Tag: foodie

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Restaurant review

Blue & Orange, Thornton Heath, London

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Every area should have its local great restaurant, and for Thornton Heath, this is Blue & Orange. I live in Thornton Heath, so I have visited this restaurant many times. For me, it is the best and most reliably good restaurant in South London.

The food is always excellent, we have eaten from all parts of the menu and it is consistently very good. The menu is varied with an Eastern Mediterranean inclination. The Borek is excellent as a starter and the Kulbasti is a fantastic main course. They also do pasta (the chicken liver tagliatelle is delicious), pizza and various hamburgers.

The chilli sauce is made on the premises and is really good – it is worth the trip for the chilli  sauce alone!

Blue and Orange is fully licensed, the house beer is Efes. I have noticed recently that they are serving lots of cocktails with dinner, although to be fair, I haven’t tried one yet. It is open all afternoon as well as at night, so it is handy if you are looking to eat early or to have a late lunch.

It is probably worth ringing ahead to book if you are intending to go at peak times as it is usually pretty busy at night.

Heartily recommended!

Try the homemade chilli sauce!

 

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Restaurant review

The Forest on the Roof, Selfridges, London

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I have just been to the winter incarnation of the forest on the roof, on the top floor of Selfridges. The entrance is beautiful and Christmassy, with glitterballs and tree branches sprayed silver.

The food is good quality but overpriced (e.g. £14 for a hamburger and another £4 for the chips to go with it). The choice of beers was limited, although there was a good selection of wines.

It was packed on a Monday afternoon as I guess it will be up to Christmas and through the sale season afterwards. The tables are far too close together making it difficult for the customers and the waiters to pass through.

The restaurant is set under a long, narrow awning with a roll down transparent screen to protect you from the elements. It was a sunny day and the sun streamed through into diners’ eyes and the staff had no way of preventing this.  It was noticeably chilly as the sun went down. The main view is the roof of Primark across the street.

All in all, I would say the experience was less “Forest on the Roof” and more “Lunch in a lean-to”.

It is certainly not up to Selfridges normally high standards, I can only imagine that this is a venue more suited to the summer.

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Restaurant review

The Gallery, Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly, London

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This restaurant is quite modest in terms of décor, with its unvarnished tables and plain wooden floor, which in Fortnum and Mason terms is definitely understated. I have seen this listed as a low cost restaurant, but I couldn’t say that I agree with that description.  I suspect that you could get away with £25 per person if you were to choose the absolute cheapest starter and main course, but you couldn’t have a dessert or wine and you could certainly not drink tea.  I noticed that tea was £8 and while I have no doubt that it is lovely tea and will come in a pretty teapot, it is hardly economical.

However, the restaurant is attractive with a view over Jermyn Street out through the window and a view over the sweet displays when you look in towards the shop. Everything is very high quality, as you would expect; pretty menu, nice napkins, good cutlery and crockery. The service is excellent.

The food is lovely too, the ingredients are top notch and each dish is beautifully prepared and presented. The beef was perfectly cooked and the gravy was rich and indulgent. So, although this is not somewhere to go if you are on a tight budget, it does serve a great lunch and I recommend it if you feel like a treat.

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Restaurant review

Jackson & Rye, Wardour Street, Soho, London

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This restaurant looks fantastic. When you step inside from the hectic lunchtime crowds on Wardour Street, it feels like you have walked into a vintage upscale diner in Midtown, New York. It has dark wood, leatherette banquettes, soft lighting and brass rails. The menu is high end American comfort food too – there is lots to choose from. The a-la-carte is relatively expensive, I guess we are right in the heart of Soho, but it has lunch and brunch special menus that look very good value.

The salt and pepper squid was great as a starter. We also had tomato soup which came lukewarm, but was delicious after we had it reheated. The hamburgers and fries were really good too – meaty and well cooked.

The cocktails were a bit more mixed in quality, the whiskey sour was not sour enough for me but the margarita was good and the martini excellent. It is a shame that they had no bottled beers that we had ever heard of on the menu and that the only draft beer was unfiltered.

The service was good and although we lingered over lunch, we were never rushed. All four of us enjoyed our lunch in Jackson & Rye and I would happily return.

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Gigs

The Comedy Loft, Camden, London

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The Comedy Loft in Camden has got lots of things going for it.

It serves food; burgers, nachos, chicken wings, falafels – we ate and it was good quality.

The drinks are reasonably priced for central London – and you can pre-order them and have them delivered to your table during the intervals. Very sophisticated!

