Da Polpo - when you realise how old you've become - Oct 2011

Where: Da Polpo, Covent Garden
With who: The Ginger Prince 
How much: a parade of small plates between a fiver and £8 each. You can eat well for £15 a head and like a king for £25...
Come here if: you keep failing to get a table at one of the others

Da Polpo is the fourth outpost from restaurateur Russell Norman and closer to the Beak Street original in size and atmosphere than the middle, smaller two. The bare walls, industrially salvaged furniture and fittings and dim lighting remain a common theme. I'm beginnning to think that Norman has shares in one of the reclaimation companies, or alternatively is manufacturing former industrial shabby chic from scratch, extruding it out by the roomful in a dark pit of indentured workers somewhere in a former Soviet state.

The service is bright, funky and considerably more tattooed than yours truly, the sparse and snacky drinks and food menus appears on clipboards and as artfully recycled placemats and even at 9:30 on a wet and windy Wednesday they still having trouble seating you. So far, so fair for another Norman conquest.

We arrived and grabbed a seat at the downstairs bar which meant we got to eat sooner, though did leave us feeling like we were in an East German factory canteen. The lighting is low, the murmur was loud but the smell from the kitchen was divine... Perched at the battered zinc bar (another division in the owner's manufacturing empire no doubt) we kicked back with an Aperol spritz and perused the familiar menu.

We went on recommendation in the end, a selection from the different sharing plates littering the list, happy enough to chat and take the suggestions of the cool but knowledgable staff. Starting and finishing with rounds of arrancia, little hot shotputts of risotto rice round a molten mozzarella core, fried with a crisp toothsome breadcrumb crust. Textbook examples of a relatively simple bar snack, you'd be slightly pissed if you queued an hour for one, but better than a rather plain chicken liver crostini, too much pate with that drying sensation of the meat left it a little cloying in the mouth, less would have been more here.

The nearest to a main in size was a shared plate of Frito Misto, seafood selection (in reality 95% of it was prawns, calamari and whitebait) competently deep fried, maintaining the integrity of the fish without being doused in oil, though oddly served without an aoili to cut through the crumb. It may be authentic, but the lemon wedge didn't do enough to lift it from dryness. Better still was the pork shoulder pizzette, one of 6 or 7 baby pizzas, a smear of rich pasata covering the small, crisp base with thin slices of smoky marbled shoulder, all cut through with piquant peppers. Having eaten similar recently, cooked by a local Italian mama from a pizza oven facing the open air, I can attest to the authenticity of these little plate shaped platters of goodness.

Like the other branches, the meatballs are excellent. Not afraid to bring up the accompanying herbs, fennel in the case of the ones we went for, they're punchy cannonballs of well seasoned meat. the seasoned tomato sauce a great accompaniment and, after another round of those arrancia (OK, maybe they are worth waiting for when served hot and fresh, dripping with mozz) we stumbled off into the night.

So is anything really different to the other branches of the 'chain'? And does it matter when the quality is high enough? While there's an element of Norman by Numbers about Da Polpo, for the neighbourhood (deepest, darkest touristic Covent Garden) it's nice to have another option in the area, though by the time you've waited for a table, there'll be another one along to take the crowd.

Rasa - Take a walk on the meaty side - Oct 2011

I'm conflicted...
 
Despite being in North London, I love Stoke Newington. If it isn't twinned with Camberwell, then it should be. A fiercely independent villagelike enclave of London with strong and proud local communities and immigrant flavour influencing the shops, restaurants and entertainment. Lovely people too; independent, diverse and proud (like their shops) and none of the identikit shop-bought cool you'll find in watered down Angel or Hoxton.

Separated from 'normal' London by a, for some unforgivable, lack of a tube network, it's been allowed to get on, relatively unhindered by the vagiaries of fashion. Half hearted arguments from locals of Stokey and Camberwell occasionally ring out, "It's on the bus!", we all cry, "with many more options home on a boozy Thursday night than the smug marrieds of Ealing or Clapham have with their uncomfortable crowded sweaty holes in the ground." That being said, we're not too fussed that you haven't found our den yet. We kinda like it that way.

Being a mecca for food too, authentic and chain free spicy food at that, I'm not sure why I don't spend more time in Stokey. It might be the nosebleeds I get going North of Zone 1, or it might be simply a lack of knowledge, but if you live closer than I, then I do urge you to support your local London village (just don't spoil it...)

   

Village favourites for many years, I was keen to try one of the outposts of South Indian restaurant Rasa. Specialising in Keralaite cuisine and particularly that from the southern part of the region, it's traditionally vegetarian or fish based, steeped in coconut, rich spices and fruit flavours and served with plain rice or flaky, butter filled parathas.

The two restaurants face each other across Stoke Newington Church Street; Rasa on one side, the more established and entirely vegetarian original and the mixed and more meaty Rasa Travancore on the other. I don't mind a vegetarian restaurant, indeed, some of my favourite restaurants are vegetarian, but given the choice, and seeing the reception that the veggie end of the Travancore menu got from Dr Vole, we went for the meaty side of the street.

Once inside the garish pink portal, you're not transported to a open air joint on the humid Kerala coast, more a generic curry house on a suburban high street. The thick faux leather menu that clumps down does its best to get you there though. First there's the pricing, and that pleasant holiday sense of surprised "how much!". Then there's the list of food, rich in interesting difference, a world of exotic Malabar, Keralian and Travancore rarities poetically arranged in Ariel Bold.

A starter of lamb puffs were slightly irrelevant. Homemade sausage rolls in perfectly fine pastry cocoons, the mince richly and appropriately spiced, but nothing that would be cause for more than a murmur appearing in a home packed picnic on nearby Clissold Park.

   

The meat free Travancore Kayi Curry was, considering the restaurant's vegetarian roots and the fact it was labelled as signature dish, surprisingly pedestrian. Potatoes, peas and carrots in a thin mild coconut curry sauce. A student staple, though at £3.90 for a big bowl, student pricing too.

Tharavu Roast Duck was a different beast altogether. A thick, technically dry curry, brought to life with a hefty whallop of black pepper, cardamom and ginger. The richness of the meat, braised and shredded, contrasted with the deep and complex sauce. Suggested with the aforementioned doughily delicious parathas, it was the sort of cooking you'd come back for again and again. I wouldn't necessarily say the same for the veggie main, but maybe that's what you cross the street for.