Suda - Covent Garden

Deciding against booking a table during our last regular meet up, NS and I found ourselves wondering around Covent Garden. Heading towards the direction of Soho but not quite there yet when we stumbled upon Suda. Beckoned by the large open front windows and the possibility of refreshing cocktails, we were sold.

Perched on a high table at the front of the house, we ordered cocktails and a plate or two (or 5 in this specific case) just to get us going before we moved on to dinner. About 15 minutes in, our drinks hadn't arrived but the first of our food had started trickling over from the kitchen. And there kick starts my impatience ... I hate it when my food arrives before my beverage. It goes against my acknowledged order of events when it comes to restaurant dining. I know the bar wasn't mad rush busy, I have a great view of it - perched high as I am right in front of it. The drinks do finally arrive (with nary an apology from the waitress for its late arrival!) and well, well ... what else could get me simmering a little more? The Thai Pimm's, so penned as "traditional Pimm’s with a Thai twist! Pimm’s with fresh Thai ginger, mint, holy basil with sliced orange, cucumber, topped with lemonade" (£6.50) on the menu was warm, flat and decidedly lacking that Thai twist. An utter waste of time!

The Pla Meuk Tod Prig Klue - Thai style calamari with sweet chilli dipping sauce (£4.95) was the first to arrive and looked decent enough. I liked the look of thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves encased within the batter but too bad the crispy batter hid a shameful secret underneath - rubbery squid.

The Satay Gai - chicken satay sticks with peanut sauce (£4.95) was fine but I've had better. However, point be made that this is coming from a girl from Malaysia. It would be a sorry state of affairs if I claimed the best satay I had was this dish. It was fine. No more.

I was particularly looking forward to the Gae Yang Som Tum - Grilled lamb chop with lemongrass and chilli dressing, served with Som tum salad and sticky rice (£8.50), since Suda boasts of a som tum bar. This is another dish I can only best describe as "fine". Despite the meat looking rather limp (thanks to a good bashing with a mallet?), it was pretty tasty (down to a good amount of time spent in the marinade?). The som tum was .... forgetable. I really do not recall how it tasted so I can only deduct it wasn't bad enough for me to remember or that good either.

The grilled prawns in the Yum Som-o Goong Yang - Pomelo salad with kaffir lime juice and grilled prawn (£5.50) were actually rather nice. Nice fresh crunchy prawns were unfortunately let down let down by the star of the dish - the pomelo salad. There were pieces of fruit in that salad that were out of the freezer frozen. It thawed in my mouth, adding an interesting crunch along with the peanuts.

By now NS and I didn't know if we should laugh or cry or outright refuse to pay. The food was going from bad to worse and to say that the service was bad would be unfair. It was just that the staff tried so hard and in doing so, didn't actually give very good service. For example, after we ordered I asked if I could keep a copy of the menu with me. Sure, no problem. But every time I put the menu down, one of the staff would try to grab it off the table. I went through the my explanation of wanting to keep a copy with me to 3 people before I gave up. At this point I was very to move on but NS relented into giving them another chance by ordering another drink (a much faster turnaround time for this drink - things were picking up), when much to our surprise another dish arrived - chicken wings with herbs (also known as pandan chicken). We had forgotten all about it and till this day, the taste shall also remain forgettable.

Shall I be returning? Oh no, I shall not!

Suda
23 Slingsby Place, St Martin’s Courtyard, London WC2E 9AB

Dessert Time - Yauatcha, Soho

Following our somewhat disastrous lunch at Spuntino, RB and I were in total agreement we had to make up our day with dessert. And preferably something that oozed chocolate. A leisurely stroll around Soho (to allow for a lengthy digestion of the truffled egg toast), we ended up at Yauatcha. A brilliant dessert choice. Years of staring longingly at their cake offerings at the window was no more ...

 

    

 Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Delice with vanilla ice cream (£7.75)

 

 
Milk Chocolate Praline Cake with kalamansi sorbet (£7.75) - this was so freakin' delicious I still think about it. Chocolate mouse on a crunchy praline base, encased in silky dark chocolate. What hit this on the head was the  kalamansi sorbet .. so mouth puckeringly yummy.

Cucumber and Lime Ice Tea (£4.90)

I have to note that whilst the desserts were pretty darn good, the service really needed a kick up the backside. It may have been graveyard hour (we were probably there at about 16:30 on a warm Sunday afternoon) but it was no excuse to fall behind on service - 10 minutes to bring the bill, no attempts to take our order without arms flailing in the air trying to procure some sort of attention from the staff - all this with a fully staffed restaurant. Shameful!

Yauatcha

15-17 Broadwick Street. Soho, London, W1F 0DL

Honest Burgers - Brixton

In the market that I used to shop for fresh fish and veg (at ridiculously low London prices), a new breed of traders seem to have emerged with lightning speed recently. Jostling for space with the last few lingering fishmongers, butchers, greengrocers ..... these new kids are infinitely more delicious (and minus the persistent overwhelming smell of tough cleaning agents).

