Udonlicious - Koya, Soho

I tried to get into Koya once, many months ago when it was freezing cold only to be told I would have to wait outside for at least half an hour. I took my empty belly and disappointment down to Chinatown and drowned my sorrows in roast duck and sweet and sour pork. Now with the sun making it's usual peek-a-boo appearance I lugged a sister and nephew to slurp down some noodles and nourishing broth.

Hot Japanese Tea

After days of chugging down Italian, Lebanese, gallons of taramaslata, lusciously beautiful anchovy stuffed olives, Turkish delights, handmade chocolates, wobblingly creamy burrata, roast dinners with gloriously crunchy roast spuds in beef dripping ... it was time to take it easy and rest ourselves and Koya seemed like the ideal place to do so. Serene and orderly as only a Japanese restaurant can be, we managed to bag ourselves a seat before the lunch crowd arrived. Truth be told it hadn't been very hard to navigate ourselves around London on the days following the troubles (except Oxford Street ... shoppers have no fear except the thought of not bagging a bargain). Specialising in fresh udon noodles, Koya has intrigued me ever since I heard about its opening. I like udon - big, fat and so slurp-able. I was ready to enjoy myself.

Our side order of Kakuni (£6.20) was the first to arrive. Whilst I'm not a big fan of roasted pork belly, I love it braised. It reminds me of all those lovely fatty Chinese belly stews I grew up on. Taste wise this braised pork belly in cider tasted fine, homely. But totally lacking the expected excitement. The pork could also have done with a touch longer in the pot for it to reach that absolutely melting tender point.

The next to arrive was another side - Yasai Ten Mori (£7.70). The assortment of vegetables were delicately battered and deep fried, this was a plate of loveliness. It came with it's own little dish of condiments to add to the dipping sauce - grated mooli/daikon, sesame seeds and chopped spring onion. So pretty.

My steaming bowl Tempura Udon (£9.30) arrived with a humongous battered prawn perched on top. For a second a negative, "I hope that isn't all batter!" streamed through my brain. Oh how wrong I was. It was indeed all prawn with a good crunchy exterior. A touch too greasy but forgivable. The broth was clean. Probably to balance the greasiness of the tempura but I would have liked a little more 'ummph' to the soup. My sister, C, took quite a liking to it and happily swapped with me halfway through.

C's choice of Kinoko Hiya-Atsu (£10.80) of cold udon with hot mushroom broth with a side of walnut miso was, to my taste, a little odd. I absolutely adored the mushroom broth - all it's lovely umami goodness, by itself. I though the walnut miso odd and not at all enjoyable but C disagreed, happily slurping it down. Another oddity for me about this dish was the notion of the cold udon/hot broth. Dipping one into the other just made for a lukewarm dish. It's really not for me. But I would happily order that broth again.

The star of the meal had to be my nephew's Niku (£9.30), hot udon in hot broth with beef. It took ages to arrive, well after the other 2 mains and the hungry boy was definitely not impressed by the wait. But for this dish I would happily return to Koya .. and perhaps wait half an hour in the cold. The broth was all beefy goodness with the deliciousness of a generous hand of ginger. It was warming and hearty. And would probably have done well with an extra order of poached egg.

Despite my declaration of love for the udon noodle, I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of fresh udon. It was chewy and for my first mouthfuls very enjoyable. It wasn't until C pointed out that it was a little too doughy, too heavy that I realised she was right. I think it's still going to be the packet stuff for me. But for a bowl of Niku all to myself, I'll definitely be going back to Koya.

Koya
49 Frith Street, London W1D 4SG

Weekend Breakfast - The Lido Cafe, Brockwell Park

For all the best laid plans, my sister C and nephew ZW's recent visit to the sunny English shores unfortunately managed to coincided squarely with the burning of London town. Unable to fully tackle C's 'To Eat' list (thankfully it included easier to source items such as a M&S BLT sandwich, as well as the trickier meal at The Ledbury), I hope I managed to feed them both sufficiently.

Scrambled eggs on buttered sourdough toast (£4.25)

On the morning before their depature it was a hearty brekkie at The Lido Cafe at Brockwell Park. Revamped to highlight it's Art Deco heritage, the cafe now does brisk business with the yummy mummy and daddy crowd during the day and with a more mellow wine and dine feel in the evening. Overlooking the swimming pool, the glass doors are opened to the terrace in the summer with the overspill of customers seated in the great outdoors with the splash of happy swimmers in the background.

Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon & Maple Syrup (£5.50)

Free Range Full English (£8.65) -Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms grilled tomatoes and buttered sourdough toast

It was a nicely filling breakfast that I can't complain about - the overall consensus, I believe. The eggs were nicely buttery and soft, the toast had an enjoyable slightly charred/grilled flavour, the sausage was delish (pure porky goodness and none of that overpowering herbiness) and there were lots of mushrooms (I like me a mushroom or two!). There was some ... constructive feedback on the bacon though - it could have been crisper. Well done, Lido Cafe.

C and ZW - I had hoped your trip would have been more enjoyable but ZW did manage to adopt a new, cool hood on fashion and a full English brekkie sure does make the rest of the day more positive, innit? x

The Lido Cafe
Dulwich Road, Brockwell Lido, London SE24 0PA

East Meets West

Roti canai topped with a fried egg and a side of caramelised onion sausages and red onion chutney

Why the utterly marvelous meal combination? Just because I could .... and because there was no better combination I could dig out from the depths of my freezer/larder that I could be bothered to deal with. I can't claim it was utterly delicious. It was certainly.... utterly interesting ....

Lazy Sundays with a Touch of Italian - Rocca Di Pappa

Pescatore - fresh pasta with Fresh clams, cockles, wild mussels and a touch of chilli £8.95

London at it's best? The first basking of wonderously warm sunshine over the city with just just the slightest twinge of breeze to make life all that more bearable. And then it all goes downhill from there (there's that happy cynic in me resurfacing again!). But I stand by what I say. After that 1st day of lovely weather and happy Londoners .... the heat in the underground starts getting unbearable, you start to notice that the person whose armpit your faced is jammed into at rush hour has never heard of deodorant, then the train comes to a standstill in the middle of a long dark tunnel because some wise crack decided to steal the copper wire on which train tracks in Britain are so reliant on ....

Americana - pizza with Tomato, pepperoni and mozzarella £7.35

Alright, so there's me thinking that 11 years in this country has earned me a little bit of a right to have a right moan every now and then. But there truly are some lovely bits to this city. Like that first basking of warm sunshine with a light summer's breeze that allows for a lazy weekend's al fresco dinner.

Insalata - house leaf salad £3.25

I like Dulwich Village but it can sometimes be totally yummy mummy and happy daddy overwhelming for me. That and the very grown up £1million plus houses and the Land Rovers littered. It's still a nice place - it's what I aspire to when (if?) I grow up. Rocca on the main street adds a nice touch to Dulwich Village (it has an older sibling of the same name in Kensington, with a slightly larger menu and bigger price tags too). Think lots of warm, light woods with dashes of cream/off white and tarnished bronzes (another look I would love when I grow up and set up my million £ home complete with a lazy ginger tabby and slightly bonkers chocolate brown Lab).The staff are friendly, the food is very acceptable (stay off the bread though ... it was a tad doughy and heavy for my liking) and the prices are very reasonable. And best of all, for those balmy summer days there's outdoor seating out front or in the rear garden, as well as lovely big windows that open up in front of the restaurant.

Rocca Di Pappa
75-79 Dulwich Village, London SE21 7BJ

Yummy Yummy Sarnies in My Tummy

Things have been a little maniac at work lately and the first things that fell off my radar was my blog. So whilst I frantically sort out my many food photos this weekend, I will leave you with a photo of my somehwhat recent bout of glutton-ess - a whole tray of finger sandwiches from M&S. Oh yes, a whole tray of sarnies all to myself. Think BLT (that's bacon, lettuce and tomato for those who have had a sudden sandwich filling moment of blankness), Cheese and Onion (yuck!), Roast Chicken, Prawn Cocktail, Ham and Mustard Mayo, and Egg and Watercress.

Sunday Dinner - Canteen, Royal Festival Hall

A blustry Sunday (where has the lovely warm sunshine dissapeared to?) most definitely calls for a hearty Sunday dinner with all the trimmings, of course.

NS had the Roast Chicken and Chips with garlic moyonnaise - the chips were quite lovely - hot and crisp with lots of ultra crunchy bits, which NS totally ruined with a liberal sprinkling of malt vinegar. ARGH! The chicken was, well .. dry. My roast of the day beef was fine. Served medium rare with buttered rosemary scrented greens, non-crunchy spuds, an over done Yorkshire pudding and mediocre gravy.

