on offer we wondered if we should be cancelling our table. After a taste of their quality meat action we were terribly pleased we didn’t. Constancia is a serious destination for the lover of top-grade meat.

As we walked in we could smell the powerful aromas coming from the charcoal grill. This had pride of place right in the middle of the restaurant; an altar ready to accept meaty offerings. Generally, the dining room was quite attractive with minimalist dark wood tables, modern leather chairs and the brickwork on the back wall painted a livid red. This struck me as a good environment for eating meat.

The menu at Constancia is short and focussed; themed on bits of meat, of course. There were some wines listed in it but we fancied beer. I was very pleased they had Peroni Red (it is so rough when you swallow it you can feel it doing you good) as one of an ample selection of beers. We sipped our beers and waited. The delicious smell of sausages and meat grilling on the parrilla made our mouths water and our desire for meat ever more intense.

     

First up on the starter front came some Empanadas, Argentine beef pasties. Fresh from the fryer these were terribly hot, but the flavour was just fine. a tasty, very meaty filling with a bit of paprika heat inside a compellingly crispy pastry shell. 

My other starter was an Argentine Chorizo; it was very piggy with finely ground, rather cured meat. Its already considerable depth of flavour was further enhanced by grilling on the parrilla. The black pudding (aka morcilla)  Dan ordered had a great texture, not too liquid or slimy, and tasted like a top example of black pudding. When a restaurant can produce top-flight pasties, sausages and black pudding you really know the the evening will not be wasted.

The final starter, chosen by Daniel and ‘Non-stinky’ Jeff, consisted of slices of Iberico pork tenderloin with some pointless salad attempt; why bother with these bits of ephemera? The Salsa Criolla crudo, a sauce with finely chopped onion, bell pepper, tomato, garlic, parsley and vinaigrette, was a new and pleasant experience. We also emptied a rather small pot of Chimichurri sauce. This was very much on the mild side.

Steaks were an obvious choice for our main courses. Daniel’s fillet steak was tender with a good crust, and quite a lot of flavour for a piece of fillet. It was also a pretty serious size, it looked like half a Chateaubriand.

Dan and Jeff went for sirloin steaks and what a top option they turned out to be. Satisfying moist meaty flavour was just bursting from them; every mouthful was a piece of carnivorous delight. I was also enthused by their remarkably tender texture. Much like Hawksmoor’s sirloin they nearly matched the tenderness of the fillet steak, whilst still having that extra beefiness we love sirloin for.

These were really grown up steaks, to be enjoyed by the lover of visceral, life affirming good times. When you have pieces of meat that are this good it does make one wonder how vegetarians can even exist.

We ordered two portions of chips to go with our top-drawer meat action, one bowl of them would have been enough as they were quite large and not, if we are honest, much more than competent. Sod the chips, though, we came for meat and it was delivered.

The meal was well-lubricated with plenty of beer and we didn’t hold back in the amount we ordered, yet the bill was only half as much as a typical evening at Hawksmoor. Constancia’s meat is not quite up to the stellar heights of Hawksmoor, but is clearly better and cooked far more skilfully than at any Argentine steakhouse we’ve been to anywhere in the world. All in all, a hoopy gustatory party of lewd pleasure. A ‘must visit’ establishment if you like terribly good meat.

Contact details: Constancia, 52 Tanner Street SE1 3PH. Telephone: 020 7234 0676

I’ve raved about Hawksmoor so many times that you, my dear reader, may think that you’ve heard it all before. But Hawksmoor have not let me down in terms of providing content; they have two new side dishes which I feel enhance the meat-tastic experience of a trip to Hawksmoor no end.

First up are the double fried eggs. I’m told this is a somewhat Argentine thing to garnish your steaks with, I had no idea. I loved my couple of fried eggs  and dipping a bit of excellent steak in their yolks. Delicious!

The second new side order was stunningly wonderful: roast bone marrow. The bones are cut lengthways so it is easy to scoop out their gelatinous, rich, flavoursome goodness. Moreover, at three pounds per serving they are much cheaper than Restaurant Saint John’s offerings (the only other place I know of in London that regularly serves this dish), and by arse the Hawkmoor version is distinctly better too.

An epic steak of the very highest quality is only improved by goodies like these; I also felt improved when eating them. This is food that expresses itself as being hilariously visceral and gratuitously biological fun.

Last night we went to Hawksmoor (clearly London’s best meat restaurant); the food was, as ever, amazing. I was very pleased to see they have added roasted bone marrow to their menu as a side dish, it was super-scrummy. It the pictures our hosts took come out alright I’ll post them here with some pithy comments.

Some of my dear and much appreciated readers may recall that I am trying to shed some fat from my somewhat corpulent frame. You may not think that eating massive steaks is going to assist in the ‘becoming thin’-game. You’d be totally right; if I did eat like that every day I’d be such an impressively massive lard-arse that I’d be at risk of undergoing gravitational collapse and becoming a blackhole.

However, I have been skipping lunch most days and when we feel we can manage it then there is no dinner either. If there is very good food on offer, such as Hawksmoor’s abso-tmesis-lutely brilliant slabs of meat action, I will immerse myself in the experience and enjoy it. But if the choice is between inferior food or no food I have the strength to fight off the hunger and go for the lower calorie action. We still eat reasonably healthy things (my breakfast this morning was an orange), but eating less is clearly the most successful way of losing the lard. Has it worked? Since the end of November until up to about ten minutes ago I’ve lost 12.3kg, and I feel this merits the ejaculation, “RESULT!” followed by the slightly smug comment, “I have done well.” Our super groovy Wifi enabled scales beam my mass and percentage of body fat to a webserver which presents this data as graphs on a website; makes it very easy to track that reducing progress.

This weight loss has resulted in me now moving from the ‘obese’ category to being merely overweight. Certainly I recognise I am still on the porky side, but these categories based on Body Mass Indices should be viewed with suspicion. Some of the problems with using BMI to spot trends and draw conclusions from them are dealt with in this excellent piece from The Register. The ‘downright weird of thinking’ fellows they report on, who say we should be short as being tall wastes energy, are dismissed with ease and humour. 

12.3kg, yeah! Well done me, indeed. Just seeing the line on the graph drop as my weight gets metabolised is a great incentive to keep going. I’m clearly bloody-minded enough to hold back on food when necessary: the will-power kid! As well as being irritatingly pleased with myself about this weight loss I am also terribly proud of the partner losing even more. Well done us!

I’ve reviewed Franco Manca, Brixton’s brilliant pizza establishment, already (go here for the review). I don’t really need to repeat all of it, but it is worth re-iterating that their pizzas really are of wonderful quality and very affordable. It is a great place to stop for a quick lunch, which we did today with our lovely friend Katie. As you can see in the last picture , she was well up for diving right into her pizza.

My choice of pizza was one of their home-cured Gloucester old spot ham offerings; quite delicious. It looked like this:

The partner had a pizza topped with fresh and dried chorizo; he was most satisfied with it.

Finally, Katie had one of the daily specials: a quattro stagione. Her enthusiasm for quality pizza is plain for all to see!

If you want a quick lunch, or a really high-quality pizza, or preferably both you will find Franco Manca delivers the goods. We shall return many more times.

Last night we dined at London’s newest two-star: The Ledbury. It was totally compelling. We were hoping to have pictures of every course to embellish a detailed review. However, in their moodily-lit dining room both our cameras failed to produce any even remotely pleasing snaps of the evening’s loveliness. Consequently, rather than subject you to a long, bleak expanse of text I’ll be brief and deal with general impressions and highlights of the meal.

We chose the tasting menu as the price was little over the a la carte choices and it had dishes we would have wanted to order anyway. All the dishes were elegantly presented on quite pleasing tableware, usually with an array of little nibbly accoutrements around the edge of each plate. Every dish was quite wonderful, intelligently prepared from the very best of ingredients; two courses really stood out for me.

Firstly, squid risotto with Sherry and cauliflower. ‘Squid risotto’ needs some explaining. It was not made with rice, but with bits of squid cut into rice-sized pieces. The texture was extremely risotto-like, but it tasted mind-expandingly brilliant. The Sherry was in the form of foam and enhanced the squiddiness no end and there were impossibly thin shavings of raw cauliflower stacked at the end of the plate. This was one of the most wonderful things I have ever eaten; a stunning, fantastic re-imagining of risotto.

The second dish which rubbed my rude bits (aren’t they rude?) was the shoulder of Pyrenean milk-fed lamb cooked for twenty-four hours with confit shallot. The half-shallot was cripsy and flavoursome but the lamb… oh the lamb… Rarely have we eaten such skilfully prepared lamb. Its texture was mesmerising, meltingly tender so it almost dissolved in your mouth releasing a rich array of captivating tastes. Quite extraordinary.

The wine list was one of the best I’ve seen in London. The mark-ups were not excessive for a two-star, each bottle being approximately double retail prices. It was certainly packed with many highly-desirable wines which were usually in the realms for affordability, and there were plenty of keenly-priced, more ordinary wines for the less rabid oenophile.

I cannot fault the service; they were charming, friendly and helpful, running the course of the meal with inconspicuous ease. It is not a large restaurant, but they seemed to have staggered the arrival times of their diners very effectively so that at no point were the staff over-whelmed. It was a relaxed, perfectly paced meal.

The Ledbury is clearly one of the top dining establishments in London, and I thought our meal there was one of the very best I’ve had not just in Town, but anywhere. As far as the cost went it once again confirmed our view that fine dining is an under-priced  source of gratification. If you want inventive, compelling food with top wines in a pleasing environment you would do well to get a booking at The Ledbury.

Contact details: The Ledbury, 127 Ledbury Road, W11 2AQ. Telephone: 020 7792 9090

It was rather cold when we set off for our trek across London to Broadway Market, our quest was for the highly recommended banh mi stand there. Banh Mi 11 delivered the goods in terms of excellent Vietnamese sandwiches even if they took a while to prepare.

Banh Mi 11 are part of the Ca Phe Vietnamese coffee stand, located in a little courtyard half way along Broadway Market. This gives them space for some seating. They start serving banh mi at 10am, but as we got there a bit early they gave us some Vietnamese green tea as we waited to keep us warm on the bitterly cold morning. Then we got our banh mi

First up was a quad meat special. The banh mi lady apologised that the bread was smaller than usual; apparently it was made that morning and it had been so cold the bread hadn’t risen properly. It didn’t matter as we found the bread to be crispy and flavoursome. All the usual goodies of pickled carrots and radish, cucumber batons, coriander and (not quite enough) chillies. It was powerfully meaty with a good pork liver character from the pate. Quite delicious, but (as I said) a bit lacking on the chilli front.

Our second sandwich required an even longer wait as they cooked the pork to order; additionally it took a while for them to finish building and firing-up their barbecue. When it did finally arrive this Imperial BBQ banh mi was well up to standard. The pork was perfectly grilled and (this time) seasoned with a decent amount of chillies. Worth hooning across Town for, we thought.

In summary, very good banh mi were on offer at Banh Mi 11. The bread was in a league of its own, but the fillings were not quite up to the standard of Baguette and More in Greenwich. However, if Broadway Market is in range for you it would be a mistake not to go and try these, just don’t turn up too early on a cold morning. There are other foodie-tastic stands in the market as well.

As we have now tried the offerings from six banh mi establishments it is interesting to note the variety in the standard recipes. Banh mi 11 had red peppers and very little umami flavour, we like the umami character.

We were supposed to be going to Mon Me for lunch today, but (pleasingly) I have been asleep for the past twelve hours.

Find Banh Mi 11 on the web or really with-it people (like me) can follow them on Twitter.