Home made lemonade

The setting for Honest Burgers, like most of it's other newbie-ish neighbours, is utilitarian. The seating are wooden benches and fold up chairs, the tables are slightly rickety, the menu is up on the large chalkboard and little sheets of paper handed out by the waitress. The list of offerings on the menu is minute - if you don't want burger, well .. heck, you're in trouble. But in all honestly, why come to a place called Honest Burgers of a plate of spaghetti?

I'm all for a simple burger - beef patty in a bun, some lettuce, a bit of tomato ... anything more my brain gets overexcited, starts salivating all over itself and then goes into massive overdrive at the prospect of having to attempt to finish the load of food. Despite my initial tinge of disappointment at the size of my Beef burger (£6.50) when it arrived, it was pretty darn good - just the right size, juicy flavourful patty, nice bun ... not too squishy, not too dry. Even the onion relish I didn't mind. At least it wasn't overwhelmingly sweet and it did add that little bit extra to the burger. The triple cooked hand cut chips with rosemary salt were fine but maybe a tad too limp and heavy on the rosemary for my liking (burger companion SM thought they were absolutely fine).

House dressed green salad - to counter all that beefy goodness

SM got the Honest burger (£8) with 35 day dry aged British beef, smoked bacon, cheddar, pickled cucumber, red onion relish and lettuce (picture at the top of the post). SM is the polar burger opposite to me. The one more heavily piled the burger is, the more desirable it is to SM. To be fair SM so nearly got the chicken option - free range chicken, lettuce, tomato and lemon mayo (£8) - diet, you see - but my sweet talking changed SM's mind. I didn't want the burger but I so darned wanted to see what it turned out looking like and just wanted a weenie little taste. I believe SM thanked me profusely too - who wants to be stuck with a measly chicken burger when there is a hunka beef to sink your teeth into.

SM and I have been talking about going back and to do so quick before it gets cold. I, for one, will not be a happy bunny having to sit in the Brixton Village Market arcade in the freezing cold.

 

Cute tin the bill arrived in

Honest Burgers

Unit 12, Brixton Village Market, Coldharbour Lane, London SW9 8PR

Spuntino - Soho, London

I wanted, expected to be blown away by Spuntino. All those rave reviews had made Spuntino one of those absolute must try places. But in so many ways I'm more sheep than shepard and had waited for the waves of reviews surround to me before I got round to marching myself down to Soho, plonking myself down on one of Spuntino's bar stools and ordering a round of Italian/American inspired small plates of food. And frankly, I was disappointed.

The complementary chilli popcorn was chewy, hard and flavourless despite the chili. And it stuck to my teeth. Not the best look to start a meal with.

 

Eggplant chips with fennel yogurt (£4) were pretty average. It came out piping hot, the spiced coating was crunchy and the dipping yogurt was a nice touch - all of which should add up to a good dish but it didn't. It lacked a certain 'oomph', a step further in foodie flavourings to make this really delicious.

 

The soft shell crab with tobasco aioli and fennel shavings (£8.50) was technically fine. The deep fried crab was hot and crunchy, the tobasco gave a nice little kick to the aioli but the fennel salad just fell in a heap of dry boredom. I wanted a tart dressing or even just a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of of salt to zing it up.

 

We got 2 sliders to share -  ground beef and bone marrow (£4.50) and lamb and pickle cucumber (£5). The slider buns were a little on the dry side and the fillings were fine if nothing to write home about. Absolutely ridiculous it may sound but I was telling RB as I was munching on my share of the lamb and pickled cucumber slider how moist the ground pork patty was. With a raised eyebrow RB informed me I was tucking into lamb and the cucumber was pickled. Oh.

 

Our last dish was, without a doubt, an absolute terrible mistake on our part. Neither RB nor I are cheese lovers yet we hands down agreed to try the truffled egg toast (£5.50). Our faces screwed up in unison as soon as the plate was set down in front of us - "WTF, is that stench?!?". We forgot that cheese + truffles = possible smell issues for us. I like to say we bravely soldiered on, cutting large pieces for ourselves, avoiding possible gagging as the egg yolk mixture spilled forth from the cheesy bread centre and popped in into out mouth for an awaited try. Oddly, despite it smelling bad (or good, depending on your love for truffled cheese scents) it tasted a bit like cardboard. The scent just didn't translate over to flavour. The cheese was bland and the whole dish desperately needed seasoning. RB and I at one point toyed with the idea of donating our dish to the group sitting next to us who were openly salivating over our carved up dish but opted instead to keep it and make the occasional pokes at it.

RB and I left disappointed and just a little bit hungry. Perhaps we made some wrong choices with what we ordered but it's seriously unlikely that either of us would be willing to go back to give it a 2nd go. Another aspect that put us off just before we left were the 2-3 members of staff with their too cool for school is totally in this season look who were standing at a corner of the bar openly staring and laughing at customers. Heck, I know bitching about customers takes place but really ... try to more discreet about it.

Spuntino
61 Rupert Street, London W1D 7PW

 

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