There's something about Dairy - August 2013

There's something about Dairy that's so now, so 2013 food trend, that it almost feels like a demonstration, a 'look, this is how trendy London eats'. Unfreeze a hipster in 10,000 years time and this is what they'll be talking about.

That being said, it also manages to stay just the right side of safe. There are enough neologisms and touches of painterly genius to convince the most discerning food fanboi, but (and this is certainly no criticism) you could bring your mum here and she'd be happy with most things landing in front of her.

The venue is a generic Clapham wine bar; tall bar counter style tables at the front, bigger, rounded oak jobs at the back. Other than the ever-present design lover soothing concrete carried through into the heavy serving plates, there isn't a grand unified design. If anything it's rustic chic meets Lower East Side loft bar. There's not even a jokey cow reference to justify the name.

You can either select small, but emphatically not sharing, plates from an intriguing list of 'garden', 'sea' and 'land' or you can throw yourself at the mercy of the kitchen who'll save you the agony of choice with a well priced set menu. Judging from what we had and comparing with what the table next to us ended up with on the set menu, there's little difference.

  

Smoked bone marrow butter slathered on hot, fresh wholemeal bread was a delightfully rich hello from behind the pass and one that immediately ramped our expectation levels right up. I won't go through to describe the seven or so plates we shared after this, it's a changing seasonal menu so you'll just have to take your chances, something I heartily recommend you do at the earliest possible opportunity.

We particularly loved the amuse of chickpea and cumin bitteballen, a masterful take on that most vile of Dutch pub snacks. Due to a mix up with the order, we ended up with two portions of heritage beets, delicately cooked and served with a filthily divine hazelnut purée though could quite happily have slipped back later to flirt with some cheese with dessert.

Thankfully we didn't miss out on fresh from the pod peas, served with a light mint creme and delicate celery and a light chorizo and squid scotch egg was another happy highlight, and only one of the few that brought meat to the foreground. The other we tried being a polite and gentle lamb on a bed of squelchy and moreish aubergine puree. It was delightful, but the lamb didn't quite have the depth of flavour I was hoping for, the same true of a beautifully plated but relatively pedestrian sea bass dish from the 'sea' section.

  

Overall, the small plates work well. There was enough to share, even if the heavy bowls didn't always make that easy. If I were being overly critical, I'd have to say that while it doesn't totally kill it yet, there's enough here for me to heartily recommend. There's a real sense of ambition and drive emanating from the kitchen (slightly at odds with a chilled, casual and at times an amiably almost amateur front of house). A couple of the dishes were just a little muted and the service needs to step up (as I'm sure it will once they've been open for a while), but with the ambition in the kitchen and for the price and location it will do very, very well indeed. 

Heritage beets with horseradish 'dust'

Seabass

Perfectly cooked but underseasoned lamb

Dessert - deconstructed chocolate bar

The fairly pedestrian cheese selection

Petits Fours in an old tobacco tin

 

Hot Dog in the Ring, whoa whoa oh... - AUG 2013

It's a set up that would have Mr Humphries from 'Are You Being Served' spinning and jerking in his grave. Slightly getting in the way of one of the more satisfying pub snacks i've had recently, was a night filled with more euphemism and double entendre than you can shake a big pink stick at.

To start, the pub is called The Ring (steady...) home of, allegedly, the first boxing ring in the Capital. Thankfully for the suits of Southwark, the safely renovated little corner boozer opposite the tube station is no longer a hot bed of pugilism, but a reasonably funky chain pub Farrow and Ball'ed to the nines and only let down only by its generic beer choices.

Rather than focussing on the usual pub grub favourites, they've kept things beautifully simple here, with a kitchen takeover featuring street food legends Big Apple Hot Dogs. Other than a few snacks and sides, you're limited to long boiled links inna bun. It's not subtle, diet (or vegetarian) friendly but seriously.. What's not to like about that? If they go with fizzy wine over at Fitzrovia's BubbleDogs, they go even better with fizzy lager.

We were served the most beautifully judged Big Apple hot dogs in a run through their range. We did the 'Big Frank' (the clue's in the name) and couldn't resist the 'Huge Pole' (pfnarr!), a full 'eight inches' (coooorrr!) of 'magnificent pork and beef' (wayhey! snooort...) frankfurter smothered in a mild but flavoursome chilli, warm enough to make its point, mild enough to let the flavours of the sausage flood through (ahem.. enough). There's only so much you can do with a hot dog, and for me it needs to be kept as simple as possible. Sides were just that, chips and well cooked onion rings, the latter more a sight gag - especially after five pints of yer finest Continental lager.