Vietnamese sandwiches, also known as banh mi, are clearly the fast food choice of the moment. When they are well made from quality ingredients they combine fascinating flavours and textures which are totally harmonious and completely compelling. The first time we had was them was back in 2005 at Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches in New York City. It was a real drag to get there, but the banh mi were impressively good.

People are sometimes surprised when I tell them banh mi are baguettes (which ideally should be made by using some rice flour along with wheat flour, this gives them extra-crispiness) and often have pate and mayonnaise as fillings. They do not think these are terribly Vietnamese ingredients. They forget that Vietnam was once a French colony and some of their foods became lodged in Vietnamese culture even after they left.

Pate and mayonnaise are common ingredients in the type banh mi, but other types of meat can be used. They will always contain pickled carrot and giant radish, which have a great crunchy texture and piquant flavour. Chillies are a minor component, but most places will add extra if you ask. They are seasoned with salt, pepper and usually Maggi seasoning sauce. So where can you get these wonderful things?

Not from Viet Baguette on Charlotte Place (near Goodge Street), that is for sure. Our experience there was so disappointing. The banh mi were nowhere near the quality they can attain, just plain boring with no passion or excitement, and the staff were a bunch of feckless drips. It did not deserve to be as busy as it was.

The identically named Viet Baguette on Macbean Street in Woolwich is a much more satisfying venue for banh mi of real quality. On our first trip we enjoyed them so much that I now go there regularly, whenever I am charged with the mood for a quality lunch. I’m amused they’ve pinned our review and pictures to their wall, fame at last!

Less far out from the central London action is Baguette and More in the Greenwich food market on Greenwich High Road (between Stockwell Street and Nelson Road). They have more flavours of banh mi here, including a brilliant barbecued pork version which is our favourite option from them. This is a slightly better source than Woolwich’s Viet Baguette (quite brilliant as they are) because of their broader range of offerings, but it is only open at weekends. You have to eat outside (benches provided) which is a bit vexatious when is cold or raining, but order one of their banh mi and you will soon smile. They have a branch in Broadway Market as well.

The banh mi establishment in central London we really want to visit is Mon Me in the Sunday Upmarket off Brick Lane in Spitalfields. It gets rave reviews, like this one in The Independent, but we are yet to feel like trekking into The City on a Sunday (the only day it is open) even with the promise of top banh mi if we do. We’ll be there when the weather improves a bit. Many thanks to unwholey on Twitter for giving me a ‘heads up’ about this establishment.

Banh mi are about as interesting as sandwiches get (although I will admit to liking very simple sandwiches from time to time), if you are yet to experience them you should rectify that as soon as possible.

We have tried to get into Yalla Yalla a couple of times, but it has always been heaving. When we rolled up for a pre-theatre dinner at five in the afternoon we were delighted to get a table, and even more delighted by the food (shame the performance we went on to see was such a drivelly load of old rubbish).

Yalla Yalla promises a taste of Beirut, and if you’ve eaten much Lebanese food you’ll know that is not as worrying as it sounds; Beirut street food can be seriously good. They have a range of wraps sitting on the counter, handy if you just want to drop by to pick up a tasty sandwich for lunch, but it was the main menu which drew us there. Click on that link and try to resist all of those wonderful sounding dishes. We couldn’t.

Order a couple of mezze per person (to share). The only one we had which was a tad on the pedestrian side was the grilled halloumi, everything else was the very best example of that particular Lebanese dish we have tried. The baba ghannouj and kibbe nayye (raw lamb, which they made sure we knew before they took the order for that) were just the cat’s arse.

Our main courses were also on the seriously pleasurable side of experience. I was particularly jollied up by my kafta meshoué, which was a brilliant re-working of the kebab concept. The mixed grill provided quite a lot of meat which was too much for our guest, but we helped her finish it and enjoyed every mouthful.

One of the really pleasing things about Yalla Yalla is the thought that has gone into the composition of the dishes. Rather than everything being served with an identical salad or the same style of rice, most of the dishes are presented with accoutrements that match the dish, be they vermicelli rice or smoked green wheat with raisins, prunes and apricots.

Yalla Yalla don’t take bookings, so if you urgently need quality Lebanese food get there early. We were the first diners of the evening to arrive, by six it was full. They have Lebanese wine and beer on offer (go for the beer), some cocktails (which I didn’t notice on the menu until I was on my third beer, curses!) as well as a baroque selection of fruits juices. Neither the food nor the drink will break the bank, so go crazy and enjoy those tastes of Beirut.

Contact details: Yalla Yalla, 1 Green’s Court Soho, W1F 0HA Telephone: 020 7287 7663

Sometimes you really want a pizza. It would be easy to just swing by a branch of La Porchetta, London’s best pizza chain, but we decided to try somewhere new. We were happy we did as Franco Manca provided top Neapolitan pizza for almost no money.

If you head into the slightly scary Brixton market you’ll find Franco Manca occupying two facing premises and spilling out into the market street. Most of the tables are outside, and when there are queues you may find yourself sharing a table. This is not really a place for dallying, you arrive, have your pizza, then get on with the afternoon’s larks.

There are only six main choices of pizza on offer, with a few additional toppings if you like and a couple of daily specials. The brief menu also tells you of their pride in making proper sour-dough pizza bases (matured for at least twenty hours) and their ethical sourcing of ingredients. We particularly liked that their buffalo mozzarella was sourced from Somerset, as we are told mozzarella should be as fresh as possible for pizzas. Even their homemade lemonade was organic (and really very tasty).

Our pizzas came quickly and we dived in to eat them before the cold London winter weather cooled them down. The crusts were indeed characterful, lovely and crispy with a few hints of char from their 500 Celsius baking in a brick, wood-fired oven. The tomato sauce was very fresh and bursting with flavour and the mozzarella had a lovely stringy texture, certainly living up to the press. The cured old spot ham on one of ours was really delicious, and they didn’t skimp on quantities. Our other pizza, with fresh and dried chorizo, had a bit less topping but we didn’t feel hard done by. These were great examples of Neapolitan pizzas.

Some people have complained that Franco Manca is only open from 12-5pm Monday to Saturday, but this is clearly a fast lunch establishment. One or two knuckle-dragging morons have moaned about the pizzas; how wrong they are. Since the most expensive pizza on the menu is £6.80 and a glass of wine is less than two quid I do not think you are going to be too dissatisfied. We loved it.

Contact details: Franco Manca, 4 Market Row, Electric Lane, Brixton SW9 8LD. Telephone: 020 7738 3021

Banh mi are the new cool thing, we feel at the cutting edge of food style sourcing them out across London. Today’s offerings from the Greenwich vendor were perhaps the best we’ve had.

Located in the little food market on Greenwich High Road (between Stockwell Street and Nelson Road) there is a banh mi stand called Baguette and More. They had a range of Vietnamese sandwich offerings. I had a barbecue pork and Daniel a ‘special’. All of the ingredients seemed good and they were clearly well prepared. Both of our sandwiches were really excellent examples of the oeuvre, all the right flavours and textures: spicy and salty, crunchy and soft.

We were feeling a bit smug about the high-quality action at Viet Baguette in Woolwich, now there is incentive to head further afield for our lunchtime banh mi fix.

Just a few doors away from Fenchurch Street station (great building) there is Tike (pronounced tee-kay) a properly cool and properly good purveyor of Turkish food. Given the quality and how affordable the food was we found ourselves slightly surprised it wasn’t throbbingly busy.

The dining room itself was modern and reasonably stylish, they didn’t need to have the background music pumping quite so loudly, though. The poor maitre d’ was circling constantly, seemingly so worried about his lack of clients he felt the need to ask if everything was alright when we had only bread on the table.

The bread was excellent. Little pillows of pita bread which had inflated in the heat of the oven, fresh and tasty.

We had three little plates to start. Lachmajun was a wonderfully crisp piece of bread with spiced meat with lemon to squeeze on top. We really enjoyed this until Daniel used the offered hot ground chilli powder a tad too liberally and blew his head off with every bite. Miutebel was warm aubergine dip with roasted pistachio nuts on top. This had good, fresh flavours and plenty of richness. Very enjoyable, we kept filling the parcels of pita bread with this. Finally a less successful little plate. Ichli kiofte were little ground wheat wrapped balls of minced beef. They were just a touch anonymous.

Our main courses were anything but anonymous, indeed I’d go as far as saying they were brilliant reconstructions of fast food dishes. My beyti kebab was excellent meat wrapped up in crispy bread and sliced into elegant little strips served with grilled chillies (which are sometimes frighteningly hot) and tomatoes. This dish was a revelation for me: Turkish food with style, panache and really good ingredients. Tasted fantastic, and the transition of textures between the cripsy bread and the tasty meat was very satisfying.

Daniel chose a marinated lamb shish kebab and again it was presented with flair. There were square sheets of flatbread above and below perfectly cooked pieces of really quite tasty lamb: lamb tucked up under the sheets in bed. It served on the taste-front and was quite amusing, but we both agreed my selection was best.

We had a couple of desserts, which didn’t surprise us with how tooth-aching sweet they were, and left feeling full and happy. This has to be one of the best semi-fast food dining establishments in The City, the food can live up to its slight degree of pretention and it will not break the bank.

Contact: Tike Restaurant, 5 Fenchurch Place, EC3M 4AJ Telephone: 020 7702 9965

We are off to Hawksmoor (reviews here and here, and some pictures here and here) for the umpty-third time this year. Our first trip was back in February when I was still hilariously insane and took Daniel there as a treat to thank him for his patience with me. Wow, things were so difficult back then. When I think back to how chaotic and frightening my mind was I find myself amazed that I survived it. I was a wreck. But anyway, the excuse for tonight’s meal is my birthday. The day was yesterday but Hawksmoor allow you to take your own wine in on Mondays for a fiver corkage. I’m taking a mag of smart Cornas.

The meat there is really fantastic, clearly the best in London. Indeed, from the macaroni cheese via the ribs to any piece of beef you fancy the food is all really good. The atmosphere is unstuffy and relaxed; charged, I feel, with a hunger for big mouthfuls of meat. When you have made sure you arrive ten minutes before anyone else in your party and head to the bar. Its 1920s themed cocktail list and highly skilled bartenders* make this a destination booze-fount. Those excellent geezers at Embury Cocktails rate the Hawksmoor bar very highly.

The question remains, which steak? The 600g sirloin on the bone can be amazing, with the tenderness of fillet but much more flavour. But then, I haven’t had a rib steak for a while. I remember having an amazing one on one of our first visits. That steak tasted of one hell of a lot. Chateaubriand and fillet from Hawksmoor have also done the taste business in the past. This will be a prickly conundrum for me to cogitate upon as I get dressed for dinner.

*Last time we went there I said to the bartender, “I can have your most hilariously heroic cocktail, please?” She grinned and said, “That is the kind of question I had been dreading getting today, which is my first day. I only started half an hour ago. But don’t worry, I can sort you out.” She made something called an old fashioned, which suited my heroism requirements down to the ground.

Poor old Daniel, actually having to trek across town to get to work. The advantage of this is that he is right near a branch of Wahaca, a fun and unpretentious lunch destination. Today I met him there.

Last time we visited we just got a selection of the market food dishes, little plates of goodies for sharing. Today we had a couple of these to start with before having a larger main course.

The first little plate was a chicken tinga taco. These were pleasingly chillied up and had plenty of fire to keep you interested. The black bean tostadas were also nice, but a bit difficult to eat without spraying them everywhere. These two were perfectly good enough to get us in the mood.

For main courses we both had the Yucatan special of pork pibil. This was a parcel of shredded pork which had been marinated in a spicy, slightly orangey sauce. This was positively bursting with flavour with very tender meat in large, moist lumps as well as more shredded pieces. It came with some black beans and rice which was a slightly intestinal shade of green. These were just fine, but clearly the meat is what we cared about.

