london restaurants

going to anchor/hope again today...embarrassingly regular now but cousin works there and i meet him for lunch so why not.

Got into Spuntino the other day - we were very pleased with it indeed, it did it's small-plate thing very nicely.

so is this going to be hell on earth or a good addition? http://www.redmarketlondon.com/

i'm leaning towards hell on earth on a saturday night, possibly worth visiting on a sunday.

meze mangal on lewisham way, best turkish food in town

man i miss turkish food

so, banh mi places seem to sprouting up at the same pace that burrito joints did a year or so back. up til now, i thought Banh Mi Bay on Theobald's Road was best - my nearest and most regular, but only if they haven't run out of the vietnamese bread, which they seem to have refined to an optimum balance of crispy outside and soft interior - but Kêu on Old Street is also great. the bread is way different, and there's lots more ingredients/flavours.

these places never hit sarf london ;_;

looking forward to this though:
http://dishoom.com/2011/04/the-dishoom-chowpatty-beach-bar-may-sep/

City Càphê is good, but i found it a touch dry. only been once.

and i tried Chao on Whitecross Street last week, but they were out of classic chicken/pate, so i tried the spicy pork. a touch chewy, but still tasty.

anyone tried the one on Broadway Market?

I saw that Dishoom beach bar thing under construction the other week and thought it was inspired. What with that + the fake beach + the beach huts + the turfed over roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall the South Bank has outdone itself this year.

meze mangal on lewisham way, best turkish food in town

This is OTM, went recently and it's exceptional.

xxpost the one at broadway market is really good! well, the one that specialises in it. they also make them at the viet coffee place + my one from there wasnt as tasty.

speaking of that neighbourhood, towpath is back open again (maybe it has been for a while?) and is always highly recommended

these places never hit sarf london ;_;

According to Starry Sarah formerly of this parish there's an amazing one in Deptford, but given where you live you might as well just go over the river.

yeah will try and make the epic trip across some weekend soon when i get a chance.

xp
ha! i just moved to a new place round the corner from meze mangal and i'd wondered if it was any good. will definitely check it out.

On the poncier end of the spectrum I finally went to Arbutus in Soho on Saturday and it was astonishingly good, probably the best piece of rare beef I can remember eating.

I'm a big fan of Meze Mangal too, although Ottoman on New Cross Road is also nice, and they deliver.

I haven't tried the Banh Mi place on Old St mentioned above, so vote goes to Panda Panda on Deptford Broadway - all fresh, and nice crispy baguettes. Just a couple more stamps on my loyalty card and I can get a T-shirt.

Ledge, Banh Mi Bay is an outpost of Cafe Bay in Camberwell! Of all the above, Keu on Old St is my fave, the stall on Broadway Market is pretty good also.

I wish I liked banh mi better but URGH PATÉ. Bit of a dealbreaker if I flash back to my dad's liverwurst and mayo sarnies. *boaks*

The mackerel one at Keu is pate-free I think (I haven't eaten one but I've watched J do so and she loved it).

Where's good for a quick meal near the Barbican?

The bar at St John! Have never had a problem getting in, it's quick and delicious if you're not looking for big big food. The cheese sandwich is surprisingly good, the bobemarrow salad sets me right up for Barbican action.

There's a decent sushi bar on Whitecross St, as I recall.

There are a bunch of good restaurants along the top of Smithfield Market/Cowcross Street/St John Street - about 5-10 minutes' walk from the Barbican.

At lunchtime, Whitecross Street has a multitude of good food carts.

There's a decent sushi bar on Whitecross St, as I recall

yeah - pham sushi. probably the best sushi in the old street area (not that there's much competition but it is good).

suzy otm re food carts, go to the scotch egg guy in partic

I got a recommendation for a Hunan Chinese place on Shaftesbury Avenue... CAN'T WAIT.

Ledge, Banh Mi Bay is an outpost of Cafe Bay in Camberwell!

Sweeeeeet!

xpost - is that golden day? i had a pretty good meal there! but i think ba shan is better now

Well, I haven't had good Hunan since ohhhhhh, 1990 - so will probably try both.

