Restaurant Reviews: Top 5 of the year

Well after the terrible her is my list of the top five meals I have had this year.... So here goes:

1. Lucali's in Brooklyn, New York.  Full review here.  The best pizza I have ever had in one of the most romantic settings I have ever eaten for meagre amounts of money.  And to cap it off, it is bring your own.

2. Momofuku Ko in Manhattan, New York. Full review here. Korean fusioned genius.  Seventeen courses of food you haven't eaten before in ways you hadn't thought of.  The only problem is getting a reservation.  Beaten by Lucali's as you have to factor in the price of a meal and this wasn't cheap.

3. Fernandez & Leluu's supper club in London Fields.  Full reviews here and here.  They take all the nonsense and press chatter about supper clubs/ underground restaurants/ the heritage of Cuban illegal backroom dinners and turn it into a food reality.

Restaurant Reviews: Bottom 5 Of The Year

Well, as it is a tradition for lazy journalists I thought I should get involved in the racket and give my list of the crappiest five meals I have had this year.... So here goes:

1. The General Greene in Brooklyn, New York. Given the reviews in the New York Times and NY Mag I was amazed at how they conspired to come up with such a bad meal.

The food was so underwhelming or, at its worst, plain bad that I cannot conceive of how the NYT gave it a good review. The lack of skill in the kitchen and in the conception of the dishes and creation of the menu (i.e. a salad which combines radishes and anchoives) suggests that it was not simply an 'off day' but that this is just a bad restaurant.

If you get very lost, don't heed warnings and do end up there (which is slightly hard if you live in London) stick to the drinks.

2. The Water House off Regents Canal in Hackney. An absolute eco miss. Review above or here. I am still searching for the words to echo its complete and utter failure as a restaurant.

Restaurant Review: Fernandez & Leluu Supper Club in London Fields revisited

I should have written this review but ages ago but it is far harder to be nice than to be nasty about a meal.  When you have a truly excellent meal it is especially difficult to distill what made it so special into words.  I have now been to F&L twice and each time I have faced this problem (prior review here).

F&L is a strange beast, it is a supper club/ underground restaurant where the food is the star.  This is not about dancing drag queens, genteel conversation, glimpses into other people's front rooms or a fine brew, it is about good food.  What is most impressive about F&L is that they are inventive with their dishes.  They don't roll out dishes which are tried and tested (apart from on each other) but put new and strange flavour combinations out there to either succeed or fail.

On my second visit a group of six of us went to F&L's fish tales supper.  This was a chance for F&L to deposit large amounts of cash in Steve Hatt's hands (the best and most expensive fishmonger in London) and for us to see what they could do with it.  I was a bit suspicious before going as I thought fish could be the hardest ingredient to base a supper club around as it is all about freshness and not overcooking it.

The first course was salmon sashimi with mirin and orange sauce and chips.  The sashimi was swimmingly fresh and the dip was everything that impresses me so much about F&L; a combination that I have not tried elsewhere but which works so well.  I also remember a wasabi mayonnaise (though it may not have been with that course) which quite frankly wowed me.  Again, almost an obvious combination, but not one that I have had elsewhere.

Cafe Review: Gwilym's Columbia Road Coffee Cart and the Bacon Stall next door

I generally hate routine. Routine means going to the same tired old places and just missing out on the new. Unfortunately sometimes something is just so good you have to do it, week in and week out.

I first bumped into Columbia Road flower market when I lived in Cheshire Street off Brick Lane about six years ago and used to see trails of yuppies hauling back their floral cut price prizes from the flower market. Little did I know I would become one of them.

What really tempted me to the flower market however was the food. The little shop in the market which still does battered calamari used to do the best burgers with wedges of Parmesan melting on them and sauce to drip all over your hands. Then you could go to Treacle and get yourself a little cupcake. This used to be my perfect way to start a London Sunday.

Restaurant Review: Byron Hamburgers in Kensington High Street

This is a burger review with a side of Billy Elliot.