Apart from my margarita lacking both heroism and acidity this was a very successful lunch. Daniel got in and out in his allotted lunch break and it didn't cost the earth. The food was easily good enough and that is what we care about most.

Contact details on their website.

At the end of last month we visited a totally boring purveyor of tedium called Viet Baguette. A comment on a blog was our only hint that a identically named, but much better, banh mi establishment was here in horrible, horrible Woolwich. Lurking somewhere near Lidl, that scummy merchant of prole swill, we were told. A trip into the foul rain and wind was rewarded with excellent sandwiches for very little money.

We had a spicy pork and ‘special’ banh mi. Both bursting with freshness, with the desired combination of sweet and savoury, soft and crunchy flavours and textures. My spicy pork sandwich was chillied up just perfectly, but Daniel said he would have liked his a bit hotter. If we are being really picky I could say that the bread wasn’t amazing, but at £2.80 for my sandwich I am not going to lose much sleep  over this.

Given that it is now possible to buy a decent sandwich for lunch, Woolwich is now somewhat less of a total dump. I will be going here regularly.

This was my sandwich:

And this was Daniel’s:

Some people have a good idea and then fail to have the successive good ideas that make the first one work. This is very much the case at Viet Baguette in Charlotte Place: making Vietnamese sandwiches (banh mi) was a good idea but it needed to be backed up with further ideas like having good ingredients or employing competent staff.

OK, I am not going to fart around here: this lunch establishment had so many problems we may as well get down to them. The staff were hopelessly dizzy, drippy farts who tooled around even though the queue was just getting longer and longer; when we got to the cash desk the poor dear seemed so confused that the prices she charged were effectively random.

But, if the food is good, who gives a tinker’s cuss about the hopeless staff? Sadly the food was boring. It lacked all of the fresh, tangy, savoury, fiery, delicious characters you want in a Vietnamese sandwich. The chilli sauce lacked any form of flavour, the chillies they  used were too mild and you had to repeatedly ask for more of them in the hope of getting a bit of heat.

When they are good, banh mi can be powerful, flavoursome entities of raw intensity. But Viet Baguette totally failed to deliver any of this pleasure. They were dreadful sandwiches of raw depression.

I’ve said where they are in London, but don’t, just don’t go.

It has been years since I last went to Saint John; I always loved dining on novelty bits of animal expertly prepared. Our return last night showed there was little development with the menu, but the food was still excellent.

First, let us get the problems out of the way. The wine list is appalling. Not only do they have largely crap wine but it is also laughably expensive. Would you pay £33 for a Vin de Pays de l’Ardeche blanc from those swine Chapoutier? I wouldn’t. This problem can be easily solved, they have some great beer including offerings from the wonderful Meantime Brewery. We drank them dry of the Oktoberfest-style beer. They have 750ml bottles of the excellent Meantime London Porter if you feel you need a large bottle of something on your table.

The second problem is the dining room: it is very stark, with high walls and lots of tables crammed in. This makes it seem very loud and busy. If you want a peaceful, relaxing meal this dining room will not provide the right ambience. When you go to Saint John you’ve got to be prepared for a bit of bustle.

Now we can turn our attention to the food. And what fun we had with it. The menu was short but we all felt they had several options we could happily go for. As usual when presented with a pleasing menu I was groaning and grunting with anticipation. I’ll go through the starters in order of increasing brilliance.

Rolled pig’s spleen with bacon was well presented, and whilst the flavour that was there was good, it didn’t taste so strongly. When you order something that would petrify fussy eaters you hope it would have a touch more character.

Daniel ordered smoked eel with celeriac. The eel was perfect,  strongly flavoured with a good smoked character and not the slightest bit silty. The celeriac was a good combination with this. This may not have been the best starter we had by cripes was it tasty.

Roast bone marrow with toast is one of the signature dishes at Saint John, and it has never failed to impress me. If you remember the dog food adverts which claimed to be ‘filled with marrowbone jelly’ you’ll have a pretty good idea of the texture of the marrow which you have to scrape out of the bones. Sure, it may look like another dish to scare the hard of eating, but the taste! Oh the taste! If you should visit Saint John at least one of you should order this and pass bits around, you’d be missing a lot if you did not.

Finally, we come to what was universally agreed to be the best starter, potted beef. Now, we have had truly excellent potted beef at Hawksmoor and I never thought I would have better, but this stuff was the nun’s nethers. Incredibly rich and meaty with an incredible depth of flavour. The texture was also an improvement over Hawksmoor’s offering, less slimy with more meat fibres. It is just great when you have a favourite dish somewhere different and they surpass your previous experiences, and your expectations. We loved this totally.

Moving onto the main courses provided us with even more laughs and giggles. ‘Non-Stinky’ Jeff ordered tripe, which seemed a brave move to me as I cannot stand the texture of the stuff. He said it was well worth trying, but having it once, probably as well prepared as one was ever likely to have it, was enough. He also said the texture was not totally pleasing. He loved the bacon bits that came with it and I am not in the least bit surprised, they were clearly of the highest quality. I neglected to ask who their bacon supplier was, alas.

Dan ordered pan-roast lemon sole with fresh tartare sauce. He said the tartare sauce failed to enhance the fish, which was quite superb. I agree the fish was wonderful, not over cooked in the slightest and with a great flavour. I suppose they should have provided a bone dump-bin as the plate was somewhat crowded with the fish on it and there was not a lot of space for general filleting manoeuvres. Alternatively, they could have filleted the fish before serving it, but I suppose it would have looked less impressive that way.

Then, of course, there were Daniel and my main courses. I’ve said before, when sweetbreads are on the menu I cannot help but order them. Daniel had eaten this concoction of lamb’s sweetbreads with bacon and carrots a couple of months ago and he told me they were lovely. He was wrong, they were super special (special in the very best way). Long time readers may know we had almost exactly the same ingredients at Hix Oyster and Chop House; they were abysmal, these were amazing. I will do almost anything to eat good sweetbreads and for these I’d kill. Kill lambs, anyway.

We did order some side dishes. Dan and NSJ said the potatoes were excellent but I was more interested in the best welsh rarebit I’ve eaten. Great stuff, really cheesy with a lovely Worcestershire sauce flavour.

You’ve got to be a bold diner to enjoy a meal at Saint John, but surely all the best people are bold diners? Internal organs are not cooked better than here in many places. Sure, the wine list can be skipped, and it is a bit noisy, but you’ll go out full of innards and charged with life. Saint John is still one of the best, and easily one of the most enjoyable, restaurants I’ve been to.

Contact details: Saint John Restaurant, 26 Saint John Street, London EC1M 4AY. Telephone 020 7251 0848

Many thanks to Jeff for the pictures and, indeed, all of the boys for being such wonderful company.

My chums Edward Tully and Peter Palmer (who are also both ex-captains of the Oxford blind tasting team, Peter one year before me and Edward one year after) decided to meet up for a hedonistic lunch. Mr T suggested Corrigan’s and, whilst it cost a pretty penny, the food was quite wonderful.

Corrigan’s is clearly a destination, the restaurant was full whilst we were dining there. Just reading the menu gives you the beginnings of an idea why: everything sounded excellent. I was groaning and sighing with pleasure as I read through it. We then got told about daily specials and all were things I would happily nosh on. They also had a three-course set lunch including a couple of glasses of wine at £27 for the more modest diner. ‘Modest’ in price terms, but not lacking in interest and quality. This is what Peter chose and he dined very well.

Peter’s starter was lentils with confit of cod. The lentils were expertly cooked in a stocky, flavoursome broth and had the most perfect texture. Great cod too. After trying a forkful of this I almost wished I’d gone for that option. However, my starter was even better: carpaccio of octopus with grilled baby squid and chorizo with some feta cubes. The octopus was not in the slightest bit chewy, and the grilled chorizo and squid just melted in my mouth. All of the ingredients are things I love so having them together and so well prepared got me groaning and growling again. Mr T also chose well with his slices of veal tongue with braised pearl barley. Tongue is not something that normally tickles my fancy but this was meaty and flavoursome. The pearl barley was an inspired combination. Yum.

My braised veal rib with sweetbreads was another combination of ingredients that get me terribly excited. The veal was a wonderful piece of meat with a little fluffy cloud of lewdly exciting sweetbread sitting atop it. Such things warp the mind with pleasure if you are an enlightened lover of fine things. Edward’s main course was one of the daily specials, a stuffed piece of hare. Quite easily the most top bunny piece of bunny I’ve had in a very long time. Peter had quail and we all loved it and wanted more. Quail can be a little tough and dry if inexpertly prepared, this was not in the slightest like that. The quality of ingredients and skill with which they were prepared was quite spectacular.

Edward and I shared a tarte tatin which was easily the best I’ve ever had; whipping the arse of Gordon Ramsay’s version and also a country mile ahead of the best one I had previously at The Atrium in Edinburgh. Peter’s dessert was Stilton with a Port jelly. Sounds odd, eh? He reports the combination was most pleasing.

I would happily return here on many, many occasions. The attention to detail, selection of seasonal ingredients and the preparation of them are faultless. I think the set lunch menu is a total bargain, considering the rollercoaster-ride of thrilling food on it and I would be hilariously happy just to order from that in future. If you want to order wine, from their reasonably well-chosen but a somewhat pricy wine list, you would not go far wrong having a bottle or two of their excellent selection of Sherry. When a wine list has good Sherry it is a sign that things will go well with your meal. As I write this I’ve been chatting with Peter online and he says:

Yes, it was brilliant. I have too often been disappointed with smart places in London, either with the food, or with the stuffy atmosphere, or both. That place was altogether really great - great food, very relaxed and fun. A really fine experience.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Contact details: Corrigan’s of Mayfair, 28 Upper Grosvenor Street, London W1K 7EH. Telephone: 020 7499 9943

Since my first review of Comptoir Gascon I’ve been twice more: it was chortle-rific both times.

From the standard menu I can heartily recommend the duck rillettes as a starter, it is very well priced for such a meaty, fatty treat. We like meaty, fatty treats*. The grillled squid with barley-sotto was another real hit; that squid action really warps my mind with pleasure.

The two daily specials we tried both hit the pleasure-spot. If you see duck gizzard salad (oh I drool even to think of it) or braised ox cheek (yes, much drooling) on their blackboard you can order them without fear.

Since I have been dining with employed types it is good that you can have a decent meal, well-priced and be in and out of there in less than an hour.

*By ‘we’ I mean all people with a healthy attitude to food.

Dining in Farringdon generally means meat. Comptoir Gascon, the bistro associated with London’s best foie gras joint Club Gascon, will serve up enough duck and pork to fill even the hungriest of the lunch crowd. Dan and I left replete and happy.

The menu was short but had plenty of offerings that piqued my interest. They have fish and vegetable dishes as well as the preferred options which were more pork and duck themed. Some of the fish dishes almost reeled me in, but obviously anyone eating vegetarian food in a Gascon-themed establishment will probably get weird looks. Honestly, don’t mistreat your body like that, have some meat.

I couldn’t resist the piggy treats as a starter, which turned out to be a selection of bits of cured pork and sausage with a piece of fried black pudding. The meats were all quite good but the black pudding was bloody fantastic; I could feel it improving my day as I ate it.

We all have dishes we cannot help but order when we see them on a menu, ris de veau for me, foie gras for Dan. He was a bit miffed that it was a couple of slices of terrine rather than fresh pan-fried, but he said they were easily up to standard. His plate was clean even faster than mine.

If foie gras is one thing you eat in Gascony then surely cassoulet is the other. So I ordered it. It was rich and beany, with a couple of good-sized pieces of delicious sausage and a piece of confit of duck. I may have had better cassoulet (at Au Trou Gascon in Paris), but I rather enjoyed this one. The portion size was suitable for a healthy eater like me, I just left a couple of beans.

