Balthazar - power lunching in Covent Garden - Sept 2013

This was in all likelihood going to be the review that got away. I've spent time in the original Balthazar and had some lovely lunches but, especially in a white hot, can't get a table for love nor money, opening period, I'd resigned myself to forgetting about the London branch. And anyway, who really wants to go to the London branch of a slavish New York recreation of a traditional French bistro? I could be on the Eurostar before they'd answered the reservations line.

As it goes, it's reasonably quiet, even on a Thursday lunch, and therefore the perfect spot to slide into a banquette opposite the International Man of Mystery. He's never sure which city he's in at any given point in time, so this level of high class generic internationalism is perfect for him.

It's not cheap, their range of French classics, but if you've come here deliberately you know that and are comfortable paying £24 for a plate of Steak Frites and £17 for a burger. If you're a wall-eyed tourist who has just stumbled across its prime Covent Garden location then congratulations. You're going to be fleeced, but in a much more pleasant way than if you'd wound up in the Angus Steak House.

Get a back wall booth if you can, they're perfect for people watching amidst the monied buzz and much, much more room than on the cramped blood red banquettes filling the centre of the room.

After being spoilt by their homemade bread, the ceviche starter was utterly underwhelming, a few sorry rings of squid or octopus dredged in an acrid vinegar coleslaw of fridge cold mandolined bell peppers and onion. From a distance it looked perfectly pleasant, but ended up being pushed around the plate, like a refugee from a different, inferior restaurant.
 

Confit duck on the other hand was perfect. Rich and unctuous, it fell off the bone like a dark silk dressing gown might slide from a Parisian courtesan's shoulders. Lifted with green leaf and waxy, puckered little spuds to provide substance, this was definitely a contender for comfort dish of the year, though at the price it bloody well should be.

It's a lovely cavernous space, with decent food slightly over-assiduous staff (that'll be the New York influences rather than the French) but for the money, the ambience and the attitude, I'd much rather be in Zedel, sucking down champagne with the money I've saved on my steak. If it's a power lunch that I need, then I'll be back at the Wolesley first.


 

 
 

Dishoom Redux - Mar 2013

Ah Dishoom... The place I want so hard to love. Buzzy, relatively inexpensive and quirky, geezer-ish Sub-Continental street style food in a pukka Indian cafe, slap bang in the middle of Covent Garden. What's not to love?

They've certainly garnered support over the past year, not to mention another permanent location, this one next to Shoreditch House, threateningly close to the street flyer Kessel Run of Brick Lane.

With its amiably geezerish descriptors, the menu feels like it could been written by a Chowpatty Jamie Oliver, the spiritual brother of their next door neighbour. And like their next door neighbour, it feels like it's ripe for rollout. The all day 'cafe-vibe' schtick a shoe-in for shopping centre supremacy.

The service is shopping centre suitable too. Fast, well trained and entirely impersonal, operating on efficient pre-scripted rails from the moment you're sat down.

The food is pretty good, if not entirely quite there. The 'Ruby Murray' is good, and obviously well cooked with decent quality chicken but it's a little too 'mellow' for me. Keema Pau, a bland minced lamb served with English muffins has little to say for itself sadly. The house black dhal was admittedly lovely, the one dish I'd come back for, braised into a sauce rich and deep enough to feel meat infused, it had flavour to spare. The squid was over fried and the lamb chops a pale grey copy of those at Lahore or Tayyabs. It's all been done worse than this at a thousand curry places around the capital, but it's being done a whole load better at a critically acclaimed handful. On my evidence Dishoom isn't close to that Premier league.

There are just too many really decent Indian, Pakistani and Bengali restaurants I'd go to for a pre-planned curry trip and too many other restaurants in Covent Garden that get my attention for a walk up. Both of which are a slight shame, as it's really not that bad.

  PR photo from restaurant website

Naru - Korean treats in Holburn - Feb 213

This was a pleasingly unexpected little Korean place in an unfancied bit of Holborn that filled the spot perfectly.