I gleefully laddled on the horseradish (it came in a cute little Kilner jar) only to realise that Canteen's freshly made horseradish sauce was more horseradish scented crème fraiche. There were a few high notes when the heat kicked in but it mostly fell flat. Think roast beef with a cream sauce.

The Chocolate Brownie Caramel Sundae was probably the highlight of the meal (except when NS kept digging out the peanuts that littered the brownie. I, on the other hand, adore peanuts). The vanilla bean ice cream was lovely - more milky than creamy, which is a particular preference of mine.

The bread pudding was really nice - nicely spiced and lots of little nuggets of raisins. The caramel ice cream though was really not my cuppa tea. Jaw achingly sweet. Yes, I know ... it was caramel ice cream! Like my mother says, it's no point eating caramel if it isn't sweet. Ok, fine.

I really want to like Canteen. I've been there a few times over the years but I just haven't clicked with it. There's always something niggling. Chicken too dry, the hit and miss service, the kitchen's heavy hand with sea salt .... my list is pretty long but almost not substantial enough to completely wipe it off my list of potential places to eat if I so happen to be in the vicinity and fancied myself hungry.

Canteen
Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX

Bounce Bounce Bouncing Bubbles - Boba Jam, Shaftesbury

Bubble tea - love or hate 'em? Chewy deliciousness or little bouncy health hazards?

I'm totally on the fence on this one. It's always a case of:

• Suck the bubbles up too weakly through the mega bubble tea straw and they simply get stuck halfway up.
• Suck too hard (which trust me will happen when a line of bubbles get stuck) and without fail at least one bloody ball will go shooting to the back of the throat blocking the airway.
  
  
  

It's such a no win situation but yet people love them. Hey, even I got excited when I heard that there was a new bubble tea place in town - Boba Jam on Shaftesbury Avenue. For all my sitting on the fence I've been back twice in the space of a week and bought a total of 3 drinks -heck starting from about 4 quid each (depending on the "extras" you might decide to go for) they don't even have the decency to be cheap! Truthfully, I only went for the bubble that first time in ice blended lemon green tea with an extra serve of aloe vera. Next time it was ice blended peach green tea with nata de coco and a ice blended honey lemon green tea with nata de coco. Yes, I know ... my theme is the ice blended bit. The bubbles I'll happily flick away.

Boba Jam
102 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D5EJ

Strawberries in a Bottle

There isn't much reason to why I'm blogging about this lovely bottle of beer other than I had it on a deliciously warm day last week and got rather tipsy (I swear I've become such a lightweight recently!). It's like strawberries in a bottle and it's local - produced on the green, green shores of England - we like (but seriously who am I to fuss about local ingredients when this girl ain't even local herself).

But what really caught my eye was the proud small print proclamation that it's vegan. A random thought later (no, actually I'm still holding on to that random thought) ... can vegans eat yeast? Well, I know they do since I've seen more than one vegan munch down on a slice of toast and gulp down a beer but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose veganism or don't yeast forms count? Go on, shoot me down.

An Evening at The Dorchester - The Grill and The Bar

Amuse bouche - smoked trout pate with cucumber jelly and breadcrumbs. Love, love, love!Lightly smoked fish, crunchy breadcrumbs and cool, cucumber jelly.

I had an absolutely lovely time at The Dorchester recently and though I would never have thought to say this about somewhere as associated with the phrase 'hoity toity' as The Dorchester it was a really chilled out, relaxed evening. I've been to a smattering of fancy restaurants around London (One-O-One, Pearl by Jun Tanaka to name a few) and I have never failed to be impressed by the pompousness that drip off the staff like a melting glacier. One-O-One was a particularly horrible experience (lovely food but such bad, bad, BAD service) but I was so horrified at the merciless post that I wrote on it I never got round to publishing it. Why? Because I was racked with guilt (stupid softy that I am sometimes) and because I had such a bad time I didn't think it was a particularly fair piece of writing. But I do stand by the fact that my evening was abominable.Moving on, back to The Dorchester.