Dan had some crackling pork belly with a couple of carroty things. He was very pleased with the skill in getting good crackling with meltingly soft pork belly. This looked so good I am sorely tempted to go for it next time I am there. The pureed carrots were obviously some kind of joke, who’d want to eat that? The other carrot offering looked better, but hey, vegetables: do we care?

When our bill came the most expensive item on it were our four beers, which seemed odd but it was good the meal was so generally affordable. All those lovely bits of meat! It is a relaxed dining atmosphere and you’ll be in and out in an hour. If you are a Farringdon type I’ll see you there one lunchtime.

Contact details: Comptoir Gascon, 63 Charterhouse Street, London EC1M 6HJ Tel: 020 7608 0851

Many thanks to Dan for a great lunch. Naturally the company was the best thing about it!

Lunch cannot always be a three-hour booze-fuelled frenzy of food, alas. However, just because you have to be quick does not mean you should skimp on quality. For a speedy lunch the Mexican street food at Wahaca will hit the spot perfectly.

We visited the Chandos Place branch which is a busy, bustling cellar. Even though it was pretty full it was not too loud, which was pleasing. The place mats are menus and we liked the idea of the street food selections, the idea being that you chose 2-3 small plates each and share them with your dining companions.

We had five dishes plus some nachos with salsa for general grazing. They were all cooked with skill and arrived quickly. The dish we strongly suggest you get is the pork pibil taco, the pork was properly flavoursome and delicious. One thing that surprised me is that even the dishes marked as being spicy were not that chilli-powered; everything was pleasingly relaxed in that regard.

Our meal came to £30 including a couple of beers, we felt full and that we had done well. In and out in 40 minutes, too, great for the employed-types.

Locations, menu and all that kind of stuff are on their website.

Nahm received some mixed reviews when it opened, but it is also Europe’s only Thai restaurant with a Michelin star. Our lunchtime visit showed us it was worth that star, and we were pleased with their modest pricing policy.

The restaurant has a few lunchtime offers: two courses for £15, three for £20 (these two were from a more restricted choice) or a £30 set meal with five courses. We thought this last option would give us the greatest range of food to try. Daniel commented that he liked the focus of the menu, they were not trying to do too much.

We would normally only drink beer in a Thai establishment, but a quick look at the intelligently chosen and reasonably priced wine list made us decide to get a couple of halves of Riesling. Rarely have we experienced such a choice wine list; this set us in the mood for fun. We like fun, don’t you?

We were served some little nibbles as an amuse bouche: dried shrimp and peanut caramelised in palm sugar on pieces of mandarin and pineapple. These had a strong, rich flavour which kept on developing more interest as you chewed. The texture was truly amazing; it was more than just the flavour of the ingredients that worked well together. The fact that I really hate peanut in food and yet loved these little morsels shows how good they were.

The four main courses all came at the same time. There was a hot and sour clam soup which had a strong lemon grass character. There were a reasonable amount of clams in the broth and also some wonderful Thai shallots which were cooked to melting softness. When one thinks of Thai food it is normally in terms of fresh, distinct and vibrant flavours. The soup (and the next two dishes) had those qualities, but also a depth of complexity that made them really stand out as being a step ahead.

Quail salad with smoky chilli sauce was absolutely delicious, and even though it was quite mind-bendingly hot this did not mask the intricacy of flavours. You know you are alive when you eat food like this. The spicy richness of the guinea fowl red curry was also expressive and perfectly balanced. I found the Thai aubergines, something that normally bores me (because they are vegetables), in this to be flavoursome and expertly cooked.

Stir-fried squid with garlic, galangal and spring onions was our last main course. It was more focussed on purity of fresh flavours, but it was none the worse for that. The squid was brilliantly prepared, not even remotely chewy or tough; it melted on your palate.

The menu included a couple of desserts, the coconut cake with rambutans in jasmine syrup and shaved young coconut was particularly good. Given the quality of the food we were quite surprised that we dined alone for most of our meal. Sure, a Tuesday lunchtime in August may not be the busiest of times, but a restaurant serving top Thai tucker and winning wine at perfectly pleasing prices should be busier than this. Go for lunch there, it will be obscenely better and not much more expensive than Addie’s Thai Cafe.

David Thompson, the head chef at Nahm, has written the definitive book on Thai food. If you want to try and create such marvellous food at home this is the tome you need.

Contact details: Nahm, The Halkin, Halkin Street, SE1X Telephone: +44 (0)20 7333 1234

We had another excellent meal at Hawksmoor last week (our original review is here and the follow up is here). The key is to go on a Monday when they only charge a fiver corkage (per bottle, obviously) if you take your own wine (this is what we took). We have definitely decided that the sirloin on the bone is the steak of choice; it has the tenderness of fillet but a lot more flavour. That being said, Non-Stinky Jeff and Dan’s Chateaubriand was really tasty. Here are the pictures.

    

This is the best meat in London. The last two times I’ve been I’ve had the sirloin and it almost, but not quite, ranks with Pedro’s ox chops at Casa Nicolas in Tolosa. Much as I agree the limits of pleasure are yet to be defined or reached, I cannot imagine putting better meat in my mouth than Pedro’s.

Sometimes you really need a kebab. We wanted the best Turkish kebab London has to offer, so we trekked to the other side of Town to get one. We were not disappointed.

From the outside Mangal 1 Ocakbasi looks a bit like yet another tatty ‘bab shop, but walk inside and there is a vast charcoal grill and truly epic quantities of meat on skewers ready to be put over the fire. There are tables so you can sit down and enjoy your kebabs, but the idea is to eat and leave without much dallying. This is the general idea of Ocakbasi food, it is stuff you eat whilst you are out not what you go out to eat.

They’ll give you some warm, fresh bread and it is a good idea to get some hummus to eat this with. At two pounds per portion you cannot go wrong with the Turkish pizzas as a starter. They are nicely spiced and quite meaty, with salad provided to wrap up in them. I’ll say at this point beware the pickles, they are the saltiest things in the universe.

Then you’ll want a kebab. We ordered an Adana Kofte (pictured front-most) and a lamb Beyti (in the background). The meat was pretty good quality, so much so that we welcomed it being just on the rare side of cooked. The kebabs were very well seasoned, in the Beyti especially which was studded with green bits of fresh chilli and coriander. That one was rather hot. They were both rather delicious.

Mangal 1 does not have an alcohol license, so you can take your own booze in. I’d go for beer (or cider) here rather than wine.

OK, it is pretty undemanding food, but fast food has its place and good food fast food has a better place. Probably not worth the huge trek across Town on a regular basis, but well worth going to try the best that London can offer in this sphere of fun food.

Contact details: Mangal 1, 10 Arcola Street, E8 2DJ Tel: 020 7275 8981

I’ve travelled all over London in search of better pizza, but La Porchetta, we were at the Holborn branch last night, is yet to be beaten. They’ve smartened up their menus a bit, and bumped the prices very slightly in the process, but it is all still about great pasta and (especially) pizza. Last night I had a La Porchetta pizza and, whilst it was totally lovely, I prefer a Messicana. The Calzones are top bunny, too (but don’t get the filth vegetarian one). My original review is here.

Branch addresses on their website.

I’ve reviewed Hawksmoor (London’s best meat restaurant) before here and here. The basic message is that it is a top meat establishment. This will not be another review as such, more a collection of pictures from last night’s visit. Firstly, the potted beef starter was really delicious; meaty, fatty, tasty!

Then a sirloin steak served on the bone. Totally lovely!

And finally, a dessert. Prosecco jelly with strawberries.

We ate other things as well, but it is just that with a not terribly expensive digital camera it is a bit hit and miss as to whether the pictures come out if they are taken in a less than perfectly lit establishment.

For the record, the food was excellent. We all really enjoyed our pieces of meat. Going on a Monday night is a Good Thing as they allow you to take your own wine and pay a fiver corkage. Hawksmoor is just a really great place, book your table now!

Sometimes a restaurant will give hints that it is going to be good. That Salt Yard was heaving with punters was a pretty good sign, but what did it for me was the sherries they had on offer. Anywhere that has Hidalgo Manzanilla La Gitana and Manzanilla Pasada Pastrana is going to be a quality establishment. Our food was washed down with plenty of the latter and it was bloody marvellous.

So after I’d scoped out the booze offerings, and there are other good wines to be had, it was time to look at the menu. My mood lifted with each dish I read about. We were both surprised that even some of the vegetarian offerings sounded nice (but please don’t tell anyone we know).

As we waited for our table to be prepared we had a couple of bar snacks with our glass of Manzanilla. Six quail eggs with paprika infused salt were a good introduction, the salt having a pleasing smoky character. Better than this was a plate of pork rillette with crostini. The pork was properly flavoursome and good enough to make us eager to sit down and order more food.

When we got a table we decided to hit the menu hard. First up was a plate of Jamon Iberico from Castro y Gonzales, cut straight from a leg. Whilst we’ve had better Jamon, all over the Basque country, this was perfectly fine. The texture was meaty and it had a good sweet richness to it. There was a reasonable amount of it, too.

Accompanying this was a selection of three aged Italian hard cheeses with truffled honey. The cheeses were in good nick, although we wondered why they served Grana Padano alongside decent Parmesan as the latter will always outshine the former. The truffled honey was one of those occasions where you finally see the point of a particular food. Honey rarely does it for us, but we lapped up the truffled version with its complex, delicious, forest floor flavours. It worked terribly well with the cheeses.

Next up was crispy squid served with arroz negro, chilli and fresh basil. The squid was a total delight, crispy with great flavour and a wonderful texture. The squid ink risotto blew our socks off, and when I hit one of the (few) pieces of chilli I was totally charmed by the combination of flavours.

The next dish caused much debate about which part of it we liked best. I loved the roasted tiger prawns, totally tasty, I tell you. I got one more of these than Daniel on the condition that I allowed him to finish up the lentils and speck they came served with. The stock in which they were cooked was fortified with prawn heads and brandy, so had a super taste, but the lentils and speck themselves… ah… what can I say? Little pleasures, I suppose, they make us realise that life is good. Tits good, in this case.

The following dish had me moaning and growling with unadulterated pleasure. I am often telling people that sausages, if they are good, are one of the best things you can eat. Consequently, char-grilled chorizo with roasted peppers was directly targeted at my pleasure centre. The sausages were super meaty and just spicy enough. They had been cooked to total perfection. I suppose the peppers were nice, but ooooohhhh those sausages…

Straight from the very top shelf of food porn was confit of Gloucester Old Spot pork belly with rosemary-scented cannellini beans. The pork was totally tender and exploding with flavoursome richness, with a great layer of crackling on top. We ate with glee, stopping only to chortle with mirth from time to time. Then there were the beans, just soft enough and cooked in a super-piggy stock. Wow, such a small plate of food can be so mind-bendingly enjoyable; this is how we like things.

We did encounter a dish which, on first taste, seemed a bit more pedestrian, but we ended up quite enjoying it. Roasted Gressingham duck breast with broad bean puree and mint vinaigrette. The duck breast was properly pink and meltingly tender. Its flavour was faultless. It took us a couple of tastes to appreciate the bean puree, but we ended up liking its butter and cheese-infused richness.

Our final tapas dish was bloody vegetables, do we really care about such things? Patatas fritas with romesco and aioli: chips, basically. Yeah, they were pretty good, nicely seasoned with paprika, but when you have just been necking quality meat will a small bowl of chips transport you to another realm? No. Daniel’s triple-cooked chips blow these away (I’ll get him to post the recipe next time he makes them).