Jen and I made a rare jaunt to West London today to brave the men who wear shirts on their days off and women for whom blonde is a religion. We were tempted there by the Darwin Cocoon at the Natural History Museum (fascinating and resplendent respectively) and a detour to the Victoria and Albert Museum for the new Medieval and Renaissance Gallery (makes one proud to be the descendant of the world’s first modern Empire which gave it the chance to steal the best stuff).

Whilst being trapped way out West we thought that it would be worth giving Byron hamburgers a go as I had read and seen reviewed that they were amongst the best burgers you will ever try. Having been there I slightly worry that those reviews were written by people whose taste is to be as trusted as an Orthodox rabbi running a bacon review site.

This might be too ominous as the burgers aren’t bad and the meal as a whole was enjoyable. However, this is no Hawksmoor, you aren’t going there for a chunk of unmolested pitch perfect beef and the menu is honest about this. Whilst Byron may rabbit on about using good quality beef and cooking their burgers “medium”, this is not a pure burger joint. This is a place to get the sides and the menu lists them expansively; slaw, mac n cheese, shakes, floats, malts, chips etc.. And Byron is all the better for it.

Our Supper Club Dress Rehearsal

Every Christmas Eve, I cook. This year, I stayed in London for the holidays and decided to throw a Mexican inspired shindig for our friends who also stayed in town. We've been kicking around the idea of hosting our own underground supper club, so I decided this dinner would serve as a dress rehearsal.Our five course menu kicked off with my margaritas. Then followed with:

-Salmon ceviche with chorizo and crispy wontons
-Chicken tortilla soup
-Grilled prawns with coriander crema and black bean puree
-Barbacoa style beef with grape salsa, cabbage, and sweet potato chips
-Chili chocolate brownie sundaes

Restaurant Review: Momofuku Ko in New York

When I first started visiting Jen in New York I kept reading about one chef - David Chang. Jen smugly told me that she had had him cook for her personally on one of her shoots but that really unfortunately I would never ever manage to get a booking at his proper 13 seats only restaurant (Momofuku Ko).

Thereafter, obviously I was determined to try his food. I went to his Wagamama-esque plebian offshoot restaurants - Momofuku Noodle Bar, Ssam Bar and Milk Bar - and was thoroughly disappointed despite my attempts to convince myself that this was his "real" food and not just an attempt to cash in on the brand name. My report card on those restaurants is, shows some promise but faulty execution. However, two things convinced me that it was worth persevering and that Momofuku Ko might be so much more.

The first was his pork buns which I got to sample at Noodle Bar. Now these are infamous and much copied in New York. There are one of the better dishes I have ever had. A soft asian bread bun, hoisin sauce, soft pork belly and crackling. Genius. (PS the picture is from LookAtLao Flickr's photostream as I forgot to grab a snap)

Restaurant Review: Franco Manca in Brixton

Can someone please explain what I am missing? To put it mildly I was excited to go here. Every review, every person who has been here, the freaking zeitgeist; they all say it is something special. Unfortunately it isn't. It is just cheap local food.

Have a look at the picture I took of the simpliest of Italian pizzas but still the touchstone of whether a pizzeria is any good - mozzarella, tomato and basil. As the pictures shows, it is a bit of a mess. The crust is/ was good. Unfortunately the tomato sauce wasn't thickened properly and never got beyond a liquidy soup which meant that it ran and separated on the top of the pizza and made the base a soggy puddle. The mozzarella was flecked on, with strange chunks of it plonked randomly over the pizza; not enough of it; not well enough laid out. The basil, well where was it? A couple of charred pieces simply don't give the pizza the opportunity to sing with the taste of the basil.

We also tried some of the other pizzas, with all the toppings and whatnot. They suffered from the same basic flaws and also a thuggish approach to scatterbombing the pizza with ingredients. It isn't too much fun to eat a solidified square inch of anchovy rather than having had it disbursed over your pizza.