Difficult to call on the accuracy of the cooking, I'm not a regular eater of Korean, which, considering the delicious menu I'm faced with, surprises me. I think that there's a trick missed in my dining life. A selection of stews, fried dishes, noodle dishes and the phrase I'm looking for, dolsot bibimbap, a (relatively) healthy dish served in a roasting hot stone bowl that I'm relying on to take away my Monday evening blues. Authentic or not, there's little else I recognise on the menu, often one of the best benchmarks for authenticity. 

A larger than expected portion of 'Crunch Chicken' sweetly and oddly tastes just like a gourmet version of a McDonald's Chicken McNugget. Noticeably sugared flesh beneath a light battered coating, it's surprising and not at all unpleasant, in a guilty pleasure sort of way. There's definitely a food dude marketing angle in this, it'd sell like, well hot chicken, in an East End foodie market. Come to think of it, I might try and get in there before anyone else notices! The obligatory side of kimchi, fermented and chilli infused cabbage, is a welcome contrast (if a little cold) cutting through the chicken and giving a needed contrast in texture.

The main event, that dolsot bibimbap, is enough to make me kick myself for not having it more often. It's a superb piece of simple cooking with some wonderful flavour and texture contrasts. Small piles of steamed and fragrant veggies are placed adjacent to each other for contrast, alongside a healthy portion of beef slivers, atop a bed of plain rice. The stone bowl, boiling hot from the oven, has been coated with sesame oil before being filled and the smell is outstanding. An egg yolk completes the dish, stirred into the browning, crispening rice and coating the meat and vegetables, cooking as it does to give the whole dish a light yellow sesame scented sheen. Cut through with more of that kimchi, this is truly a heartening and hearty winter dish.

The FoH team are friendly and unobtrusive, the decor is inoffensively pale, a mid range fairly generic Asian restaurant that could be anywhere or serving anything. It's not overly designed, but is functional and very comforting, like the food. Just round the back of the Shaftesbury Theatre, you're not going to find it on any glitzy hit lists, but that won't stop me going back and shouldn't stop you going, assuming you haven't already been.

                       

  

The Green Man and French Horn - Jan 2013

Now I have to admit to being slightly inebriated when I first visited The Green Man and French Horn. It was the glorious day that Bradford City triumphed over Arsenal in the Capital One Cup. Not a day seared into most people's memories, but enough to send me into paroxysms of clappy handed joy as I watched the giant killing unfold.

In fairness, all I really needed was something to soak up a number of pints. The output from this cracking little newcomer and youngest sibling of Terroirs, Brawn and Soif, was almost certainly beyond my faculty. So good though that, while not capable of sobering me up, it did cause me to drag a non football obsessed guest back to confirm what I'd witnessed.

We're in mixed small plate territory here. Lots of lovely little ideas, pulled together with a loose thread of the Loire Valley, intended as much as anything to show off an outrageously interesting cellar.

A thick slab of pork rillette was pushed eagerly into the contents of a hearty, fresh bread basket and consumed within minutes, hearty and flavoursome. My main plate was, as it had been on the previous visit, one of the simplest dishes I've had in a long time, three beautifully buttery fat mackerel, served with butter, garlic and a spritz of lemon. The quality was superb and the simplest of touches was all they needed.

Alongside, I opted for a grassy almost cidery fresh Cabernet Franc, refreshing and unexpected. A punch in the mouth of clean flavours that it through the thickness of the pork and the fish perfectly.

Poached pear was almost unexpectedly rich after the simple fare so far and a little too sweet for me, reclining like an early Rita Hayworth in a limpid caramel pool. I couldn't stop eating till it was gone, but in hindsight I'd have snuck in another small plate.

It was only after I'd been for the first time I realised the background to the restaurant and its owners, the terroir if you will. It was obviously going to be a winner. Until that point I got to experience the sheer joy that comes with making a real find, of discovering a new restaurant that will stay in your little black book for years. The fact it's a known quality doesn't change that fact.

Rossopomodoro - an Italian tale in two halves Nov 2012

I got called out recently. Challenged by a restaurant PR keen to prove that not all Italian chain restaurants are the same. I must admit that I wasn't overly keen but it was such a charming invite that I succumbed with my usual provisos*.

Admittedly bowling up at 2.30 on a Friday afternoon wasn't a particularly fair start. Slap bang on a busy Covent Garden junction, they'd obviously been hammered by a long lunch rush and the staff were slightly on the back foot, if delightful, throughout.