By this stage we were grinning broadly and repeating to each other how we liked certain dishes, so it seemed like a top idea to try their dessert offerings. Caprini cheesecake with amaretti and macerated strawberries was an unqualified success; lovely, creamy, fruity and the amaretti base was freaking A+. I could not have asked for a better dessert. Then I swapped plates with Daniel and got one. Rhubarb and mascarpone custard with orange caramel was basically a vanilla-free creme brulee with rhubarb. The acidity of the rhubarb really balanced the richness of the dish. I was thrilled, charmed and eventually sated. This was as good as desserts get. We drank a couple of glasses of what I shall euphemistically call ‘interesting’ dessert wines, but after so much good food we were positive enough to see the fun in these weirdies without being too bothered that they were differently drinkable.

It is always a great pleasure to dine at an establishment where they care about what they cook and serve; a lot of attention went into the selection of ingredients and how they were prepared. As such, this was the best tapas we’ve had in London, far, far better than the Brindisa joint near Borough Market. Based on the quality of the food we had, I think you could order anything from the menu and feel you had done well. Drink their Manzanilla, eat their food, smile and feel at ease with the world.

Contact: Salt Yard, 54 Goodge St, London W1T 4NA Tel: 020 7637 0657

This was a winning recommendation from Mark Locke, clearly a chap who can tell good from bad. We must meet for lunch or dinner one day, Mark. Lunch is a good meal, don’t you think? Especially a long, Burgundy-fuelled, baroque feast of a lunch.

After our highly successful breakfast at Fuzzy’s Grub I decided to trek into Zone 1 to meet up with Daniel and try lunch there.

At lunch time they do a selection of roast meat sandwiches and I was keen to try what can be one of the most satisfying sandwiches it is possible to make: roast chicken on buttered bread with a good grind of salt. Simple, eh? But if the chicken and bread are good, there is real butter and enough salt this sandwich can be magic.

I ordered mine is one of their excellent baps, which I praised in my last review of them; the bap had real flavour and a great texture. They used real butter, which melted into the bap because the chicken was warm. The chicken itself was wonderfully good; moist, flavoursome and there was a lot of it. It was also subtly seasoned with herbs, which added to rather than masked the flavour. They put enough salt on it. This was a great sandwich, it made me happy.

The locations of their branches are on their website. Find your closest one and get there for lunch ASAP!

Daniel and my chum Keithy have been raving about the sandwiches at Fuzzy’s Grub for a while, so I was terribly pleased to be cruising past one of their branches at breakfast time. I can now see why they raved.

Our breakfast order was simple enough, we both wanted a bacon and egg bap, with the egg yolk slightly runny, the bap buttered and with HP sauce. They excelled in all departments.

I suppose the first thing that I should write about is the bacon. They use excellent dry-cure back bacon. They don’t cook a huge batch of it first thing in the morning and leave it to dry out over as the day progresses, but instead cook batches throughout the period of breakfast service. Moreover, it is not over-cooked and crispy. It tastes just great.

The eggs are cooked freshly when you place your order, and they seemed quite delicious to me. As I suggested, they cook them as much or as little as you request. Go for a ‘medium’ egg if you want the yolk slightly runny but not so runny as to ruin your tie.

Finally, the bap. How interesting can a bread roll be, you might wonder. But this was a top piece of bread, freshly baked, with a great texture and real flavour. It was buttered with real butter and just enough HP sauce. Lovely, just lovely.

I have to go past a branch at lunch time to try one of their roast meat sandwiches (roast chicken, I think I’ll go for), but breakfast was a top experience.

You can find a list of branches on their website. I urge you to pay them a visit.

The Hix Oyster and Chop House would be a lovely destination for those who don’t mind what food they eat, how it is served or how much it costs. Everyone else will feel let down.

When we arrived we both thought it looked like a knock-off of Saint John. The menu looked quite similar too, filled with interesting sounding meaty goodies. The wine list was cheekily priced, but they had an excellent beer and cider list. At this stage we thought we would do well; unfortunately things went down-hill from there.

The first thing that became abundantly clear was that the service was shocking. People who arrived after us were served whilst we were still waiting, and a couple of tables who were there before us had to wait even longer than us. One table was served their main courses with the plates from their starters still on their table. Our pre-starters, which involved opening four oysters and toasting a piece of bread, took half an hour to arrive.

Daniel’s pre-starter was Watt’s farm asparagus on toast with Gorwydd Caerphilly. Both ingredients are favourites of ours, but pairing them added nothing. Whilst we were waiting for them to toast the bread my Helford spring native oysters were just sitting on the service counter for half an hour. These were the best dishes of the evening, and they took least effort to prepare.

We then moved onto the starters. Daniel ordered something called Heaven and Earth; potatoes with apple sauce and black pudding. The entire texture of this dish was wrong; it would do for toddlers or other dentally-challenged people but slimy black pudding, mash and apple sauce is not for grown men. Once again, the flavours were not well-matched or distinctive enough. No thanks.

The best bit of my starter was the part that ruined it. It sounded great on the menu, lamb sweetbreads with bacon and leeks. However, after these ingredients had been fried they were briefly boiled in some broth. The broth tasted lovely, but it totally ruined the texture and flavour of the other ingredients. Daniel had recently had the exact same ingredients served at Saint John; they could cook it whilst Hix could not.

At this point we were not happy and hoped they could not cock up our main courses which sounded like easy things to prepare. How wrong we were. Daniel’s fillet steak was served on the bone, with at least one third of it being bone or connective tissue. What is the point or ordering fillet steak if it is not a piece of the very best meat with nothing worth discarding? Considering there was bugger-all meat on it they really went over-board with the amount they charged (£34.50 for 300 grams, bones included). What little meat there was was a bit wet and lacking in flavour even though it had been grilled well. Hawksmoor serve better beef for less money.

My main course reminded me of the Iams pouches our cat loves so much. I don’t love them. They were supposedly barbecued beef ribs, but this was some strange definition of the word ‘barbecue’ which seemed more like braising to me. They tasted stunningly boring, with a distasteful texture and a worrying sauce soaking them. Our side-orders followed the ‘not particularly good’-pattern with dried-out chips and fried asparagus and wet green tomatoes in grease-soaked batter.

The dining room had a neon sign in it saying ‘Fucking beautiful’ (which cannot have been a reference to the cooking or the service) but this was positively tasteful compared to the soft-porn pictures adorning the toilets (two of which are reproduced at the end of this review).

The food was dull at best which seemed irksome as they were not afraid to charge for it (£70 a head for three courses including two bottles of beer/cider). After feeling so positive when reading the menu we felt cheated and unhappy. I’d avoid going if I were you.

Their website is here, but why would you want to visit it?

Here are their toilet decorations:

 

Classy, eh?

Cafe East has moved since we first reviewed it. It is now in a rather soulless shopping centre, and the cafe itself is more like a school dining room than the previous slightly squalid but charm-filled establishment. However, if you want quality noodles and Vietnamese food in London this is the destination of choice.

We started off with both vegetable and meat-filled spring rolls. Both were pleasingly crisp and packed with flavour. Quite delicious. I preferred these to our other starter, bi cuon, or crispy pork-skin rolls. These tasted just fine but they were predictably on the chewy side.

One of our number chose a chicken curry, com curry, as his main dish. It had chicken, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and coconut milk in it, quite like a Thai curry. The speed with which he necked it spoke volumes about the quality. I had a little taste and was most impressed.

Daniel and our other guest had two variations on the noodle dish bun bo hue. Daniel had raw beef with his and it was quite brilliant. The stock was rich and bursting with flavour, with thin slivers of beef and top-class rice noodles. The other variant was with prawns, which were in a prawn-tastic broth that I had to keep stealing spoonfuls of, so good was it.

Naturally, I chose the best dish, pho dac biet, or beef, chicken and prawns in spicy broth with vermicelli. The pieces of meat and prawns pleased me no end but the spicy stock was even better; just spicy enough but not in the slightest painful. The vermicelli were all one could ask for of noodles. I was tickled pink.

Two courses each and drinks cost us £12 each, a bargain! The food is clearly superior, as is the dining experience, to other noodle bars such as horrible, horrible Wagamama’s. A simple but faultless meal that was keenly priced. I strongly urge you to visit.

Cafe East, 100 Redriff Road (Surrey Quays Shopping Centre), London SE16 7LH. Telephone 020 8691 7777.

Last night I went to Hawksmoor for the third time this year (you can read my original review here). The basic message I feel I should express first is that it is a totally brilliant restaurant.

I felt incredibly fortunate when I received an email inviting me back there. All of my previous meals there have been greatly enjoyable. This one promised to be a hoot as well; it was a comparative tasting of different breeds of beef. Sounded totally fascinating, how could I refuse?

Keen as I was to experience different breeds of meat, I got there early. This gave me an excellent opportunity to prop up their bar and have a couple of cocktails. Once again the daiquiri no. 2 was totally wonderful, but was eclipsed by a super-top-bunny-grade Pegu Club cocktail. Their cocktail list is a thrilling journey into the 1920s, and I felt I did rather well with my options.

When my fellow beef tasters and I retired to the dining room we were issued with tasting sheets for the beef: there were 17 different breeds and cuts of meat on it. I laughed like a drain, it was clearly going to be a hilariously interesting experience. As we all poured over the tasting sheets we were served a rather nice glass of innocuously fruity punch, which slipped down a treat. Once again, this showed that they take their drinks seriously.

We started off the meal with sirloin steak from five different breeds cooked medium/rare. The Sussex beef from Northfield Farm was a tad gamey with a reasonably complex flavour, pretty good but probably my least favourite of the sirloins. Next up was Hereford, also from Northfield Farm. This had really subtle, complex flavours, classy and sophisticated. I wrote ‘Lovely, really lovely’. An Angus/Charolais cross produced meat that was quite rich and fatty, with a good persistence of flavour. I thought it was quite special. An old favourite follows, South Devon breed from the wonderful Wild Beef Company. Its flavour was incredibly deep with a powerful meatiness, stylish and totally pleasing. The final sirloin was Longhorn beef from the Ginger Pig which had been dry aged for 35 days; this is the normal beef that Hawksmoor sell. This was super high grade kit. Completely brilliant with an amazingly deep, powerful flavour. I don’t eat sirloin that often, but such was the quality of these pieces of meat I may well be ordering more sirloin in the future.

Next came rib eye steaks. I love rib eye steaks and after the obscenely wonderful food porn that we started off with I was on the edge of my seat looking forward to these steaks. A Hereford steak from Rare blew my socks off with its brilliant, incredible flavour; really rich and stylish. Top bunny. Aberdeen Angus from Rare had a bit of a strange texture, with reasonable flavour but not terribly demanding; it was OK but not great. More interesting was a modern crossbreed called Ridings Reserve. It was fatty and strong with an excellent persistence of flavour. The final offering in this flight was once again Hawksmoor’s usual breed, Longhorn from the Ginger Pig. The texture was really satisfying and it tasted lovely.

Yet more rib eye steaks were to follow so by this time I was chortling with uncontrollable mirth. An Aberdeen Angus rib eye from Select was a bit dull and cheesy, I didn’t go for it. Another modern cross, Casterbridge from Fairfax had an intriguing, slightly spicy taste. It was a bit nutty and quite interesting. Once again, a piece of Hereford beef (from Fairfax) was toe-curlingly good. I wrote ‘Wow, this is amazing! Great flavour that is really complex. Great. Obscenely good.’ A Galloway breed from Farmer Sharp was densely meaty, with a grassy, classy edge. Pretty damned good. The final rib eye came from a Hereford Cross supplied by Graig Farm Organics. Reasonably interesting, I suppose, but the straight Hereford delivered the goods more reliably. Life really smiles on one when one gets to try beef this good.