The upside is its cheap. The atmosphere is also exciting. The rest; propaganda.

Now some may say I am missing the point, this is oven fired goodness. Regional Italian brilliance. It's not. I spent weeks going round New York trying out proper versions of this. Summer driving trips around Italy further reinforce that this is a pale imitation.

Did I just have a bad visit or something?

Price - £10 and under

Restaurant Review: Rambling Restaurant in Camden

It has taken me quite a while to bring myself to write a review of the Rambling Restaurant in Camden as it didn't motivate me either way.

It is standard underground restaurant fare, pay money, receive invite (this one enjoyably a bit more cryptic than most) and turn up at a random's front door. As always with underground restaurants a lot (often everything) depends on who you are sitting next to and how much you drink. Fortunately Mat and I got lucky; a fun French and Spanish couple and a lot of wine respectively.

The deal at Rambling Restaurant was 3 courses for about £20- 25 (I can't be completely sure as I have somehow managed to lose my online receipt for the meal). The food is, I think, rather accurately portrayed in my surprisingly good iPhone pictures of the meal.

The starter was three dips and as much pitta as you could eat. The hummus was much better than most I had tried and the beetroot dip was excellent. However, one can only get so excited over dips and pitta and Rambling Restaurant were already one course down.

When you can't face anything else, there's always Thai fish curry

Apologies for the lack of recipes lately. I have no excuse except to say I'm a lousy food photographer. This fact is slightly ironic since my day job at the moment requires me to make antiques look sexy on screen. So it definitely doesn't feel right posting recipes that look like they're coming out of a canteen. In the meantime, all I can do is hope for one snap that sticks. That, and putting a tripod at the top of my Christmas list.

What can I say about Thai curry? This is by no means authentic, but it works. True curries would replace the ginger with galangal and zest with kaffir lime leaves. You can do that if you like, but what's below is quick, easy, and uses a lot of ingredients that you may already have in your pantry.

Cafe Review: Hummingbird Bakery in Wardour Street

I had heard over Twitter and the London zeitgeist that the Hummingbird Bakery was a solid "wow" and apparently all and sundry are in homage to their cakes and Americana advertising.

Quite frankly I have to ask why?

Ten minutes after I left the store I was still trying to scrape the sickly sensation of their red velvet cupcake's frosting from my mouth.

I came to that little piece of genius called a red velvet cake late in life.  It was a bit like a late puberty.  Uncomfortable and abnormal.  My first, was appropriately enough, at Smooch in Fort Greene, Brooklyn (worth knowing as it is about one of the only two places in NY to get a flat white http://www.yelp.com/biz/smooch-brooklyn).  I munched in disbelief at a cake which was, well, red.  Amazing.

Restaurant Review: The Deptford Project in Deptford (in a tube carriage)

There are places you expect a good meal. On the other hand a tube carriage is a place you eat some rotten fried chicken after a long night out. A place where there are discarded McDonald's wrappers and remnants from the last drunk's journey. It is was therefore refreshing to come across a far better culinary use of one in Deptford.

Deptford is one of the final spots on my art tours of weird places in London. They began in Hackney Wick where I discovered The Counter on a side branch of the canal for a perfect flat white and brownie. Then there was Peckham, where there was art, but well no food. Brixton had Franco Manca but the art was studenty and then we finally hit Deptford.

I didn't expect much of Deptford but I was wrong. After some great art and a peek at the Laban Centre we went to the Deptford Project Cafe (www.thedeptfordproject.com). Half way up the high street amongst the human rubble of the market there is a tube carriage hiked up on some decking and mounted amongst community creations.

Restaurant Review: Gordon Ramsay at Hospital Road

Bring out small bit of meat or fish, pour sauce, speak franglais, repeat 7 times, bring out bill for 1,000. End.

