london restaurants

went to brasserie zedel for lunch: it's marvellous just to be in it, as it's such a staggering recreation of the brasserie it wants to be. The food is very good (maybe not worldstopping, but definitely delicious) and really not pricey but it is the sheer effrontery of the place for existing that I liked the best.

and its 'american bar' looks amazing, who wants to go and drink one cocktail there very slowly with me?

did everyone hear mason and taylor is becoming brewdog shoreditch in a few weeks?

kinda pleased i guess, just for the sake of a change. good to hear they're keeping the same staff too. on the other hand i fear brewdog's brand may attrack more "rock" twats.

attract... that was freudian as hell

i guess it'll be nice for them to have a space that's bigger than the camden bar, which gets ridiculously crowded. and maybe if they've more pump handles they might deign to serve something under 5% on the regular!

Shame, I liked M&T and I'm not really a big Brewdog fan.

agree

i love their beers, but not them as a thing. m&t was good but the space isn't very nice.

anyway the cock tavern is my new regular spot, so i'm happy enough for a change at m&t.

i am hoping that the m&t people will be moving onto an interesting new place/project like they said on twitter? otherwise i will be like all the other online blowhards who have been going 'cannot believe this INDEPENDENT is being swallowed up by a CHAIN PUB, man'

it does all of a sudden give brewdog that feel. also to be fair their bars do sell lots of other beers and judging by their twitter it's at least as interesting a selection as m&t, possibly more interesting.

i think brewdog are a lot more than meets the eye, they have so many beers besides the main ones.

i like brewdog beers but haven't been to any of their pubs, all that aesthetic all in one place seems like it would be a bit much.

yeah i am a bit concerned about the clientele. there are so many craft beer pubs in east london now though that i'm no longer depending on m&t as my main place, though stll a regular.

anyone been to http://thisbrightfield.com/ ? i edited a VVVV positive review of it today.

i finally went to the euston tap last weekend. awesome company aside i did not like it. i asked for the wine list and they laughed at me :(

I understand there will be more M&T action soon, somewhere! Which is good news, I think.

the euston tap has nice beer but it is like a little hut basically, imo, not v pleasant.

wouldn't usually post about food stalls in here but there's a new scottish one doing the rounds at hackney food fair, chats rd mkt etc called deeneys and the toasted haggis sandwich (with cheese, onions etc) they made me was seriously amazing

https://twitter.com/deeneys

Haggis! Poncey twitter street food! Hackney! It's like all my stars are aligning!

If you're anywhere in or near South London I'd also rep for Babur in Brockley which does FANTASTIC modern Indian food and is well worth making the trip for and is now quite easy to get to on the ELL. I had quail last time I went there.

― Matt DC, Sunday, November 6, 2011 3:08 PM (10 months ago)

Now the best Indian in London according to Zagat. I'm tempted to go for their game festival.

duck & waffle was just as fun as i thought it would be

i am waiting till some crazy morning time to head there.

How hard is it to get in? I've been tempted for ages but fear the queues.

I am going to be going for something to eat on my lonesome in the envoirons of Hoxton Square this evening. Recommendations for something not too pricey, suitable for on-your-own-with-a-book, appropriately delicious?

Matt, do you have a link for that Babur review/rating (used to live round the corner from it - or up the hill from it, rather - and can remember it transition from good, solid but unexceptional curry house to its current fantastic incarnation - and does it still have the tiger on top?)

tim, there's a mexican pop-up in catch in shoreditch, sounds decent tho obv so many pop-ups: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/young-british-foodie-shay-ola-founder-of-the-rebel-dining-society-and-cofounder-of-death-by-burrito-8125827.html

That sounds relevant to my interests, thanks ... is Catch OK to sit in on a Wednesday if you're a middle-aged git like me?

it's probably fine midweek, i haven't been in ages cos obv it's a big bar in shoreditch and hence pretty off at weekends. i wouldn't imagine it's rammed on a wednesday.

the only other place i could think of is a bit further away, the hawksmoor spitalfields basement bar, which would be pretty relaxed to hang out in on your own i think. it's never as busy as i expect it to be, anytime i go.

Ward Fowler - I was going by this (PDF link). The tiger is still on top yes but it's only the second-best large cat on top of a building in SE London.