Bread and olives were definitely not good. The slightly over dry ciabatta had obviously been sat toasted for a while, left over from the lunchtime rush, and a too liberal glug of oil pre-delivery made for a chewy and teeth squeaking start. Olives likewise we're nothing to write home about.

Porky meatballs to start were fine, though any subtlety in the meat was overpowered by a brash tomato sauce that shouted over the top of them. They were, to be fair, better than a Frito Misto bowl of calamari and courgette. While it was a hearty portion, after too much dry and cloyingly thick batter, quantity became part of the criticism. We soldiered on and finished it, though mainly as it was a late lunch and we were starving.

I have to confess to not being entirely well disposed to the food by the time the pizza arrived. Expectations suitably lowered, they were wonderfully and unexpectedly knocked into a different league by the pizza. I went for simplicity itself, a humble margherita, topped with a simple smear of fresh tomato, sweet mozzarella and a wisp of basil. The other one was a Carmelo, slightly overbearing smoked mozz - leaving both of us feeling like we'd just nipped out for a fag - and lovely, if too sweet, Neapolitan pork sausage. 

The toppings were secondary, it was the bases that were special. Really special. Chewy, toasty moreishness with a light char and the lightest sour tang. By dint of that, and the simplicity of it, the margherita is one of the best pizzas I've ever tasted in this country. It even edged ahead of my last visit to to Franco Manca, a real touch of Naples in the most unlikely of spots. 

So did it change my preconceptions of the Italian chain? Well not really. Other than that pizza, there wasn't anything here that would make me run back. That being said, I've got a new place for a quick pizza in central London, if I can get past the tourists. 

 
* When I get an email from a PR representing a restaurant that I think I'd enjoy, I tend to send something back along the lines of: "Thanks for the interest, I'd be happy to come along, on proviso that I can book in myself, eat anonymously and choose if, when and what I write anything about it." If it's a cut and paste email, I send a cut and paste response, if they've read and engaged with the blog and sent me a personal note, then I'll respond personally. I've never solicited an invite and I've turned a lot down (sorry Strada... I really wasn't interested in your new autumn menu tasting).

J Sheekeys - A breathy and slightly pretentious review - Oct 2012

Going to J Sheekeys for their fruits de mer platter is for me the equivalent of walking into a spa. A brief respite of pure unadulterated luxury, a heady healthy hit that generally goes a long way towards improving my state of mind. The definition of a treat in other words.

It hasn't changed here in years, an I mean that in a very good way. Nicco Polo and I settle into a luxurious banquette with a self-satisfied sigh entirely at evens with the surroundings. Acres of luxurious linen cloths, a friendly and superbly well drilled FOH team and an awesomely good selection of shellfish. Nothing else needed.

Given my frothing tone so far, I should stress that while Sheekeys is luxurious, there's nothing pretentious about it. Seeing that we were struggling and wasting time with the faff of peeling the succulent little brown shrimp, our waiter gave a handy seaside tip, pinching head and tail together to pop out the sweet, fresh goodness. If I were a newbie contemplating attacking a platter, then this level of thoughtfulness would be even more appreciated.

If there's something vaguely erotic about the eating of an oyster, then fruits de mer is the culinary equivalent of no holds barred, hanging from the lampshade sex with a fruity, nubile and entirely innapropriate ex. A plethora of succulent, juicy little nubbins, blushing creamy pink morsels and taut sinews, each begging to be sampled next. Like the aforementioned illicit tryst, there's a wild menu of differnt styles, types and positions, everyone has their favourites and it's all so borderline lewd that nobody wants to imagine their parents at it.

After that, an ice cold buttery white wine and something to mop up the juices (see, I said you didn't want to imagine your parents at it...) we collapse back into the banquette. Perfect, absolutely perfect.

   

An updated review of Byron burgers in Covent Garden - June 2012

The Burgerman cometh

Since I first reviewed Byron, I've been a fairly frequent visitor to what is now frankly a substantial chain of 23 branches across the capital and counting.

Every time I go back there's a light trepidation. Every new site I try there's a little fear. Will this be the point they jump the shark?