The show starts at 8pm, which is enough time to get a couple of drinks and chat before the start.

The 8 o’clock start means that the crowd is still restrained enough for the performers to deliver their acts without having to shout over drunks and sober enough that if there is a heckler there is a chance that they might be funny.

The reception and service were the best I’ve ever had in a comedy club.

The comedians were funny – that’s always good in a comedy show.

Finally, if after all this, you still haven’t had good night; it’s in Camden, so you are very likely to get offered drugs on your way back to the tube!

 

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Restaurant review

McQueen, Shoreditch, London

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4 of us came here for dinner. We met in the bar first. The room is good, it feels light, bright and spacious. The music is a bit irritating, surely “café del mar” chill-out is past its sell-by date now, but at least it is not loud enough to disturb the conversation. The sofas are nice and the chairs comfortable.

The restaurant is designed in much the same manner as the bar – with big brown distressed leather chesterfields and smaller chairs opposite. We ate from the set menu, the starters were good – the smoked salmon was with a grapefruit salad, which suited it well. The mains were steak; lovely with nice jus and great chips, lamb: nicely cooked with mashed potato and green veg, cod which was also reportedly very good and a risotto that we didn’t try. Between us we tried the house red, white and rose – all were very nice.

They mention on their page on Time Out London that they do a bottomless brunch, and although I haven’t been able to find any details, it would suit the place very well. I can easily imagine reading the weekend papers in here with a giant cup of coffee or Bloody Mary, nursing a hangover…….

The service was very good. I liked all the old Steve McQueen posters around the place.I’d recommend it as somewhere to meet friends especially in the daylight when all the windows make the place so bright and airy.

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Restaurant review

Hawksmoor, Air Street, London

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Hawksmoor was a talented architect of the 17th and 18th century; probably not somebody I would choose to name a restaurant after, given the manner of his death.

However, the food here is high quality and well prepared. We all had steaks and they were all excellent. The set cuts on the menu seemed large (400g – the rib eye) but when I said this to the waiter, she offered us smaller sizes – or larger ones if we wished to share. The chips were delicious as was the spinach.

The wine list is comprehensive and the bottle we chose was very good.

The décor is low key, art deco. The restaurant is cleverly laid out because the surprisingly large room still manages to feel quite intimate. The service was perfect; always nearby but never obtrusive.

It is quite expensive, even for London, but the experience was distinctive, right from going through the door and it does deliver value for money.

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Restaurant review

Joanna’s, Crystal Palace, London

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This is a great place for a smart leisurely brunch.

Joanna’s is an institution in Crystal Palace. Since the 1970s, everyone local knows that it  is good for an evening meal, but fewer people realise that it opens at 10am to serve brunch. The full English is high quality and their smoked salmon and scrambled eggs are lovely, my personal favourite is the poached egg and Canadian bacon served on an English muffin. The tables near the window have a beautiful view over the city of London, which looks particularly good on a cold sunny morning.

It isn’t quite caff prices – but it has lots of papers, great coffee and you are never rushed.

A lovely weekend treat.

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Restaurant review

Tuttons, Covent Garden, London

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Tuttons is not cheap, the hamburger is £18 and the steaks in the high twenties.

As starters, the chicken liver pate was indulgent, the scallops had great texture and the oysters were very good. The hamburger was nice. The corned beef hash was light on the corned beef. The chips were delicious, not healthy (cooked in real fat, I’d guess) but who orders chips to be healthy?

We also had desserts and these were good, the raspberry cheesecake was unlike any cheesecake I’ve ever had but was great nonetheless.

Its position on the corner of Russell Street and Covent Garden Piazza could not be better, it is straight across from the Royal Opera House and close to many theatres.

The décor is classic, it has a pleasant atmosphere in which to eat. It even has seats outside for those hardy enough to brave the weather and the crowds!

The service was fine. The wine list had lots of choice, even by the glass.

I recommend it, especially if you have a tastecard, which gives 50% off food and makes it good value.

Categories
Restaurant review

Les Deux Salons, William IV Street

lds_top_home6We ate in the Bistro. The décor is authentically French. It is perfectly positioned for eating before the theatre as there are many within a 3 minute walk. We ordered 4 different dishes. The steak was not great and we sent it back, they accepted this with good grace and replaced it with our choice of chicken liver parfait – which was delicious. The nicoise salad, not having lettuce, anchovy or green beans, was unlike any that I have had before – but it was very nice. The salmon was good. The wine list is good and the quality of the wines by the glass is very good.

I loved the chandelier!