The Riding House Cafe - a touch of the Caprice Holdings? Apr 2011

Where: The Riding House Cafe
With who: The International Man of Mystery and others
How much: small plates are £3-£5, mains hover over the £10-£13 mark.
Come here if: you're looking for a new creative digital agency, or you've got a meeting in the area

Lunchtime in another 'restaurant of death'... Not that anyone has actually died here, it's more a term that implies that it's never really settled as a venue. The previous incumbents, Curry and Lager (someone needed to give their brand consultant a good shoeing for that one), talked a good game, and sold a pretty decent all you can eat buffet, but never really looked like they were for the long term, laying their hot trays down on jerrybuilt stands over the remains of London secretary haunt Bar Ha Ha beneath. Such is the pageant of London's restaurants. Some you know will, and should, close within months, others fight on against all hope and others just feel like they've always been there.

Even within the first couple of weeks you get the impression that the team behind The Riding House Cafe will be there for a while. Searching around for the feel, I was initially gunning towards it being someone in the Russell Norman mould. There’s definitely the organised attention to detail you’d expect with an ex alumni of the Caprice Holdings group. Casual it may seem, but there’s an eagle eye for their brand of casual, clued up perfection and design at the top of the operation and that attention permeated through the staff on our visit. On checking, it’s actually from the team behind Bermondsey stalwarts The Garrison and Village East. Similar wrong side of the tracks chic for a creative relatively monied local market makes it obvious if you’ve been to the other two.

La Perla - Mexican or Mexican't? Feb 2011

Where: La Perla, Charlotte Street
How much: £30 a head for 2 courses and rather more than a brace of beers.
With who: The International Man of Mystery
Come here if: you need a cheap, fun and friendly, if not particularly authentic, spot for a party

Tucked under the wing of the renovated Charlotte Street Hotel. It's been around for a while, like the original Chez Gerard opposite, and is one third of a small Mexican chain in the capital.
The International Man of Mystery and I start in the Latino style basement bar, boards displaying the top tequila tipplers of years gone by. We suck Sol and ruminate. Upstairs the space is small, rickety and crowded. Small bare tables fit together jigsaw-like into the space. Old photos and advertising boards fill the walls. It's authentic Mexican in a mid 70's British way, where Alison Steadman and Felicity Kendal might have come for the exotic thrill of a taco post performance.

The menu is sparse and fairly obvious. Nacho chips and a spicy tomato dip arrive unbidden and are followed by a selection of chicken, duck and pulled beef quesadilla to share. The cheese oozing from the side puts them at the unhealthy side of hearty and it's very much there to eat with your hands. Haute it is not, but nor is it pretending to be.. They're perfect following a couple of beers, but you struggle to identify which is which.

My main, a selection plate of street tacos is fine. You'd get more innovative flavours at Wahaca, but you'd have had to wait 45 minutes for a table too, so judge it that way. The corn tortillas come topped with spiced prawns (an unexpected hit of chilli heat), chicken and duck (shredded and a little indeterminate), beef sirloin, shredded beef and shredded chicken topped with coriander and onions, served with black beans and a selection of dips. The International Man of Mystery went for a big bowl of *extra hot* chile con carne. It passed without comment, but this wasn't food to occupy attention, but a fairly solid bite of faux-Mex spice while catching up with a friend.

Review of Dim T, Fitzrovia - Apr 2010

Where: Dim T, Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia
With whom: the Poker Shark
How much?: steamed dim sum £3.25 for a set of three, noodles and assorted specials for £7-£10... we spent £30 (with a couple of drinks) and had a perfectly acceptable amount.

So Charlotte Street on a (probably the first) warm sunny Friday of the year. So many places we could have ended  up but the Poker Shark was really feeling like dim sum so we ended up in Dim T.


It's a small group with 8 locations, 6 of them in London, and it does have that chain feel to it. The staff are friendly, but not particularly  knowledgeable and while I'd prefer to eat in a hygienic establishment, I'd rather not see bottles of cleaning product on the serving counter.


Similar in style, there are certainly no surprises if you've eaten in the now near ubiquitous Ping Pong. We settled in next to a party of local office workers and ordered a few mixed dishes from the smiling Scandinavian host.


Starting off with a plate of Crispy Duck to share, I wasn't overly impressed with a flabby, overly fatty portion of meat and a sub MacDonald's size portion of overly sweet hoisin. 


The steamed dumplings were better thankfully. We went for the Prawn and Chive and the Mushroom steamed dim sum and a couple of portions of the Char Sui pork buns. The flavours all came through well (with the possible exception of the mushroom, slightly too Cream of Campbell Soup to be honest) but I've definitely had worse. The Char Sui buns were hot, fresh and a definite improvement on Ping Pong - though overall, the whole experience only served to make me crave a proper dim sum blow out... Give me a call if you fancy joining!