Thankfully not it would seem. And I've even tried to catch them out with a Saturday early dinner in the Westfield Shopping Centre branch.

There's a constant level of innovation on the menu; most recently with the 'Chilli Queen', a collaboration with the Admiral Coddrington's Fred Smith. Other than  the semi-regular specials they have a classic, cheese, cheese and bacon, chicken or veggie variants. It's clear what they master in and they don't try anything special. They've also focussed on the beers, introducing a short but solid craft ale menu to go alongside. 


Most importantly they get the fundamentals right. The burgers are tasty, fresh and well prepared to a consistent quality. Sides are high quality, grease free and tasty. The staff are universally happy, attentive and well drilled and the spaces while different are all clean and decorated to a similar simple formula.


All in, a chain I'm delighted to see growing and growing. Assuming the standards remain as high as they have I'll keep coming back on a regular basis.


And my first review from mid 2010, the Wellington Street restaurant is still the one I go back to most often...

Where: Byron Hamburger, Covent Garden
With who: Roger the Dodger
How much: £15 a head for the Byron Burger, fries and a chilled bottle of Peroni


I've been semi-resisting this one for a while. I hate to say it, but I thought that there may be a few too many burger reviews around at the moment. To be honest, I always thought there were few bigger burger fans than me, until I started writing me blog and realised that I was a rank amateur. I've mentioned it before, but have a look at A Hamburger Today if you want to understand true obsession. 


The Dodger and I had a pleasant afternoon meeting over a couple of beers (I love my job sometimes) and decided to grab a bite before heading off. In a sheep like tourist packed strip of chain restaurants running along the arse of Covent Garden towards the Strand, Byron doesn't initially stand out. It's a fairly substantial chain of its own now, ten restaurants strong stretching from Kingston to Canary Wharf. Despite my misgivings of chain restaurants generally, I have to admit that Byron appears to be really rather quite good. It's a clean, tiled room with church hall style chairs and basic decor. There's a cavernous space downstairs that I hope fills out regularly.


It was a quick bite, post and prior to a few beers. I went for the Byron Burger and courgette fries. Never having had courgette fries, I was pleasantly surprised. Soft and juicy courgette strips, in a light and crispy batter. Perfect. The burger was cooked medium, with a beautiful pink colour. The charred flavour I was hoping for only came through in the last last few mouthfuls but it was there, and it was good. There was a nice tang to the cheese, though the bacon was a little thick and came away in lumps. 


UPDATE - Byron Soho Sept 2010
The old Intrepid Fox on Wardour Street was a proper dive pub. Full of bikers, rockers and various other ner-do-wells, listening to rock music. Dingy, black and somewhere you could always get a pint. I was deeply saddened when it went the way of the developers.
And when they announced plans for a gourmet fast food restaurant underneath the luxury city centre flats I shrugged sadly and composed eulogies to old Soho.. So I was pleasantly surprised when it turned into a Byron. Service is as friendly as the others, food just as good, if not a little better. Maybe there is hope for Soho yet.

Everyone's a little bit racist, sometimes... June 2012

 Despite being a left of centre soft socialist - as a foodie, I can be as xenophobic as P W Botha. There are some cuisines I seem to viscerally object to. Weirdly, this is often diametrically opposed to how much I like the people and the drink. Take the Poles for example - great beers, really friendly people, and a cuisine of bland boiled meat and dumplings. Or the Germans; sure, they gave us the noble wurst but the history of Teutonic fine dining could be written on the back of a David Hasselhoff CD inlay. As I was reminded recently on a trip to Amsterdam, the Dutch don't do nuffin' if it ain't fried within an inch of its life and capable of being covered in satay sauce. And don't get me started on the Australians and their pub 'meat' pies...


So what makes me genetically incapable of avoiding these cuisines? Dear reader, it was the beer... All of the cuisines mentioned, in their dirty nasty greasy glory, seem so right after, or with, a strong pint of cold, tasty beer.