Price - £1,000 for 3 heads

Restaurant Review: Lena's on Curtain Road

There is only so much you can say about a restaurant which has white leather Chesterfield sofas and none of it is good.  The interior of Lena's is white.  There are white sofas, white pictures, white backlighting, white tiles, white tables, white tack.  This is presumably meant to be decor.  Whereas L'Anima does the same white theme, it does it well.  This just looks like a bunch of cheap plastic smeared around a dining room.

You may be wondering why if it is so transparently shit from the very colour of the place would anyone choose to eat there?  The answer is simple; our Christmas party.  Most Christmas parties involve secretaries, inappropriate dancing and then drunk and hungover days of hell.  Lena's so succinctly ruined my night I was at home by ten.  There is not much point going into detail about the food as it was the kind of quality a school canteen might do if trying really hard.  In the end it would still be basic rubbish but they would have wasted their time and your money in getting there.

I only took one picture, of the pasta I had for a main course.  In a proper Italian restaurant the pasta or primo piatto would come after an antipasto but before the secondo and you would have various other courses.  In such a context a dish this size would be acceptable.  However, four inspid little cloying pieces of pasta in an offputting sauce don't really cut it as a standalone main.  The rest was even worse but even less deserving of electronic type being wasted on them.

Price - £no idea but every penny was wasted

Restaurant Review: Christmas at Number 42 by the Pale Blue Door/ Architecture Foundation

I was nervous before I went here. Was it going to be about the food or about a drag queen serving you food?

The underground restaurant 'scene' in London is about many things, one thing I have unfortunately realised five or six 'supper clubs' in is that good food is not always guaranteed.

The first supper club I went to (Ms Marmite's Underground Restaurant) made me question what all the fuss was about due to the lacklustre cooking. Having read that it was inspired by the paladares in Cuba I probably shouldn't have been surprised as having eaten my way around Cuba 12 years ago I had learnt the hard way that paladares/ underground restaurants can offer disappointment and food poisoning (often together).

It was only the novel experience of mingling with strangers and the slightly illicit sensation that led me to try my second (Lady Gray's tea room). Her great baking spurred me onwards and upwards to try Fernandez and Leluu's brilliant Vietnamese extravaganza. Thereafter there was the slight commerciality of the Savoy Truffle Club (insofar as they run a tight ship which means you get acceptable food but a slightly astringent experience compared to the frivolity of the other supper clubs I have been to) and then well... Christmas at Number 42 done by those behind the Pale Blue Door in Hackney. Oh, and I nearly forgot, Nuno Mendes at the Loft is also meant to be part of this trend but there is something different about a professional chef cooking at home (however, it was hella good).

I hadn't ever been to the Pale Blue Door but I knew it was a set designer's/ drag queen's mash up of a meal. When I saw that they were collaborating with the Architecture Foundation I booked three tickets to go, one of which was for Clair who first lured me to Ms Marmite's earlier in the year and put the whole 'supper club' scene on my radar.

Beyond that I walked into Christmas at Number 42 ignorant and not having listened to Christina Aguilera for an age. That was about to change. The room was a revelation. Normally when people talk about 'rooms' they blather on about decor or some nice wallpaper. This was a pre assembled miniature house. We wiggled our way up to our table, on the second floor, into the kid's bedroom. As we went pass our drag queen for the night (Russella, see http://www.russella.co.uk), resplendent in red, informed us that there was porn under the table (superglued we found out). So far so normal.

Restaurant Review: Cinnamon Kitchen in the City (Devonshire Square)

Devonshire Square is a curious little place. Tucked between a ratbag of a Tescos and the sweet coffee wonder of Taylor Street Baristas it is a refurbed themed Cheshire-ised square in the midst of the City of London. All protected boundaries and chi chi restaurants.

Hidden in there is the Cinnamon Kitchen. Now I don't know if you have ever been to the Cinnamon Club but it is great. Really great. Westminster politicos, a library where you can knock back whisky in leather bound chairs and good curry. Unfortunately, it is not a place where you want to regularly pay for yourself which is probably why it is so popular with politicians as us, the general public, are probably paying for them to eat their vindaloo and drink their Talisker.