Is it an 'experience'? Some hip new place to queue for dude food? Not in the slightest. It's just a decent local pub within spitting distance of Waterloo station serving great bar food. And that's enough for me.
  

 
The Ring - 72 Blackfriars Road, Southwark 

The Sun in Camberwell - Resurected for the summer - AUG 2013

Pubs are difficult things... The Camberwellians among you may remember the kerfuffle when the previous management team were unceremoniously dumped out of the Sun and Doves as was. They fought the tied pub co. and (unsurprisingly) the tied pub co. won.

It was a decent enough boozer, with community outreach aspirations, generic beers, fairly unforgettable grub and a regular film night. The medics from the local hospital who occupied it were friendly enough as long as you didn't try and compete in the hardest quiz night in the area.

When the previous management were finally (and brutally) removed, they stripped all of 'their' renovations out with them; fixtures, fittings, wall coverings and bar kit. Looking at the reopened bar, the new tenants have done a pretty good job of, well, leaving it in exactly the same condition. The decor and furniture takes stripped back shabby chic to a new level, this one barely one step up from squat party. As Camberwell is the new wherever achingly hip we're supposed to be, they've pitched it perfectly.

The beer and wine choices are as pedestrian as before, but the menu has been given a spruce. Loosely defined as the kind of gutsy, hearty pub fare you've seen bothering a thousand kilner jars on a thousand wooden chopping boards before.

A muted quinoa and roast vegetable salad was undoubtedly healthy, but as beige a dish in all senses of the word as you could find. As quiet as an unpopular 20 year old's house party and as instantly forgettable.
  

 
The lack of oomph sadly extended to a woefully under-powered bavette steak, its normally rich and meaty tang entirely missing in action. It was such an under seasoned tasteless piece of meat that it was virtually eclipsed by its side of cold and over cooked chips, god knows what would have happened if it had come with anything as flavoursome as a Bearnaise...

The thought is definitely there, burgers and sandwiches are perfectly acceptable and generally it's a fine looking classic pub menu, but it doesn't live up to the promise, which is a shame. That being said, it's a pub, not a restaurant, so if you're looking for a quick bite alongside a couple of drinks with friends then take advantage of their lovely beer garden, an excellent selection of tunes and remind yourself that it's who you're with that really matters.

 

Comptoir Libanais - a pale imitation - Aug 2013

Micro chain Le Comptoir Libanais aims to bring fast, affordable and 'fun' Lebanese casual dining to London. The first branch, in Westfield, obviously worked well as there's been a slew of them opening up elsewhere.

Having never understood why there aren't more casual lunch spots like this, I was initially entranced. Sure it's got a 'stop me and buy one' schtick borrowed from a Jamie's Italian or a Bill's Produce Store, with everything from salad dressing to handbags on sale in the souk inspired space, but it doesn't have quite the corporate roll out feel that you'd expect from one of those. Tightly and brightly jewelled shelves, a packed glass chiller at the back stuffed with healthy greens and cartoony colourful furniture - it's a lovely, fresh and open place to be on a summer's day.

Sadly, it was hard to be anything other than underwhelmed by the food we had over lunch. Simple and authentic it might (just) be, tasty it sadly wasn't.

I ended up with an overly salty halloumi salad, the four cold bits of squeaky cheese nestling apologetically on a bed of long ago prepared salad doused in an acrid dressing. The olives particularly were excruciatingly overpowering, exploding in the mouth like slimy, saline paintball pellets.

Alongside that we shared a plate of mixed mezze. A large enough portion, but nothing like large enough in taste. We left most of it to be collected, uncommented on, at the end. 'Highlights' included large dry falafel cannonballs, setting the cause of that noble dish back by years, their claggy mouthfeel reminding you why your mother always had to force you to eat chickpeas.

Alongside underpowered baba ganouch came glow in the dark purple stained turnip light sabres and kebab shop pickles. A brace of chiller cold pasties of indeterminate sort were also less than the sum of their (long ago prepared) parts - sparse filling sunk to the bottom like sediment in an unloved kettle.

Will it be a success? Sadly, almost certainly. Though the central locations will struggle to bring people back for a second visit, particularly if Yalla Yalla shifts up a gear and starts to roll out branches. Would I go back? Not without some coaxing. London isn't short of decent, authentic fast food in this style, it's just a pity that, with the exception of Yalla Yalla and Momo on Heddon Street, there ain't much of it round the central parts. It's just a pitta that none of the infinitely superior Edgeware Road or Knightsbridge brands haven't capitalised on that yet.