LOL gd to know the catford cat still thrives

Oh yeah I've been to that bar at Hawksmoor - it's excellent for sure (the short ribs they do are ridiculously good) but if I go there I'll be three cocktails down by the time I leave, due to a sever willpower deficit. I'll give Catch the once-over and of not probz nip in for a crafty Vietnamese up the road...

How hard is it to get in? I've been tempted for ages but fear the queues.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 19 September 2012 15:30 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure... a friend made the booking

it can't be that bad if you go at 3am or whatever, now it's 24-hour.

I really want to rock up there when I'm in the area at 2am or whatever.... but when am I ever out at 2 am? Never, that's when.

I'm not sure I'll be able to cope with negotiating whatever security there is at 3am, although I'm kind of up for giving it a try.

i'd love to do the 2am thing though it's not really a...three-course meal time of day, is it, and what one wants to do at that point tends to be quite...spontaneous

duck & waffle is easy to get in, i presume, if you book, but i don't know how far in advance you need to do that. a week wasn't enough at the end of aug

where did you go in the end, tim?

In the end I had the opportunity to have a quick bite to eat with my lovely wife, which meant the Tottenham Court Road area, and I had a tasty-but-unremarkable burrito at Benitos Hat. Thanks for your help though! I like the sound of the popup burrito place.

Afterwards I got DRUNKED as part of the M&T closing ceremonies (last day on Sunday fwiw).

half-price i read... danger will robinson, danger! reckon i might pop in alright.

where did you end up in the end on Saturday Tim? They only just "downsized" our table from 8 to 5 about 30 mins before you arrived!

We went to the Japanese place a few doors down the road, and I ate an entirely serviceable Chicken Katsu curry. It was good.

Other places I wenton what was quite an eat-y weekend:
Cay Tre Soho, which has a very different, fancier menu than its Hoxton counterpart (I had squid stuffed with confit duck, and ox cheek. It was good.
St John bar: pretty quiet for a Sunday lunchtime, I had ridiculously delicious and ridiculously fatty lamb breast (£7), J had a £5 egg mayonnaise sandwich that was beautiflly made and the size of at least two regular sandwiches. Quality and value, for real.

We did wind up at M&T last night also, though not to eat (they'd ruyn out of food so we had salt beef baagels with our beer). Danger indeed.

went to sichuan folk on friday night, really liked it - maybe more than chilli cool? altho i was a bit drunk. staff were v friendly

We did wind up at M&T last night also, though not to eat (they'd ruyn out of food so we had salt beef baagels with our beer). Danger indeed.

managed to be more well-behaved this weekend, in bed at 2130 both on friday and tonight, so no m&t unfortunately.

Anyone else been to the newly raved about Meze Mangal on Lewisham Way? Shits rad.

Hardly newly raved about, the place is a stalwart, although it looks like parts of the media have only just taken notice. I'm usually pretty wary of Turkish restaurants due the high probability of dry, nasty meat, but this place is always excellent. Probably the best Turkish food I've had in London.

I agree that Petrus is better than Meze Mangal though.

sichuan folk had nice food as i remembered.. more comfortable than eating at chilli cool, definitely. can't remember if price is similar or not.

was going to go down to M&T but then it was bloody freezing and the last leg of open house was a 5 min bus ride away from home so never made it. was the bar all dry by the end?

I'm delighted to say I didn't stay to the end. I feel ropey enough as it is.

Curious what you all do when you need to eat in a hurry or on the move, especially in the evenings?

Lately I've got a few evenings a week when I have about an hour after work before a rehearsal to relax or get something to eat, around the Blackfriars/Chancery Lane area, but options are few and far between. Leon is nice and relaxing but fairly expensive for what it is. Other than that there's hardly anything.

Feel free to use this to talk about how you deal with getting lunch at work too. I bring my own as much as possible but otherwise it's a grim trudge to Pret.

The White Swan on Fetter Lane is pretty good, it's a gastropub but they manage to turn food around pretty quickly. Cafes that actually open in the evening are really few and far between.

yeah it's really annoying, it's a cafe i'd want really. as i say, leon on ludgate street was really nice and it's not criminally expensive, but if it's going to be 2/3 times a week it would add up.

had really good indian food at zaza's in whitechapel next to the mosque, would go again, cheap cheap cheap, good service, good alternative to tayyabs if you can't be bothered with all that

It's a happy skip to Eat for me.