london restaurants

if this fried chicken place were to make fried chicken as delicious as the fried chicken i had in texas last year then £12 would be fine as it was amazing.

if that fried chicken place served up dried and cardboardy disgusto-chook like the fried chicken i had at chicks on west green road a few weeks back (i live within the nexus of chicken shops) then it would suck to pay £12 for it.

in short - there is a vast spectrum of quality within the world of chicken.

When we went to the Meateasy chicken place in Brixton the food was pretty good when it arrived, but it was hands down the worst service we've had in London in about the last three years.

Finally got to Roti Chai this week and it was marvellous. Possibly even slightly better than the Delhi Grill on Chapel Market, which was also excellent.

To celebrate my lovely wife getting through a particularly arduous project last week, we went out to Bistro Bruno Loubet in that Clerkenwell. This was chosen more-or-less at random (we vaguely remembered having heard good things; the menu looked interesting; it was close to the excellent Zetter Town House where we could go for pre-meal cocktails) and it was a genuinely excellent choice - just genuinely fine food. Modern European: winning dishes were a snail and meatball starter which was rich and smoky, and a braised beef Indochine which (you might guess from its name) was effectively a daube but with beautfully-judged Vietnamese spicing. Plus they were super-nice. Not cheap but not grievously expensive (mains £16-18 kind of touch).

I love that place, we went there for dinner the year before last and it was probably the most enjoyable meal I had in London that year. Missed out on the Zetter Townhouse though.

I love Zetter. If you need to wow a date...

Was at Mr Buckleys on Hackney Road on Saturday night. The whole "small plates" thing is cute and all but in some places it basically is an excuse to charge you a tenner for a starter. I was with a few mates, guys and girls, and we paid about 25 or 30 a head for a couple of drinks and maybe two small plates each, everyone was hungry afterwards. that's the second time i've felt that way about the place, I prob wouldn't have gone back but it wasn't my suggestion this time. shame, cos the food is excellent.

Hm. Frustrating. I find it's really hard to understand what you're going to get in a small plates place (like, how much is going to arrive) - it rarely seems to relate to price or description. I guess the trick is to talk to the server about it, but that's not easy to do if you're with a group of any size.

Yeah and it's a combo problem of the price and the amount, it would really just be overpriced if you got "enough" so their proportion is wrong. It wasn't just guys either on the night, pretty much everyone was left a bit hungry.

If you got three plates each you could be talking 30 or 32 quid or whatever a head, which to me puts them in competition with places that are far, far better. I also just compare it to Barrafina or somewhere where I've never left hungry, and the prices are probably a little lower if memory serves.

On the plus side, it's open till 2am and and you can sit in and get a quiet beer after hours and have a chat, a total rarity in this city.

i feel i really need to trust a waiter before asking, as it's often the case that you'll end up with way more than you need. some restaurants are really bad at that. went to a szechuan place recently and there was easily three/four times the amount of food that could feasibly have been consumed. ridiculous.

i went to a szechuan place (chilli cool) that ended up with three/four times the amount of food that could feasibly be consumed although that was my fault for wanting to eat everything (including a bowl of chilli fish that could maybe feed 6 people rather than 2) and luckily they weren't adverse to me asking for a doggy bag!

(and it helped that it was fairly cheap anyway!)

but if you had asked i guess you'd hope they'd let you know if you've ordered too much!

we also ended up with doggy bags, though to be honest it wasn't that great so we ended up giving it to homeless dudes.

isn't the serve-too-much-for-mandatory-doggy-bagging kind of a default in the States? the whole model seems odd to me. i generally eat out for today's dinner. not tomorrow's and the day after!

Where was this other Szechuan with massive portions, then? Chilli Cool meal followed by two days' leftovers is my go-to for halting a burgeoning cold, but other outlets always welcome.

Sheffield!

'london restaurants'

xost to Matt DC

Yeah, I really loved Bistro Bruno Loubet, and particularly the helpfulness of the staff. When I was there I ordered stuffed pigs trotter, and the waiter carefully and tactfully told me how strongly flavoured it was. I still had it and it was great, but I appreciated them actually taking the time to tell me about the dish.

See?! We need to spend more time exchanging tips on good places and less time worrying about what's on-trend!

(We in the world, I mean, and as a subset of that, we in this thread. Not that I mean to tell you what to talk about, that's your business, I just want to have a list of places I'm gagging to try due to friends' recommendations rather than whatever part of the hype machine I'm plugged into.)

i really need to go to a szechuan place that isn't gourmet san (which is just too overcrowded and dour in my experience, to really be enjoyed.)

See?! We need to spend more time exchanging tips on good places and less time worrying about what's on-trend!