Two steaks to finish off were the world’s biggest rump steak and a flatiron steak from an Aberdeen Angus (West Cork) breed supplied by Jack O’Shea. The massive rump steak was rich and buttery, with a good grassy character and a nice, long finish. I haven’t had that many flatiron steaks, I found this one to have an intriguing, rich, powerful flavour. Quiet fascinating, thrilling even, and cooked to total perfection, which always helps.

So which were my favourite? The two breeds that stood out for me were the Hereford and the Longhorn which (pleasingly) Hawksmoor usually sell as their main breed. Both of these charmed and titillated me in a way that the others didn’t quite manage. They were all cooked with great skill on their charcoal grill. Rarely have I had so much fun with meat.

Obviously, I love Hawksmoor. You’ll love it too. A couple of weeks back I got my mother to trek in from Oxford and go there. I have also got a few friends to turn up. Everyone has been wowed by the place and described their meals to me with the passion of people who have had a great time. It is really worth turning up on a Monday as you can take along your own wine and pay a Lady Godiva (fiver) corkage. It is a great place, totally top meat, lovely cocktails and staff who are friendly and efficient. You will not go wrong here.

Contact details on their website.

I love fish and chips, a fantastic meal which suits the requirements for a quick lunch very well. With mushy peas, obviously. Yesterday my local establishment, the Fish and Grill on the market square in Woolwich, shocked and appalled me with the shit they had the temerity to serve.

I've been there before and had some good stuff, but this time there was a new moronic, rancid fool doing the cooking and as soon as I gave him my order for the fifth time I knew things would just be awful.

The bloke before me in the queue ordered kebab meat and chips. Moron food fryer pours the contents of the kebab meat container over the chips, flooding them with filthy water. At this point I just wanted to run.

I got my fish, chips and mushy peas and so impressively bad at cooking was the food fryer that he even managed to cock up the mushy peas. He had over-cooked them so they had a worrying, tough, dry, green layer on top. The fish was so badly over-cooked that it was in dry lumps, with quite terrifyingly greasy, fat-soaked batter. The chips were also soaked with this filthy grease, and had the consistency of something that had been lightly steamed rather than fried.

I wanted to vomit.

I will never go there again. The bastards.

Kake Pugh has given me a 'heads up' that London's best noodle bar, Cafe East, is on the move. You can find details here.

Hawksmoor has been selling itself on the quality of the meat it serves, so what could we do but give it a go?

On arrival Hawksmoor we noted that it was quite large with tables packed very tightly, which worried us slightly. Despite the restaurant being empty they chose to put us at a table right next to a bunch of loud, abusive and generally obnoxious wankers engaged in a minor punch up at the bar. We asked to move tables, and this was achieved with no murmur from the staff, who generally seemed helpful and generally happy.

We didn't need to study the menu for long as we had pre-booked a Chateaubriand for the two of us to share, so all we needed were starters. Whilst waiting for food we tried a couple of cocktails from their 1920s-inspired cocktail list. Daniel had a Ramos gin fizz, which was quite lovely, and I had a daiquiri no. 2 which was so good I immediately ordered another one on finishing it.

The starters came quickly and we were hilariously pleased with them. Daniel's potted beef was truly delicious, rich and fatty, nicely salted and bursting with flavoursome goodness. Now my Tamworth ribs were truly the best ribs I had ever had. There were only two of them, and they were not very long, but they had all the meat going from the rib to the fat under the skin; they were as wide as they were long. Their flavour was incredible, meaty, tender, fatty and truly marvelous; this was a great starter and left me feeling surprisingly full.

With the incredible success of the starters behind us were were keen to try the quality of the beef. When our rare, thick, juicy slices of Chateaubriand were served the drool flowed copiously. The meat was tender, wonderfully flavoursome and cooked to complete perfection. Easily the second best steak I'd had (after Pedro's in Tolosa). This was food worth going out for.

We ordered triple-cooked chips as side dishes, which were generally good, but perhaps not up to the stellar standard of the meat. Personally I think they'd do better with some nice frites. They also provided a range of sauces in miniature containers. I couldn't be arsed with any of these, the meat was good enough unsullied by sauce, but Daniel says they were excellent.

The wine list was, alas, hugely expensive and largely crap, next time I go I'll have a cocktail and a pint of their excellent Brew Dog beer. If you want a bottle of red wine go for Ridge Lytton Springs, a snip at a mere sixty quid. The restaurant also was a tad on the loud side, at the end of the week when we went they had a few large parties in which were catered for in the main room and this tended to increase the volume.

The whole experience was generally great, although not cheap. But what can you expect when you are after London's best steak, amazing ribs and great cocktails in the middle of The City? We shall undoubtedly be returning and hopefully dragging some friends with us; they will not regret it.

Contact details are on their website.

We have a semi-quest on-going with the neighbours: find the best ribs establishment in Town. Until now it has been Frankie and Benny's in the O2. Last night we tried Bodean's in Tower Hill which was a qualified success.

The decor of the place was truly amazing, a vaguely updated, American-themed, 50s restaurant: red walls, antler chandeliers and metal pig's head light fittings. Odd. I was rather horrified, if we are honest, but Daniel loved it.

The menu had plenty of barbecue favourites, and we both had a starter which included pulled pork. I had supreme nachos and Daniel a quesadilla. We had looked up what pulled pork was before arriving, and it sounded reasonably interesting. It tasted a lot better than it sounded; yummy, tender, flavoursome pork. This really made both of our dishes. Nachos with plenty of pulled pork were meat-tastic and the pulled pork-stuffed quesadillas were excellent.

We had both decided to go for a slab of baby back ribs, Daniel taking them with onions rings and I chose barbecue beans. The sides dishes were perfectly nice, the big onion rings a particular treat, but the ribs were a bit odd. They had a lovely smoked aroma, and looked quite meaty, but the texture was rather dry and tough. Nice barbecue sauce on them, but just a bit too chewy.

Drink of choice is Sierra Navada Pale Ale by the pint. Two courses and a pint each cost £55. I'd like to return, but will go for more pulled pork and fewer ribs next time.

Menu and contact details on their website.

Guest reviewer Jeff Home reports from London's foie gras outpost.

Dan and I booked a table at the Club Gascon for dinner last night - and enjoyed a medley of gastronomic delights in the company of 13 other tables.

We actually started the evening next door at Cellar Gascon and made the mistake of ordering a glass each of the "Red of the Week". I guess we should have known better... vaguely disguised vinegar would be close.

Back to the main event! We perused the menu and decided the degustation menu (5 courses) with matching wines for £70 a head was worth investing in. We were not disappointed at all!

The first course was Pine morels cassoulet (nicely foamed) with smoked oysters and fresh walnuts - matched with an earthy glass of 2006 Bergerac Cuvee de Conti, La Tour des Gendres. They were perfectly matched - the oysters especially tender.

The next dish was a real surprise in pepperiness... cured black cod with fig chutney and citrus caviar - matched with a glass of Gaillac 2006 Dencon, causse. The dry mineral and pepper tones worked so well with this dish that we would both definitely order it a la carte again.

You can see a picture of the baby squid with black polenta and chorizo jus (stuffed into the squids) below - a real treat having been slowly roasted to perfection. We had a glass of chilled 2004 Domaine de la Colombette - Coteaux du Libron. The wine worked because it was heavily chilled and just goes to show how versatile this beverage can be :)

The final main was roast duck with green apple shavings, celery and liquorice - pictured left. Nicely pink meat - not overdone at all, and with the apple/liquorice combination a delight. The matching wine was a glass of Domaine des Desmoiselles, Le Mas - Cotes du Roussillon 2006. The mix of Grenache, Syrah and Carignan spicy enough to compliment, but not over powering. Nothing too special to write home about, however.

Dessert consisted of a foie gras nougat with passion fruit jus and meringue crumbled around the plat in lumps. The meringue was a bit of a weird choice, but the foie didn't disappoint. I wasn't so turned on by the choice of Baileys with this final course, there was so little of it (and so watered down with ice chips) that it hardly mattered I guess.

The staff seemed surprised when we declared the black cod as our favourite dish - for some reason they thought the duck was a better dish. Each to their own.

The place was nicely busy - not overly noisy and we were very well looked after by attentive (and not only personable but knowledgeable) staff dressed all in black. Why don't they have a Michelin star? I've been to places that are nowhere near as good as this who are sporting one.

We're planning the next visit already!

Contact details are on their website.

I've never had any other Vietnamese food in London, so I suppose this counts as the best I've had. It is certainly an oasis of pleasure in a run-down location, even if it looks like a squalid take-away.

Cafe East is not terribly large so if you want a table you have to turn up reasonably promptly after they open otherwise you'll have to queue. When we were there it was heaving with Vietnamese people after a taste of home; I don't think they were disappointed.

The menu is short and packed with noodle dishes. They some rice-noodle offerings, which helps those of us with wheat problems. There are a token few non-noodle dishes, like the sliced Vietnamese sausage we ordered, but it is clear these are not the main focus of the cuisine. The sliced sausage was meaty and quite satisfying.

Daniel's noodles with raw beef certainly put a smile on his face, as did my rice noodles with chicken slices on mine. The broth they were served in had clearly seen plenty of bones to make a tasty stock; very powerfully flavoured. The noodles were quite delicious as were the bits of meat; Daniel was enthusiastic about the raw beef. Next time I will wimp out and ask for a fork, eating noodles with chopsticks is a bit of a drag.

Cafe East does not have an alcohol license and we failed to ask about the possibility of BYO for our next visit.

It may look a bit of a dump and be located in a serious dump, but the quality of the food cannot be denied. It is also a bargain noshing experience; it cost us £11 per person.

Contact details: Cafe East, 24 Evelyn Street, London SE8 5DG. 020 8691 7777

Photo by Kake Pugh.

We were informed that Sakana-tei was a destination restaurant for Japanese types in London. This we took as a good sign. Indeed, the blackboards listing specials covered in Japanese script with no translation showed the clientele they were catering to.

They did have menus in English; they seemed to have a lot of chef's or seasonal specials with no hint of how much one was going to pay. I suppose this would be acceptable if you had been before and knew what to expect, but  for a neophyte visitor it was a touch impenetrable.

We ordered a couple of starters. Raw octopus was very chewy and I didn't really go for the slimy texture. It was in some water with pickled cucumber and seaweed, both of these were nicer than the octopus.

Our second starter was some skewers of grilled chicken. This was a real success; the chicken was bursting with flavour and the sauce they had been marinated in was quite delicious. This perked me up no end after the weirdness of the octopus.

Finally, we get to sushi. We ordered a chef's special; we were asked if we wanted six or eight pieces and chose eight. The highlights were an amazing piece of eel, some great tuna, lovely bonito and a fantastic scallop offering. The wasabi levels were a bit inconsistent in these, but not enough to ruin the experience. All of the pieces ranked as serious sushi.

Overall, this ranks as the best sushi we've had in London. It is not surprising that this restaurant was packed with Japanese people, as it was serving top-quality sushi that must be a taste of home. At £82 for the entire meal, including a few beers, you just cannot go wrong. Next time I'd like to try sitting at the sushi bar, but I'd just be happy to visit again and have some top quality fish. No slimy octopus, please.

Contact details: Sakana-tei, 11 Maddox Street, London W1S 2QF 0871 0757855.

This evening we decided to visit Eat Thai on St. Christopher's Place; a Thai restaurant that some have reported as offering the best Thai food in London. If you've dined at Addie's Thai Cafe this might seem controversial, but we were willing to give it a try.

First impressions were not promising; it looked small and cramped with an anonymous interior and rather tasteless black leather and metal chairs. Downstairs was a bit less cramped, but it was really lacking in personality despite some reasonable object d'art sprinkled around. We were also disappointed that they felt the need to play background music.