Warm bread and butter (warmed to a spreadable consistency)

Every couple months or so NS and I meet up. That's when I turn to my trusty Toptable account and start rustling around. A little oo-ing and ahh-ing later a table for 2 at The Grill was booked was booked for 7.45 PM. Giving us just enough time for a drink at The Bar, as all good meals start (and end) with a drink. I whet my apatite with a Milky Way (sounds terribly childish but terribly refreshing with lemon grass, lychee and lemon juice, rose cordial and soda water) - yes, non-alcoholic as age has taught me that it is either food or alcohol with my tummy. Mix them together and suffer the consequences. NS goes down the alcoholic route (it's the Scottish blood in her and she heartily agrees!) with a G&T. Lovely service and with added deliciousness of warm canapés that make the rounds every half an hour or so (we were served dauphinoise potatoes on a Chinese spoon - so freakin' good! Or maybe I was just hungry).

Incredibly fresh Mackerel starter

Leaving our coats with the staff at The Bar, we made our way across the gallery to The Grill (love how it's all The around here) with all it's Scottish pride furnishings - think head to toe tartan and paintings of long gone Scottish heroes in their kilted finery. It's absolutely dotty but incredibly comfortable at the same time. Greeted and seated in no time - so quiet mid week. The one dip in the evening came at this point. We were left drink-less, menu-less and all round service-less for a good 10 minutes. Just when the restaurant was sinking rapidly in my estimation, the restaurant manager made his way round to us and introduced our server to us and told us that our menus would be with us shortly. Right after that service perked straight up and kept on a steady high. So what was that dip all about? I told you they were a little dotty in this place. It probably doesn't help with all those ashen faced, long dead Scottish dudes staring down on you all day from those walls.

Chicken livers with mango. I imagined this to be a parfait. A little surprised when this arrived. Pleasantly so. The mango could have done with a little more punch. Livers were well cooked.

Main of salmon with spinach, puy lentils, celeriac mash and scallop foam. Crispy skin salmon, creamy mash. The sauce that accompanied the lentils were a little too strong and meaty for this dish.

Main of roasted pork belly with mash and kale. This was one humongous portion. I was very nearly jealous when I saw this. If only I liked roast pork a bit more. And that crackling .. it had big roar of a crackle. The only trouble with this size a portion of pork belly is that some bits are whole lot more tender than other

Petit fours - (left to right from the top photo) salted caramel chocolate truffle (runny oozy salted caramel centre), apple tart (buttery with sweet/tart fruit), fruity macaron (indecipherable fruit flavour with a very soft marshmallow-y shell - not my favourite), rum baba (interestingly not drenched in alcohol like others I have, very nice it was), fruit jelly pastille (generally I heartily dislike fruit pastilles but this was fruity, soft and wobbly - delicious) and a sugar encrusted marshmallow (marshmallows, argh!)

Filled to the brim, we signaled for the bill and proceeded to wobble our way back to The Bar. The bill was heartily reasonable - £25 for 2 courses and a glass of bubbly (or £29 for 3 courses with the bubbly) from the set menu. The à la carte menu has the usual blow your blow your purse away.

Back at The bar, we perched ourselves at the bar (ah hemm..) and prettily asked the bartender for him to mix up a couple of post dinner cocktails for us. He obliged by shaking up a as yet unlisted on the menu gin based cocktail for NS - my one sip reminded me of English summer breezes in the sunshine. No idea what went into his shaker other than the obvious gin and cucumber. It was one heck of a cocktail that came with a pretty big price tag. Boozy cocktails start from £15. NS reckons she paid about £30 .... but I have my suspicions that she might have misread the bill after her 3rd glass ;)

I wuss(iciously) kept off the booze for the evening with a 2nd Milky Way (more than a little too tart and not as good as the first) and ventured down the menu with a not so great Thai Lemonade (coriander, lime, orgeat, and ginger beer). Boo! Next time I'll have to keep off the food and stick to the booze :) A big thank you to NS for settling the bar bill. The next time it'll be on me (Starbucks does great chocolate milkshake like drink =)

The Grill
The Dorchester, Park Lane, London W1K 1QA

Pineapple with Mint Sugar

A little warm sunshine and I've gone into summer mode (between you and me I think the British weather optimism has finally rubbed off on me). I have Jaime Oliver for the inspiration for this dish - pieces of pineapple sprinkled with mint sugar. Oh so freshing. So very, very summery.

Mint Sugar
About 20 mint leaves
4 tbs golden caster sugar (or white is fine ... but I like the slight caramel flavour)
Zest of 1/2 a lime

• Put the mint leaves, lime zest and sugar into a food processor. Blitz. It's done once the sugar has turned green, is the texture of fine sand and there are no large pieces of mint leaves.
• Sprinkle over large slices of pineapple. Tuck in and feel (imagine) the summer sun on your face.