The Lowlander is a case in point. A phenomenal, if pricy, beer bar with a monstrously good list of continental brews and a monstrously bad selection of pointlessly fried, at the bar at least. There's a sub-gastro menu covering the 'highlights' of Belgium and the Netherlands, so that's moules, moules, various deep fried things and, um, burgers. Not that the Covent Garden clientelle care - there aren't many places round here you can get a Trappist ale, let alone a selection, and the food is seemingly no more than fuel.

   
De Hems, the incongruous Chinatown Dutch pub, isn't much better but at least they don't make much of their food menu. Here it's downplayed as the Dutch would do, greasy little treats to keep you stuck to the bar for longer. The bitterballen are certainly authentic, they remind me of the fat dripping vomit gobstoppers I (drunkenly) yummed up in Amsterdam. Half an hour after eating and you've got a slight curry afternote and the occasional gaseous hit of grease mingling with your exotic pint. As beery snacking goes this isn't just dated, it's practically medieval. Don't get me wrong, fried is after all one of my favourite food groups, but if you're going to go down that route, for God's sake try harder. Imagine how good your excellent beer would be if you could soak it up with a decent snack.

A beer and food based piece wouldn't be complete without the goddaddy of pissed eating. And in my life, I've had many, many great nights out that were predestined to finish with doner. Camberwell seems to have more of it's fair share including one I'm happy to declare to be up there with the finest in London, FM Mangal. Named after the mangal barbecue pit the delicious meat is laid over, the smell of happily sizzling spiced flesh hits you hard as you walk through the door. It's cheap, filling and spicy. Worth the oft scoffed decision to have a 'sit down' for their complimentary breads and dips, the former dusted with a spicy sumac style rub and the latter an addictive little bowl of pomegranate molasses and vinegar. Trust me, it tastes so much better than it reads.

Despite obvious Middle Eastern roots, the popular greasy parcel was invented, as recently as the 70's, in the large Turkish expat community of Berlin as a way of wrapping your grilled meat for the walk home. How that translated into processed nasty pitta grease traps we have in the UK I don't know, but try one in Berlin and understand how the Germans can justifiably claim to have given something great to world cuisine after all...

 

MEATmarket - Fast food tales 1 of 3 - May 2012

So it looks like Yanni Papoutsis is coming over all Russell Norman.... Not in the way that frotting filthy resto fan kids might dream about thankfully, but with the launch of another guaranteed hit. A newly acquired space refitted out of the blue that feels perfectly in fitting with its surroundings and makes you wonder how you (or another savvy restaurateur) hadn't found it before.

Let me set the record straight. This isn't an obvious space for a restaurant. It's not an obvious space for anything. It's the echoey, almost open to the elements balcony over Covent Garden's tat-tastic Jubilee Market. Feyne Deining it ain't, but it's a perfect dirty spot for a dirty burger.

The brains behind MEATwagon, MEATeasy and MEATliquor serve up 3 or 4 different double burgers, a brace of pimped hot dogs and a 50's rockabilly tattooed handful of sides are on offer. Simple enough and satisfying enough.

The bun holding the mustard fried Dirty Hippy (house speciality and tribute to the best burger on the planet) is a little lighter than before... I can't explain it, but something has changed. Not for the bad, but different. It survives, just, the onslaught of the sloppy sauce - dripping as seductively as a trickle of hot meat fat can. The taste of the sloppy patty is, as always, superb. I'd injure children to get one of these. Cheese and Jalapeno poppers are tiny spicy croquettes of fried. Perfectly acceptable, but nothing more than a distraction from the main meat, something I've felt about the sides in every iteration from MEATcorporation.

It's not immediately clear who MEATmarket is really aimed at. Is it a greasy, meaty lunchtime standfast for the hipster locals? A tourist tick or one of London's new foodie landmarks? I think that it's somewhere you'll hit up on an evening, after a few drinks in town, when the market has gone to sleep and the rock and roll meat purveyors can let their hair down.

    

The Ten Cases - Bistrotastic - May 2012

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live, breathe and eat in London. The 10 Cases is so good it's practically a public service. Being a West End boy I've grown proficient at seeking out hidden gems in Soho and Covent Garden and The 10 Cases is a worthy addition to that list.