Dishoom on the south bank: quality over quantity. £4.50 for the not overly large bacon or sausage naan rolls is just about acceptable, £6 for the lamb mince is ridiculous, tasty though it was. And they dropped four of our tickets on the floor, losing the orders, and only came out with three of them 20 minutes later - will put that down to teething troubles.

the two web reviews for golden day i've read don't sound awesome but then they're web reviews.

Well, I got a very strong personal recommendation for Golden Day from some friends...

anyone heading out tonight? thinking of trying somewhere new but not sure where...

I'm supposed to go to an art thing in E2 but right now I just want to stay home and eat a bacon sandwich. Sigh.

yeah i am tempted to stay in too...had a heavy week. prob meeting a friend in stoke newington tho.

not a restaurant as such but since this is the general london thread now...anyone been to the jolly butcher in stoke newington? hadn't been up that way for a while and was there last night, amazing ale selection, brewdog and flying dog pale ales on tap. dunno what it'd be like as a local, food looked decent, but another one to keep in mind in terms of getting great beer.

you prob all know this...but nonetheless!

yeah the beer selection makes it. only had a sunday roast there one time but mine was very disappointing (duke of wellington's much better).

I wish I liked banh mi better but URGH PATÉ. Bit of a dealbreaker if I flash back to my dad's liverwurst and mayo sarnies. *boaks*

Oh man I love paté! I hope Oxford will get a banh mi bar to go with its few-years-behind-London-trends burrito joints.

people were having ribs there last night steve, looked amazing, but didn't taste them.

My dad's crimes against paté included the peanut butter and Braunschweiger sandwich. NO, I DON'T KNOW WHY.

On second thought, such combinations could have been the death of him....

I don't like cooked liver but for some reason I love paté, liver sausage, etc. Sliced liver sausage used to be the cheapest sliced meat by far in the local Co-op, happy times. Now they've stopped selling it altogether, because apparently everyone else agrees with mr spacecadet that it is disgusting and shameful.

*hangs head*

Peanut butter and spreadable liver sausage is a bit much even for me though.

LG- I was in the Jolly Butchers last night too! Never had a bad pint in there. The only drawback is it seems to be a magnet for opportunistic thieves. It used to be the worst pub in Stoke Newington, the kind of place you feared to go into the toilets in case someone stabbed you.

My drawing group went to Brick Lane/Shoreditch yesterday, I took the opportunity to make a quick detour to Kêu for my first Banh Mi. It met all my expectations - awesome. Then hit Cay Tre for dinner after many beers.

i had keu for the first time the other day as well - really good! wish i worked in that area i would be hitting it up for lunch all the time. only thing that was a bit unusual was the bread, it wasnt super light + flaky like banh mi bread usually is

My banh mi experience was inauthentic? ~sadface~ ... I thought the bread was pretty good though, crust like Pret's awesome artisan but not quite as tooth-punishingly hard, middle like a decent fluffy baguette.

just went to my old place at the end of my road again. <3 that place they are so rude and horrible. crab is amazing maybe not as good as gourmet san but almost. we got pigs intestines in chilli - mmmmm

went + had one of these for lunch. would definitely eat again.

aw man can't wait to check this out...

is there a general london thread? i often want to talk about pubs and stuff, i guess it works here, but we really should have a london thread to encompass any and all possible things you might do.

what do people think? i'm willing to put in the typing and hard graft it takes to start a thread, if there isn't an old one that needs a lick of revive paint.

i think thats a good idea! that jolly butchers talk upthread was v relevant to my interests but yeah i agree that maybe its best to not have it on the restaurants thread

yeah and would be a good replacement, potentially, for reading timeout, like clubs/galleries/theatre etc...it took me about 2 years of living here to realise that when you research what to do a bit more you find better things.

Thread would be a bit too wide-ranging I fear and would get unusably massive very quickly. There's already a London pubs thread. An art one would be good though. The art section is pretty much the only reason I bother with Time Out these days.

i dunno, do you think it'd be that busy? i don't see any other use of the other threads, whereas the fact this one keeps popping up makes it feel useful for other purposes. it's hard to look at loads of threads at once...

are there really that many ilx posters in london these days? i'm not so sure...