As usual at a Thai establishment we couldn't give a tinker's cuss about the wine list; it is enough that they serve Singha lager. Whilst we were settling in with our first drinks they brought us some prawn crackers that transcended the normal prawn cracker experience; they tasted of prawns! 

The menu was somewhat lacking in variety compared to Addie's, but there were a few things we liked the sound of. Our first choices were a couple of salads. Duck salad with celery, shallots, fish sauce and lime served in baby lettuce leaves was quite delicious, with moist and tasty pieces of duck and a gentle chilli kick to it. This was a damned good dish. The other salad we ordered was markedly less successful: butterflied prawns still in their shells with a brown sauce made from coconut and grapefruit. It looked highly unattractive, the prawns were totally overcooked and getting them out of the shells was too much of a fight. At £4.50 per prawn this was too much to stomach.

By this stage we had mixed feelings about the restaurant, so were unsure about what would follow. One of the next dishes was back to the quality of the duck salad. It was pork neck that had been marinated and then char-grilled. This was similar to a dish we've had at Addie's and also cooked at home and whilst it was very good, both Addie's and us have cooked a better version.

The weeping tiger beef (neua pat nahm prik pao kaek) was dull and overcooked even by Thai standards. The marinade was lacking flavour and intensity. The sauce it was served with was also flavourless. Jeff the neighbour cooked a far superior version of this a last week.

Our final main course was a lamb Massaman curry. This was the star dish of the evening with very tender slow-cooked lamb. The sauce it was cooked in was complex and bursting with flavour. Delicious!

Our overall impression was that Eat Thai was more competent than most Thai restaurants; easily bettering boring, boozer-quality Thai food which we have all been forced to endure. However, it does not compete with Addie's Thai Cafe for variety, presentation or ambiance. It is also about 50% more expensive, and whilst Elitist Review is concerned primarily with excellence, it is pleasing to be able to recommend the cheaper option. Still, if you ever find yourself hungry on Oxford Street and The Square and Le Gavroche are fully booked, this would be a reasonably pleasing alternative.

Contact details are on the Eat Thai website.

Someone replied to my ad, Peter Sidebotham of Hand Picked Burgundy, and we went out for lunch. I can fault neither the lunch nor the company.

The first thing that needs saying about Andrew Edmunds is that the wine list is fantastic. It may be short, but there is an embarrassment of riches to choose from. We had two excellent bottles at knock-down prices that we greatly enjoyed.

I've been to Andrew Edmunds on countless occasions, and the food can sometimes be a touch miss rather than hit, but today it was on fine form. I started off with some really top hole rillettes of goose. This was very meaty and tasty, and came with an excellent compote of onions and some rather nice cornichons. Peter had some pigeon-flavoured pasta which he said he really enjoyed, it had big lumps of of pigeon meat in it which he claimed made it delicious.

I then had some tuna, which was seared almost to perfection, cooked on the outside and raw in the middle. Peter liked his venison stew, but said it didn't live up to the high quality of his starter. I suppose this was true of mine as well, but I still enjoyed it.

There were more great sweet wines on offer for dessert, and many offerings that I could have eaten if I wasn't so stuffed. May I recommend you choose the Baumard Quarts de Chaume should you be going here and need a half bottle of sweet wine. You should also choose the Clos des Lambrays 2002 if you need a red wine.

Lunch was excellent, Andrew Edmunds were on top form. The service was prompt and unobtrusive, the food was of a good quality and the wine list was just great. If I was being picky I would say they have too much of a white wine-friendly menu for their red wine-heavy wine-list, but they have enough things for one to prey upon.

A great lunch, made largely by the company (I feel the need to point out here that I paid for my share), but the food and wine were top bunny.

Andrew Edmunds, 46 Lexington Street, London W1R 3LH Tel: 020 7437 5708

So after weeks of chucking chunks I managed to go out and eat food! And I didn't even blow bits repeatedly throughout the meal. My stomach is still in quite a bad way, but I greatly enjoyed my trip to West London to eat the best Thai food I've had in the UK.

Addie's Thai Café, a couple of hundred metres away from Earl's Court tube station, seems rather sedate from the outside. The inside is also well-designed but unremarkable; it could be any modern Asian restaurant. Yet the relative difficulty in getting a table and the frequency with which good reviews appear that perhaps what comes from the kitchen is more remarkable than the decor.

We started off with raw prawn salad which was one of the most characterful dishes I have ever eaten The prawns were peeled and butterflied, with minced chili, garlic, Thai basil and coriander piled on them drizzled with a lime juice and nam pla (fish sauce). I say 'characterful' because they were stunningly hot; sweat poured from our brows as we manfully consumed these hot little delights. Delights they were, the combination of flavours was most pleasing and even thought they did hurt, I wanted to eat more.

Our other starter was little rice pastry cases filled with chicken, pork, peppers, sweetcorn and spices. These were quite nice little, tasty, crunchy bites that provided a degree of relief from the screaming pain-fest of the raw prawn salad. Certainly enjoyable, but relatively speaking just lacking explosive pain pleasure. By this point we were feeling rather pleased with the meal and quite optimistic about what was to follow.

The first of our main courses was strips of roast pork neck meat served with a sweet soy reduction sauce. The pork was very tender and bursting with flavour, which was perfectly complimented by the sauce. The flavours were quite intense in this dish (although it was not hot) and you really got the feeling that high quality meat had been used that had been prepared with the utmost care.

The quality of the meat (and other ingredients) shone through in the duck curry. Thai curry in coconut milk is pretty ubiquitous these days, every boozer serves some knock-off of it. However, this example had a real depth of flavour and style one doesn't find terribly often. The duck meat was great and very well cooked whilst the sauce was complex and interesting. Afterwards we decided that this was probably our least-favourite of the things we ordered, yet this didn't stop it from being a very good dish.

Our final dish was Thai spicy squid salad. This is one of my favourite dishes and something I find it hard to avoid ordering when I see it on a menu. The squid was of a very high quality, tender, flavoursome and clearly prepared with great skill. The spicy herbal salad itself was very lively and refreshing. It was clearly the best squid salad I had tried.

So the food was great. The service was attentive but unobtrusive, too. It didn't bother me that the wine list was short, over-priced and dull because I drink Singha in Thai restaurants (as should you). We drank a reasonable number of beers, fruit juice and water, and ordered a lot of food for just two of us, but the bill was still a perfectly moderate sixty notes, which seemed excellent value for the high quality of the food. Addie's Thai Café was a hit all round. Should you want quality Thai food in London, I don't know of anywhere better.

Menu and contact details on the website.

Last weekend we took some people to La Porchetta. This time we went to the Islington branch. The food was, once again, high quality and I can highly recommend the Messicana pizza; the fresh sausage on it is delicious.

I should point out an omission from my review, whilst people can smoke away happily in La Porchetta there are also no smoking sections in all of the branches.

David

Last Saturday night we stopped off in Holborn for an early dinner at a branch of La Porchetta; it was quite the best pizza I've had in Town since I last went to one of their establishments.

The restaurants themselves are quite unpretentious, with tables crammed in to bursting point, staff shouting orders about and (until it is banned in a few months) people smoking away happily. But you don't go to La Porchetta for the environment, you go for the food.

They take the food very seriously. Pizza dough is freshly made each day, as is the tomato sauce, pasta and all pasta sauces. If you order pasta they'll bring a large lump of Parmesan to the table and shave off slivers onto your plate. The pasta is good, but the pizzas are out of this world.

Before you order a pizza and a starter have a look around for someone who has already been served; the pizzas are pretty big and garlic bread is the same size. Order both and your stomach will stretch. They are traditional Italian-style pizzas with a thin, crispy base, and a reasonable crust around the outside. They are baked in a very hot oven as decent pizza should be baked.

We ordered two old favourite pizzas, a calzone and an Americana. The calzone is a folded pizza with tomato sauce, cheese, onion and lots of sausage slices; it is a packed pocket of loveliness. So good did I find this pizza that when we lived closer to one of their branches this is all I ordered trip after trip. The Americana had tomato sauce, cheese, green peppers, salami and chillies. I would go as far as saying this was the best pizza I have ever eaten. The ingredients were of the highest quality and the flavours were harmonious.

Don't bother with the wine, it is practically undrinkable, get a beer (the Weiss-bier is nice). We had two pizzas and two beers and got out of their with a bill for less than twenty-five pounds including a tip. For the quality this was extremely good value.

They have branches all over London (check out their website for the addresses) and they all stick to the same principles, so go wherever is convenient for you. Make sure you do go if you like pizza, La Porchetta is the cat's arse. I have to say I am distinctly jealous of Daniel whose office is a brief bus-ride away from the Holborn branch; I'd love to have such a great source of lunch nearby.

David

I met up with my step-father today, we both thought La Gavroche seemed like a good place for lunch so that is where we met up. It was a good move.

The lunch menu was a good buy at £46.50 for three courses including wine and water. The staff were perfectly happy to assist in translating the dishes that were named beyond schoolboy-French ability and we both ended up ordering the same stuff. It sounded good so why not?

There was an amuse-bouche offering of deep-fried tiger prawn with avocado vinaigrette that was quite delicious; a good sharpener to get us both in the mood for the more serious stuff to follow. The prawn was very flavourful as was the avocado vinaigrette, I am pretty sure the vinegar used was balsamic.

We then had a lobster and button mushrooms in a pastry case with a very tasty mushroom-infused cream sauce. There was plenty of lobster and the flavours of lobster and mushroom were perfectly complimentary. I am sure the mushroom sauce used something a bit grander than button mushrooms to obtain its rich flavour. It was terribly good.

The main course was supreme of pheasant with choucrote, carrots, potatoes and slices of sausage. The sausage was quite brilliant, as were the potatoes and carrots in the rich sauce. They didn't over-do the quantity of choucrote, it was all nicely balanced. Perhaps the pheasant was a bit tough, but when isn't pheasant a bit tough?

After scoping the cheese trolley we were tempted to go for cheese, until one of the desserts was translated as chestnut tart, something neither of us could resist. We chose well, for it was delicious.

OK, the wine on offer with the set menu was nothing to write home about (we chose Leon Beyer Pinot Blanc, yawn-a-rama or what?) but the food was terribly good and the atmosphere was most compelling. It was nice to go to an establishment where they knew how to fold napkins when one had to leave the table. I don't think one could find a better lunch served in more pleasing circumstances than this. I admit meals are often made by the company, and my company was terribly good, but I don't think you could go far wrong dining at La Gavroche for lunch, a top address.

Contact: La Gavroche, 43 Upper Brook Street, W1K 7QR. 020 7499 1826.

David

This is a new opening in London and it has already got a lot of good press so I was looking forward to lunch there. Even though some of what we ate was very good, I found myself ultimately a bit disappointed by the experience.

We had a table in the 'studio' downstairs, they only take bookings up to midday, and then it is first-come, first-served. The dining room was a dark, modern kind of place, with stools around a central open kitchen and some tall tables also with stools in the rest of the room. I have to say I am not much of a fan when it comes to perching on stools whilst having a relaxed lunch. I can see this lends itself to speedy dining and so getting more covers in, but I did not enjoy that aspect of it.

The offered a tasting menu, a three-course a la carte and a menu of small dishes from which you could choose as many as you want. This is what we had. The wine list was short, but had some reasonable wines on it; shame the mark-ups where so high. They have some good wines by the glass if you are only having a light lunch. The Sylvaner, Schloss Vollrads Riesling (both white) and the Crozes-Hermitage (red) are good drinks. I did ask when sitting down if they had any dry Sherry, which took them an age to search the restaurant to determine that they had none.

My first dish was sautéed squid with sun-dried tomatoes and tiny cubes of ham. This was adequate, I liked the tomato and ham, but the squid failed to satisfy due to it being over-cooked. The next course was quite brilliant, pig's trotter with ham and Parmesan shavings. This tasted divine, the combinations of flavours and quality of ingredients really stood out.