I knew that they had opened their City outpost a while ago but only ventured there this week despite it being seconds from my office. I'll start with the most important thing in these recessionary Christmas forced extravagance times; the price. £15 for two courses with a drink (of proper alcohol - Bombay Sapphire not Beefeaters, Talisker not Sainsbury's own). £18 for three courses and a drink. Though this is only for lunch.

Well what do you expect for £15. Do you expect to receive a perfect puffy little amuse bouche? Do you expect two immacualtely presented courses of spot on Indian food served efficiently and with grace. Probably not but that is what we received. Given that it competes with the prices at New Tayyabs and Lahore and pummels them on decor and waiting times the question has to be, why aren't you having your lunch there?

There is no need to go into too much detail on the food each of the three of us ate there. Quite simply it was well executed modern Indian cuisine. The pictures reflect accurately the type of the food and the influence of French presentational methods on it.

Price - £15

Restaurant Review: Lady Gray's Hidden Tea Room in Old Street

This is an old review which used to live elsewhere but my failure to make properly fluffy and sweet scones last night (no thanks Nigella Lawson) made me want to revisit and repost it. 

When I originally wrote my review I thought that the Hidden Tea Room was the best of the "domestic" underground restaurants I had tried at that time (this is meant to exclude Nuno Mende's efforts as there is nothing less than professional about his place, The Loft).  This was for the simple reason that Lady Gray and her husband had got the concept right; high tea. Brilliant. Simple, and easy to maintain the quality. 

This was one of the first underground restaurants reviewed by Time Out and has always meant that getting a booking is a bit tricky.  However, I managed to get a space there at the end of the summer and took two friends there.  I would definitely try to go in summer as Lady Gray has an advantage most Londoners don't have; outside space.  Perfect for champagne and her best dish, cheese biscuity nibbles.

After the opening drinks you find yourself in Lady Gray's front room squeezed in around a table that touches every corner of the room.  You don't forget for one second that this is not a restaurant and that is part of its beauty. The service, the surroundings, the food are all at a tangent of your "normal" experience. I mean, we even spoke to the people sitting opposite.

The effort Lady Gray and her husband took to relax, feed and stuff you were laudable. As already mentioned the cheese biscuits to go with the champagne were the highlight but the rest of the cream tea was good.  Not grand Hotel good, but good. Where they really stood out was on the teas, a selection of 10s and with each person getting their own little teapot.

All you can do when you meet such nice people as Lady Gray and her husband is wish them well and thank them for a great experience.

Price - £25 a head with all the tea you want

Restaurant Review: Toku in the Japan Centre

Restaurant Toku was my lunchtime haunt for many a month and the place where I would eat set menus until my hangover went away. It couldn't be more Japanese as it lives on the ground floor of The Japan Centre right by Piccadilly Circus. I invariably find myself drifting back here when I am hungry and in the area (or Sakura by Oxford Circus for Shabu Shabu).

I went there with Jen for lunch after having seen Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy and taking her to Laduree for her first experience of macaroons. I think Jen's review of Toku would be, "I want more macaroons". I have some sympathy with her.
 

The food is good, filling Japanese fare. I think the sashimi/ sushi is probably the best they do as they are one of the few places in London where you can buy sashimi grade fish. However, as winter comes along it is all about warm broths and when we visited, ramen. Now ramen is one of those holy dishes. It is the kind of dish people get obsessed by and travel across a city (or continent) to get a proper fix of. I have had great ramen in two places, in Japan at the town of Nikko just outside of Tokyo (boring I know) and at Ippudo in NY. I almost preferred Ippudo, the pork stock is the liquid equivalent of the joy of a bacon sandwich on a miserable morning.

My ramen at the Japan Centre was "good". No more, no less. With all of the rice and gyoza it is very filling. I miss Ippudo and Japan though.

Price - £15ish with a nice Japanese beer