The dark panelled pocket-box of a bistro is appropriately named for its main draw, the rapidly rolling wine selection; 10 cases of 10 whites and 10 reds. When they're gone, they're gone. We sampled a light and jammy Chinon and a surprisingly good Austrian red. Both, like most of the list, pleasingly priced at £25-£30 and available by glass, bottle or carafe.

We were a bottle to the good before arriving and so immediately ploughed into a selection of their excellent small plates. You can go for starters and mains if you fancy, though there are generally only 3 big dishes at any one time. Excellent fresh bread (a £1.50 cover in case that kind of thing annoys) went with satisfying saucisson and was a great soaker-upper of the reminants of buttery potted crab and a surprising (to us) foie gras en cocotte.

Surprising only if you were expecting foie gras 'en croute', not having read the menu properly. Envisaging some form of baked butter pastry and forcefed liver combination, we were disappointed in the way that only the truly gluttonous could be. If you know your bistro dishes then you'd be expecting a pot full of soft poached egg in butter wrapped around a tiny lobe of perfectly cooked slab of foie. You'd be right, but you probably wouldn't remember quite how wonderful this dish can be, because if you did, you'd be eating it now. Right now. Silk cooked in butter, served with butter...

A steak hache or a tartare, those bistro stalwarts, wouldn't be a bad addition to the menu but other than that, it was pretty near perfect. The only slight fail for me was a deconstructed prawn cocktail. Fresh enough ingredients and the old skool styling delighted my guest but i didn't rate it as anything more than a dull assemblage. Thankfully we finished on an enormous pillowy chocolate mousse meant for sharers. Being one of the few desserts I have in my home cook repertoire I'm not sure it was entirely worth the £9.50 price tag, but as a bittersweet full stop to a sophisticated drinking session it was delicious.

Service was excellent and sealed the deal. The owner and his bar based sidekick made an affable team. Recommendations were spot on, knowledge of their small wine list couldn't have been better and there was an easy welcome for everyone. Despite being slap bang in the tourist centre of the West End, The 10 Cases manages to be the local bistro you'd want to have on your street corner.

   

How to burger up lunch - The Angel and Crown - Apr 2012

Like a sad bottomy fart, my expectations slowly exhaled as I had it proved to me again why lunch can all to often be a gastronomic graveyard if you pick restaurants incorrectly. And, like the elegant cougar from the night before revealed in the cold harsh spring sunshine, there are just some places that obviously don't deliver in the daylight. 

Owned by the group behind a range of solid enough gastropubs with reasonable reputations elsewhere in the capital, I can only assume that the Chef, the manager and indeed everyone bar the kitchen porter of the Angel and Crown were on a group bonding session somewhere a long, long way away when I popped in on a Tuesday lunchtime.

Just across from the Noel Coward on St Martin's Lane is prime tourist territory and no doubt teeth clenchingly high rent, but neither are reason for the proprietors of recently refurbished pub dining room to charge me £13 for one of the most depressing burgers I've eaten in a long time. Described as a 'Dexter beef burger', it was a woeful embarrasment of a meal and the sort of bovine abuse you'd expect from an Aberdeen Angus, Garfunkels or Scotch Steakhouse.

My friend Simon is the rightfully proud owner of the world's smallest Dexter beef herd, having two of the little blighters. The oldest, named charmingly by his carnivorous kiddies as Burger, deserves a better end than the poor Dexter that had contributed to the grim patty on my plate. I have a feeling Simon would rather set them free to take their own chances than let them turn up like this.

Requested medium rare, it trickled pale juice but consisted of gray meat throughout with no char, sweetness or indeed real taste. The dense clag of over handled preparation made the thick single note mortuary slab a trial to eat. It lingered thankfully little on the palate but squatted in my gut for the remainder of the day like an ill mannered toad at the bottom of a pond.

The roll felt either frozen or forgotten, either way brittle, hard and inedible, crumbling by the wayside. The chips had a whiff of the Maccy D's about them and came served with two wafer thin slices of gherkin and a tasteless watery beef tomato slice.

I'm not going to bother describing the standard decor of the empty upstairs dining room or the amiable staff, both were fine. I just want to tell my salutary patty based tale and get this memory over and done, consigning it to the bin of disappointment in the depths of my cerebellum, pulling it out dustily if anyone suggests trying this place.