They then gave us an extra course, a scallop cooked in its shell with red peppercorns and salt. This was good too; the scallop was perfectly cooked (ie. pretty raw) and the red peppercorns had a most intriguing flavour.

I cannot help ordering ris de veau when I see them on a menu, this was ris de veau with stuffed Swiss chard and foie gras foam. The sweetbreads were very rare, and had a mouth-coating richness that made me writhe with pleasure. The foam did taste of foie gras, which was nice enough.

The final 'main' course were two little beef burgers with a lump of pan fried foie gras and roasted peppers in them. I liked the bread, burger and foie, but found the favour of the roasted peppers dominated it.

A review had mentioned that the soufflés were worth having, so I had green Chartreuse soufflé with pistachio ice cream. The ice cream was delicious, but not a patch on the extremely high quality of the soufflé, with its light airiness and delicate Chartreuse flavour. They gave us two free dessert courses, strawberries with basil sorbet and raspberries in eau de vie. The strawberries were good and I liked the sorbet, but the raspberries were screamingly unripe and it was clearly an eau de vie producer who makes evil filth.

I did mainly like the food and it is a good idea to have many small courses to choose from, I can see that making for a speedy lunch. However, I don't like speedy lunches, I like huge, baroque feasts. I could have had a hilarious time with all of those little dishes if I was able to sit back and stretch my legs for five minutes now and again, rather than balancing on a stool. I'm sure it'll do well with allowing people to roll up and take the next free table, but I'll be avoiding the 'studio' when and if I return.

Contact: L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, 13-15 West Street, WC2H 9NQ. Telephone: 020 7010 8600

Yi-Ban is located by an old dock near London city airport, hardly a place that will get a lot of passing trade. It is also bereft of decoration, people don't go there for the surroundings. However, when we went on a Saturday lunch it was completely full and we had to wait for a table. This suggested the restaurant was good enough to be a destination; people are willing to make the trek out there in order to eat.

They serve dim sum during the day, and this is what we ordered. For this they give you a dim sum menu and a piece of paper on which you tick the dish numbers you want. This seemed like a good solution for taking orders for their stretched staff who were rushed off their feet.

Everything we ordered was of a high standard. I really enjoyed the char sui buns and the pork and crab dumplings. Crystal prawn dumplings were also good as was the roast pork cheung fen. Perhaps the deep-fried shredded squid was a bit rubbery, but the chili sauce that came with it was very nice. We ordered nine dim sum plates between the two of us and this was plenty for a hearty lunch.

The waiting staff seemed a bit rushed off their feet, there was a wedding reception going on in one half of the restaurant, but the food came speedily enough once we ordered. I wouldn't bother ordering wine there, everything they had was rubbish. Not that this really appeals to me, but it seemed very popular with families. The food was good and cheap at a bit over thirty pounds for our meal with beer. We shall return for more of their dim sum, certainly.

They also have a branch in Chelsea, which might be a bit less of a trek for those in central London.

Contact: Yi-Ban, London Regatta Centre, Dockside Road, Royal Albert Dock. Telephone: 02074736699.

David

On Friday night we visited Haché in Camden, it is a gourmet burger establishment. As usual I looked at the wine list first, which was laughably poor, but I was there for burgers rather than wine so I was not too bothered.

They have a range of toppings for the burgers, also chicken, lamb and vegetarian burgers. Beef was my aim. I was very pleased that they asked how well done you wanted your burger. Rare seemed the way forward to check the quality of the meat. I ordered a Canadian burger which came with mature cheddar and bacon.

The quality of the burgers we had were very good, they did cook them rare as ordered. They were of a reasonable size; big enough to fill but not so large they were a struggle. Their chips were also good. Prices all seemed pretty reasonable, a meal with plenty of beer and 12.5% service cost three of us fifty pounds.

Not much else can really be said about it, they were good burgers at a reasonable price. Haché is well worth a visit if you are in the area and want an uncomplicated meal.

Contact: Haché, 24 Inverness Street, NW1 7HJ. Telephone: 020 7485 9100.

David

Bentley's Oyster Bar Review

I suppose I could be a bit more lenient on Bentley's as we dined on a Sunday but I'm not going to: it was terrible.

It is not a bad dining atmosphere in the oyster bar, but it began to drag a bit as we were sat there with nothing to eat or drink for an age as the lack lustre staff ignored us. Our neighbours also were waiting for an unacceptable period and they were clearly dissatisfied as well.

We finally got to order and the food seemed bearly good enough to start with. The squid dish seemed to have been killed twice so rubbery was it. Once the starters had gone it was another interminable wait, punctuated only with them bringing a different bottle of wine to the one we ordered. This was remedied with the same degree of sloth that our orders were taken.

We were served an incorrect main course, and yet again there was huge delay in fixing this. The main courses were perfectly edible, but by no means did they make amends for the hopeless service. It was a great disappointment and I really don't see the need to return there.

Contact: Bentley's Oyster Bar and Restaurant, 11-15 Swallow Street, W1B 4DG. Telephone 020 7734 4756.

David

Sushi-Say review

When I was asked to book a sushi place for Sunday lunch I was a tad surprised; Sunday hardly seems like the best day to be seeking the freshest of fish. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded as this turned out to be the best sushi meal I've had in London.

As a South London kid, it is a bit of a trek to get to, right at the Nothern end of the Jubilee line in Willesden Green. It was worth it. Sadly we appeared to be the only people willing to make this journey on a Sunday; we dined with only the staff for company.

We ordered sashimi and sushi. The sashimi was a tiny bit cold so the flavours were initially a bit hard to discern. I suppose this is the price one has to pay for dining at a quiet time. The fish all seemed to be of high quality, the fatty tuna (toro) and salmon especially so.

The sushi was a real step up. Served at the correct temperature it really showed itself to be a step above that which I had eaten in London before. The ratio of rice to fish seemed pleasingly low, with large pieces of fish on each piece of sushi. Tuna, salmon, sweet shrimp, yellow tail and squid were really quite impressive in terms of quality. One of the clam sushi pieces I had was a bit tired, but again I see this as a reasonable price to pay for eating on a dodgy day.

The prices were perfectly reasonable for the quality, expect to pay around £30 a head, and the service was great. Heartily recommended.

Contact: Sushi-Say, 33b Walm Lane, NW2 5SH. Telephone 020 8459 2971.

David

Yauatcha review

Yauatcha is quite an impressive looking place in the middle of Soho. Upstairs there is a tea room with little cakes on offer, downstairs is the main restaurant which is the site of the best dim sum meal I have ever eaten.

The restaurant itself it quite stylish, with plenty of room between tables and a reasonable number of helpful staff milling around. It suggests you are going to have quite an expensive meal. Looking at the comprehensive dim sum menu the price for most of the dishes seemed very low. This led us to order multiple plates of the same dish. A bit of a mistake.

When your food arrives, and it does so promptly, the mistake was plain to see; portions are quite large with multiple pieces of dim sum per plate. I would recommend than even if you are very hungry four plates each would be plenty.

The dim sum was excellent. Char sui buns were as light as clouds and filled with tasty, rich pork. Sesame prawns on toast were delicious, made with a whole large prawn. The duck spring rolls were a delight, stuffed with flavoursome duck meat. All of the little dumplings we ordered were lovely, perfectly cooked and filled with flavour. There was not a single disappointing dish.

For a change, we didn't bother with wine; the Chinese beer was perfectly acceptable to eat with a large meal. Thanks to our ordering it was a very large meal and I ended up happily stuffed.

Due to our heroic ordering the price was a bit high, but if you order less enthusiastically a meal should set you back at around £30 a head.

I cannot recommend Yauatcha highly enough; if you like dim sum this is the place to go in London.

Contact: Yauatcha, 15 Broadwick Street, W1F 0DL. Telephone 0870 780 8265.

David

La Brasserie Ma Cuisine Bourgeoise review

Yes, I admit it has an awful name, and the outside looks frankly hideous, but we dined very well.

The menu has loads of French Brasserie favourites, so many recognisably fun things that the choice was difficult. Daniel and I ordered a different starters each and swapped half way through. The little crispy cake of pig's trotters I had first was very rich and strongly flavoured, really very good, but blown away by the other starter. This was pan fried foie gras with lentils. The foie gras was cooked to perfection, a good crust and melting soft in the middle. Excellent.

I did not try the main course of our guest, but she reported the lamb with merguez and beans was perfectly cooked and flavoursome. Daniel and I can rarely resist ris de veau when they appear on a menu and so we both went for this option. It was perfectly cooked and the capers and celeriac surrounding it added a bite to the rich Sauternes sauce it was presented with. This was a truly excellent dish.

The main wine list is a bit pricey; it is really lacking anything one would wish to drink. They have a fine wine list which has some better offerings, but the prices are quite steep. Our bottle of 1998 Macon was getting a bit long in the tooth, but the red Vosne-Romanée 1995 from Rene Engel was excellent.

The food made this worth the trek out to Twickenham, so it was a bit of a shame they only had one other diner in that night. They deserved to be full.

Contact: La Brasserie Ma Cuisine Bourgeoise, 2 Whitton Road, Twickenham TW1 1BJ. Telephone 020 8744 9598.

David

This Korean restaurant lives underground right next door to Holborn tube station. The decor and location are perhaps the most interesting things about it as on our trip we found the food to be woefully tedious.

We ordered a selection of meat, fish and vegetable dishes. The waitress tried her best to be informative, warning us that Yuk Hwae was raw beef and that one of the dishes we ordered was very spicy. The wine list was laughably poor so we ordered Korean beer. Sadly, when the food arrived it was as lack-lustre as the cold February night we were hiding from.

The Yuk Hwae was perhaps the most disappointing of the dishes. This is Korean steak tartare, billed as the world's best steak tartare. Strips of raw beef served with, in this case, sesame oil, grated garlic, an egg yolk and Asian pear. Not only was it served too cold, but it is was inadequately spiced with far too much pear. In this state it tasted of little beyond the pear. It needed more garlic or chili in order to perk it up and could certainly have done with far less pear. When it warmed up the beef had some taste, but it was still exceptionally dull.

The raw skate in chili sauce was the dish we had been warned was very spicy. I wish it had been. It tasted of little beyond sesame oil and the lumps of skate cartilage were distractingly chewy. Another depressing dish. We also ordered some a monk fish dish, which came with worryingly little monk fish for the fifteen pounds charged for it. Some hand-made pork dumplings were acceptable, but my local Chinese take-away does them better. The tempura-style prawns were also acceptable, but frighteningly expensive for only four, boring prawns. Another boring dish was some cold strips of squid that were reasonably tender, but seemed to have been cooked so as to remove all character.

We did get a selection of the Korean speciality pickled vegetables Kim Chee. These ranged from the incredibly dull (radish Kim Chee) to the actively unpleasant (cabbage Kim Chee). The first bite is with the eye, so it is said, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised these were awful as they looked like congealed vomit.

The food was so boring we couldn't bring ourselves to finish it all up; the staff looked rather surprised by this. They have had a number of good reviews recently so perhaps they were expecting us to wet ourselves with pleasure simply for getting a table. Sadly, the food was mind-meltingly tedious and so our moods deteriorated to 'stunningly depressed' as the meal progressed. By the end we were both incredibly eager to get out of there and even thought about going to a decent sushi place near by to cheer ourselves up. Unfortunately, the boring rubbish they called a meal was so frighteningly expensive that our budget for the evening was spent. The problem with this was not that it was bad, but that it was incredibly boring; I'd rather be offended than bored. It was a depressingly dull meal and I can only say that Asadal is deeply sub-interest.

David.