london restaurants

Kulu Kulu sushi in Brewer Street.

Mandola in Westbourne Grove.

Churchill Arms pub thai in Kensington.

but then im with some other people later in the week and we need another recommendation.

They recommend the place you mention sarah

sushi-say is like 15mins walk from my house...

Sarah, sushi-say is fantastic, and the chef thre is very very cool.

I've heard far too many stories about Pollo ever to go back there, which is a shame as I used to like it.

How is Cafe Grove? Has anyone tried Viet Hoa? What about Goddards Ye Olde Pie Shop?

Viet Hoa is very reliable (and popular) but since the opening of about a dozen Vietnamese restaurants next to it, of course there are one or two of these that are better than Viet Hoa, like Song Que a few blocks up and the Viet community centre on the Dalston end of Englefield Road.

*ok, i don't eat sushi, but i like loads of their food.

Fischer's looks more veg friendly than a lot of places I went to in Vienna. A courgette Schnitzel...

Went to Fischer and took my mother to lunch. Solid recommend.

Apparently Karl Ove Knausgaard eats there a lot. Hope you met him.

No, but now I know I might go there more often now.

Post the selfie here :)

Ah, I never made it there though did do La Fromagerie (who could accommodate vegetarianism).

Also went back to Noble Rot (Did the cheap menu and it did feel slightly "Here are some things we happen to be cooking for other people" in retrospect) - really love the Lamb's Conduit space, though.

There was a table buying lots of wine and going "full menu" and I clocked that they were ignoring the staff almost totally, aside from placing their orders ... as if they'd been taught it was bad etiquette to say "Thanks!" for anything.

the first time i did the lunch menu, at lc, i thought it was brilliant, all three courses. second time, at the soho one, i thought it was still very good but a bit more sparse and less interesting.

Yeah, similar experience.

Went to Masigo (Korean) in Chapel Market on a whim without knowing anything about it and it was pretty good tbh? Shared a portion of fried chicken (ganjang) & bulgogi with my companion and the chicken was the standout by far, think I would go back with more people next time cos the beef bbq the table across had smelled incredible. The portions were very generous, the chicken itself was probably more than sufficient for just two people but it was so so so good.

Good place to take 6 or 7 work colleagues in town from various European countries near Euston / Kings X? They all work in public service media so er there are limits to what can be expensed

idk what the vibe is but if they eat meat, i went to a place called charcoal champ at the weekend, having had it on my list for a good while. chinese bbq with loads of skewers of various nature. not a fancy place but very good and good value.

Went to brigadiers near cannon st last weekend for reasons I won’t go into. We ordered plenty. I liked it, a good bit, but I was also left with the feeling that maybe over a certain price point the diminishing returns for stuff like chicken tikka is particularly in evidence? Which is to say, I have had many orders of chicken tikka in my lifetime but none where I actually cut the chicken up and was trying to establish if it was actually burnt because of how it tasted.

Lamb though, faultless, and had an excellent dessert there. Pretty nice, wouldn’t go there a second time.

I cook a lot of curries at home, mainly bhunas with either beef or lamb. I've given up with chicken because I can never get it right and am neurotic about undercooking it. But with lamb I can always achieve what I consider better than takeaway/lol maybe even mediocre restaurant standard home cooking. It is much harder to fuck up with lamb imo.

Charcoal Champ is on York Way iirc, good shout.

Hoppers for Sri Lankan is great for vegetarians and vegans; larger groups can book Dishoom, Tamil Prince or German Gymnasium as well (if the weather is good that’s a lovely place). The Standard always impresses out of towners and you can do afters on the roof.

is the Standard the hotel that has the weird exterior elevator??

oh i see it is. likely a bit expensive for this crew

It is! And used to be Camden Town Hall. Social housing unit was on the fourth floor of that building.

It’s insane how expensive it is to eat out now.

well i still haven't decided. Around Euston/Fitzrovia may actually be more convenient if that shakes loose any thoughts from people. i feel like there are great places on Charlotte Street that I'm just blanking on. there are some very good, spendy "fine dining" places there but I really just want something comfy and good. sommelier's a deal breaker.

ohh I just remembered Mestizo?? maybe that's the jam.

i do think charlotte street is the sort of street where you think you must be blanking on some very good places but in fact there are not any very good places, and i would probably end up going to Ragam again for reasons of nostalgia.

i'm not really up to speed on restaurants in London these days though tbh.

Any recommends for veggie friendly restaurants around South Ken?

Just popped into Lò Bánh Mì in Borough on a whim cos the pub I was going to wasn't serving food. Goddamn

Went to DanDan the other week during a late notice course in Southwark and I'm prepared to believe the hype. It probably helped I had pigs ears and the blood/offal bowl rather than something more touristy but it did exactly the sort of numbing I wanted.

pigs ears and the blood/offal bowl

I'd been led to believe that english cuisine had improved somewhat?.. it might have been a michael caine interview

DanDan is a Szechuan restaurant, but in any case, offal is popular in most traditional European cuisines!

okay, I was just kidding a bit

Case in point - just down the road from DanDan - Camille does glorious offal. Recently had excellent calves brain, gimmicky but delicious udder schnitzel and a stunning Cou de Canard Farci complete with head/beak garnish.

michael caine said the smell of cooking garlic still freaks him out a little, as it reminds him of chinese soldiers cooking in the distance when he was fighting in the korean war

camille was brilliant the one time i went.

Useful discussion, I work around Southwark/Borough. Meaning to try dandan but can't settle on what I'd want bc the menu is a tome

Colleagues were raving about Yun Gui Chuan noodle place today, for another Southwark option

I think I went fairly standard with twice-cooked pork at DanDan, but it was really good. I've eaten at the one in Aldgate also and it's nice.

Not tried Yun Gui Chuan tho I think they have one nearer me on Brick Lane or similar also.

I ate at One Rice on Brick Lane a couple of weeks ago, it's Teochew food which was new to me. The place itself is a bit sparse and was kind of cold but the food was nice, fairly simple, not spicy, more hearty.

s/o to Clara's Bistro in Shoreditch for filling my algorithm with influencers hyping it up as a "hidden gem" and thus making me aware that I should avoid it at all costs