london restaurants

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...

London pubs gets revived every so often when someone wants a recommendation. This one, well, we just like food a lot I suppose. There's a London clubbing thread from back in the day as well. Reckon it'd be much easier to just have separate threads for different things, sometimes threads just baloon massively, especially if there's pub talk going on.

yeah i guess it depends on if you favour long threads or not, i'd have thought one thread that regularly pops up fosters more discussion, as the digressions here show, imo. but it's not a big deal...

i went to start an art thread for London, but wasn't sure whether or not there was enough interest. found this one in the end:

RFI: Current Art Exhibitions in London

would love to see it bumped regularly!

i'm in favour of general rolling london thread. i wouldn't expect it to get much traffic.

too much, i guess

There are a load more Londoners here than you realise. General London cultural happenings thread that doesn't include pubs or restaurants would probably be fine.

Those of us still here are good at food; as to this thread - it ain't broke, don't fix.

I have been known to go to Ikea purely because I wanted an approximation of an American baseball-game hot dog, so I am definitely going to check out a decent hot dog cart in Shoreditch. No pickle relish there, though - POINTS DEDUCTION. I'm also keen to check out Herman the German, the sausage place next to Heaven represented on its sign by a very phallic mascot.

That would help with random stuff that slips through the net as well like free festivals etc. Pubs and restuarants can stay on their own threads.

really pubs and restaurants should be one thread...does anyone think? but sorry i know i am upsetting the cosmic balance here!

i just think general daily input is better than having to remember to revive a thread, we share more knowledge through actual conversations on here.

i vote aye

i don't think anyone actually minds off-topic digressions in this thread, i side with "if it ain't broke"

really pubs and restaurants should be one thread...does anyone think?

Madness.

Problem with daily input is that one massive thread is kinda difficult to load if you need to find something in a hurry, which is more likely to be the case with around town stuff.

first world problems

i think it is sort of broke tho...

x-post that's a good point, but you could revive the specific threads if you needed to do that...

also there are other things we'd end up discussing about london, and we don't have a "london, miscellaneous" thread. like there are some things that will never come up in a revive but if everyone is on a thread talking they become a topic of conversation.

THIS thread is the proof of that imo, because we all like food other topics come up...basically i just tend to find myself wanting to ask other london questions here as it's become a good rolling thread, and that's why i had the idea.

x-post lol easy to tell i am unemployed, "thinking of ways to improve my ilxperience"

basically i just tend to find myself wanting to ask other london questions here as it's become a good rolling thread, and that's why i had the idea

well ask them here then! no one will mind.

London restaurants thread is fine as it is, no need to dilute it with discussions about which Blue Posts is best or parks or markets or whatever.

Think 'Miscellaneous London' or 'London arts/cultural happenings' or whatever would be wide-ranging enough without bringing in pubs and restaurants, which usually generate loads of chat.

yeah i have been doing so...it's not a perfect system though.

x-post bah it just won't be used enough

weinerchat xpost
Kurtz & Lang on Cowcross St does a pretty mean wurst. if you've never tried Käsewurst, it's worth it just to see the cheese sweating from within like some terrifying Cronenburgian dream. plus, the fried potatoes and onions are a treat, and you also get a steaming mound of warmed sauerkraut, which inevitably causes windig-ness.

I went to Kurtz & Lang last month, it was great. Only place I know of to get a currywurst in London.

On the slightly more upmarket end of the spectrum, anyone been to Bistrot Bruno Loubet at the Zetter in Clerkenwell? Going there this Sunday and kinda excited about it.

on the even more upmarket end... we're going to dinner (the heston blumenthal place) + am definitely excited abt it

vI'm also keen to check out Herman the German,

When I first came to London I practically lived out of the white wurst van on Portobello Road. I think they must still be going because I see the van go past where I work every now and then, although come to think of it I haven't seen it for a while.

Anyway, their sausages, dogs, etc etc, were the bomb, a load of mustard, yes please, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Well worth checking out if you're in the area. Take care not to go to any of the other german sausage vans along there though, I made that mistake once - the white one.

I went to Dinner as a surprise on my birthday, it's fucking amazing.

there's another wurst place on the other side of Smithfields market, but I've yet to try it. can't remember the name. they recently opened a place in Angel too.

oh, the other good thing about Kurtz & Lang is that come Oktoberfest, they stick up a bunch of streamers and blast nutty novelty Eurodance tracks, while the rather strange dudes who run it wear milkmaid aprons. it's sehr erotische.

Kasewurst is available in all good supermarket meat departments in the American midwest (prob because of all the Germans in Wisconsin). There's also the shite version my sister buys: imagine an iteration of this made with/by Oscar Meyer and Kraft.

Is this quite phallic enough for everyone?

http://www.herman-ze-german.co.uk/img/title.jpg

what's that place in southwark like...some sort of german vomit/sausage benchfest...just joking it actually looks quite nice, anyone know the place i mean?

is in a basement with a nice tiled doorway and steps leading down

http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/39/39769/Katzenjammers_Bierkeller_and_Restaurant/Southwark

i have not been

Looks like the same kind of stag night hellhole as the one on City Road.

This place is terrific though.

Actually I'm being unfair, judging by the website Katzenjammers looks a lot better than the Shoreditch Bavarian Bierkeller.

that's the place that shows bundesliga i believe? quite a big football pub, it's meant to be great i've heard.

i don't think the southwark place is quite as bad as that matt, i've heard a few people mention it as being quite good. dunno if i would ever want to drink that headache inducing bready beer for v long though.

x-post yeah that's what i heard...that city road place looks like hell on earth.

The Shoreditch one is fucking horrible, loads of lairy blokes letching on the serving girls. I suppose locating in Borough market kind of ensures a different atmosphere though. Wouldn't mind trying it.

damn this place looks good - http://helengraves.co.uk/tag/pitt-cue-co/ london has some nice street food these days... i went to that taco guy by waterloo a few months ago + it was really good as well, waaaay better than the hundreds of burrito places that have sprung up over the past few years

okay fucking hell that bbq place...

i know right! and its open weekends which makes it a lot easier to get to

omg had not seen that.

that taco guy by waterloo a few months ago

whereabouts? there's a jerk chicken guy in the little park, have not ever been there despite walking past while he's setting up every morning for over a year.

umm he's down on lower marsh i think it is? i dont know that area that well so i cant really give directions, its this place - http://www.slowfoodkitchen.com/fab-mexican-street-food-waterloo-buen-provecho/

jesus i need to explore my area more instead of always doing pret and the pub.

lower marsh jerk chicken is good. thai guy is pretty damn good too. as is the crepe guy. they're all good on that little stretch.

zeitgeist is my favourite takeaway lunch place round here (lambeth north end of lower marsh). salt beef bagette is amazing, although they do spend about 10 minutes lovingly making each sandwich type thing in front you.

hope and anchor is real good. taz and it's sister place, i think it's called EV are kind of average, but i love that food so i still go every now and then and it's lovely sitting in the sunshine down that little street near southwark station.

the german place is pretty damn good LG

went for pizza at santore, exmouth market, clerkenwell last night. it was fucking delicious. easily the best pizza i've had in london and not too pricey!