Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX, 0845 686 1122 www.canteen.co.uk
Sometimes a long leisurely meal is not what’s required. Sometimes you need to get in and out in under an hour. It’s amazing the way a need for quality food at speed reduces your choice. Particularly when you have a specific time you need to vamoose by.
Unless of course you go down the sarnie and drink route – a quick Pret, an Eat or even Leon’s balls. But there is a third way. The Canteen way. Continue reading
15 Leigh street, London, WC1H 9EW 020 7383 3135 www.chillicool.com
I’ve read about it, heard people raving about it, even attempted to cook it. But I had never, till now, really tasted authentic Szechuan food. The cuisine du jour about four years ago when, with opening of Bar Shu, a chilli-fevered enthuiasm for it swept London’s food critics.
And so, when the call came through from foodie central (well, from Meemalee, which is pretty much the same thing) I grabbed my gear and headed to Chilli Cool in Bloomsbury to get my socks – I hoped – well and truly blown off. Continue reading
Branches in Islington, Wardour St, Kings Rd, Gloucester Rd, Kingston, Kensington, White City. www.byronhamburgers.com
Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. Eating at Byron was a ten-ton truck of revelation hitting my poor Saturday morning self. And if that sounds like some deep-fried Dixie Bible-belt conversion, well then, it’s not too far off.
My very first bite of the “Byron” – 6oz burger, dry cure streaky bacon, cheese and special sauce – brought back sepia-toned childhood memories of burgers past. It was so good I came back 24 hours later to go through the whole experience all over again. Continue reading
86 St John St, London, EC1M 4EH, 020 7253 7624, www.phocafe.co.uk
I go to Pho quite a lot, it’s the only place within walking distance from work where I can get a decent noodle soup to take back to my desk. So when Mathilde asked me to come and review it for lunch, I thought “why not”? I thought I knew what I would say – that it’s a great introduction to Vietnamese food for the uninitiated, but it’s hard to match up to some of the Phos you get in Shoreditch.
But I didn’t have Pho. And I made a discovery. Pho is not what Pho is best at. Explore the menu a little more, venture off the fashionably beaten track and you’ll be rewarded with some tasty surprises Continue reading
26 Maddox St, London, W1S 1QH http://www.goodmanrestaurants.com/
Dark wood? Check. Leather banquettes? Check. Good lookin’ hunks of huge marbled steak? Oh most definitely yes. In Goodman, a chunk of prime gourmet US of A has landed in the middle of good ol’ London town.
Gourmet… USA… really? Oh yes. And six crack bloggers: Kavey, Mr Noodles, The London Foodie, Catty, Leluu and myself were here to check it out. Continue reading
All over the place
http://www.fineburger.co.uk/
We had a mere forty minutes before we needed to be at the cinema. There wasn’t much time and some food definitely had to be found before we headed in to a two-hour plus film. When you have that little time you really shouldn’t expect to find anything resembling haut cuisine, and it’s definitely not long enough for anything resembling a civilised sit down meal. But burgers – the ultimate meal-in-one – they would be perfect, right? Right? Continue reading
88 St. John Street, London, EC1M 4EH, 020 7253 6950, www.portalrestaurant.co.uk
I have to confess, I didn’t really know what Portuguese cuisine consisted of, bar sardines and bacalhau (salt cod). I thought maybe it might be a bit like Spanish, but then, isn’t that like saying Italian food is a bit like French? Sure, they share a border but so do many places with quite distinct cuisines. I do know that Portgal has always looked outwards rather than to its bigger neighbour. And it’s thanks to Vasco de Gama and his ilk that SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent have chilli, so it can’t be all bad.
Portal has had great word-of-mouth reviews and I suspected that the menu probably included bacalfau and sardines somewhere (gross stereotyping – moi?). Continue reading
I’m going to start by saying that the Eastside Inn Bistro had a lot to live up to. It’s been reviewed very favourably by London Eater and Catty, and I had heard great things about chef Bjorn van der Horst when he was at Noisette.
Taking all the above into account I went along expecting something special. But was worried that it would be merely good. Or worse. Special though, is exactly what we got. Continue reading
Last night involved a trip to Sardo, a Sardinian restaurant just off Tottenham Court Road – discovered last June, and revisited twice since then. The menu (except for the specials) hasn’t changed at all and worry about choosing the wrong dish has given way to excitment at sampling something new and consistently good.
Everything I and my various companions have eaten in the last six months has been excellent. The Sardinian dishes are simple – no hidden flourishes, secret ingredients or unfamiliar textures, just the basics done extremely well. Continue reading