*cough*

yeah tbf there is plenty discussion of places and only an occasional time where somebody decides to talk about burgers because they're so sick of them.

i'm a bit sick of good restaurants tbh. i kind of miss going to a mediocre restaurant where i can be fed without feeling like going omg i just sampled a piece of heaven

i'm going to write a piece about this and get it published on guardian comment is free.

i'd say it'd be guaranteed to be published.

saying that, have folks been to the relocated sushi of shiori (now "The Shiori".. like "The Arsenal")? The menu appears to be set menus for £65 and £105 so probably will save for a special occasion. I am guessing it's in a bigger place than before (6 seats)

Anyone been to Comptoir Gascon before? Lots of duck...

xpost to MAtt I did have Loubet Deja Vu even as I typed. But thought it was just deja vu, not that we'd had the exact same conversation two years ago.

I know there are tons of good recommendations on this thread (and I am sure that it was Matt and IH whose recs I vaguely remembered when we decided to go to BBL) - thanks for all of those. I want the world to be smarter about talking about that stuff not the on-trend stuff. I don't know how. Perhaps it's impossible.

(LG did I walk straight past you at Hammersmith Broadway earlier? I think I did, and if so I'm sorry, but if not someone who looks like you luckily avoided uncomfortably explaining to me that they are not, in fact, you.)

xpost that must have been me, yeah Tim, I work very near there (grim location.)

I didn't see you actually so no need to apologise at all, my rudeness rather than yours.

It was one of those things where I thought "know that face..." but by the time I'd worked out who / how you were a little way past me and I was in a hurry and... oh well.

i really need to go to a szechuan place that isn't gourmet san (which is just too overcrowded and dour in my experience, to really be enjoyed.)

try 'my old place' on middlesex st. it's just as good and you can always get a table.

angeles in kilburn

is that yr fav sichuan place ken? i'd probably lean towards chilli cool (but havent tried angeles)

i've only ever walked past there and never once been in but i still feel certain ken is talking bollocks

Both are good to be honest. Angeles is very nice actually i'd recommend it if you're e.g. going to a gig at the good ship. it's not fashionable in any sense though and you have to remember to not walk into the buffet side of the restaurant (unless you want buffet)

but it would be kind of weird to make a special trip for it because it's in kilburn and nothing is worth that.

Stet and I have just shared a porterhouse at Hawksmoor (Seven Dials) and I am pleased to report it was the best steak I have ever eaten, ever. Also great: cocktails, marrow gravy, beef dripping chips, mushrooms, bread, stilton, service.

Hawksmoor is always brilliant.

Any recommendations for dinner near the museums (south Kensington)?

... or Victoria.

daquise

sunday is always a good day for polski smak

i haven't been in a decade or so but daquise is amazing. have the pork knuckle if you have the appetite, the pork cutlet is delicious too. and the potato platzke isn't to be missed.

they have changed ownership in that time iirc, i havent been v recently either but it all looks legit

There's a great (if a little garish) Azerbaijani place called Baku on Sloane street.

dotori i love u but please be open more

i was anticipating bibimbap so hard today and then, bafflingly, closed

I don't think I've discovered any good restaurants in Victoria despite working there for over 20 years.

I was just reading Peter York's 'Blue Riband' : a shortish penguin book on the Piccadilly line published as part of the 150th anniversary of the tube, and his description of the area is accurate:

"I'd been terribly excited by the idea of Westminster, but was it ever boring - Victoria Street was just like Croydon: dull shopping, dull corporate headquarters and dull Government buildings, mostly late sixties."

I wonder where Channel 4 execs go for their lunches - perhaps the Tate Britain restaurant ?

I like Chimes in Pimlico, but that's as much about their cider as it is their (still very good) pies.

Some recent happy re-visits:
Tohbang, a homey / neighbourhoody Korean on Clerkenwell Rd just at the top of Leather Lane, where we've been a few times but last week it seemed better than before. "They seem to have upped their game" said my lovely wife and she was right.
Upstairs at the Ten Bells: haven't heard much about this place recently, it had been all the rage with the blogs (yes yes the ones I moan about yes) a while back. We went back and bloody hell it was good. One of those times I wanted ot eat everything on the menu. they have a snacks section, a starters section and a mains section, and I can't really tell the difference between the snacks and the starters. I will say that that is a recipe for me being very stuffed indeed. And I was.
Dragon Castle: well-known for its dim sum, this has been an irregular cheapish Saturday lunchtime treat for us. "We have a new team and a new chef and we are trying our best..." said the waiter, and my heart sank. It had got better, hooray! And my number one favourite fried dough cheung fun was still on the menu. I was very happy indeed.

Upstairs at the Ten Bells: haven't heard much about this place recently, it had been all the rage with the blogs (yes yes the ones I moan about yes) a while back. We went back and bloody hell it was good. One of those times I wanted ot eat everything on the menu. they have a snacks section, a starters section and a mains section, and I can't really tell the difference between the snacks and the starters. I will say that that is a recipe for me being very stuffed indeed. And I was.

is this still going? i thought now that that "clove club" thing had opened in shoreditch town hall that that meant the end of this.

Bibendum on Fulham Road is +++ if you are still looking, ledge.

xp i think the chefs have just changed? i remember reading something mentioning that. i went when it first opened & tried to go back a couple of weeks ago but it was all booked up