london restaurants

has anyone else been to the northern chinese bbq place on roman road?? it looks pretty generic from the outside but we went last night & it was really nice. also they've highlighted the good things on the menu which means its less likely that you'll come away going 'maybe we ordered wrong'

is that the one just by the market square?

yes! i think so. google tells me that its at 129 and is called 'top taste' but i couldnt see a name in english on the outside, just chinese characters.

Weirdly I went once ages ago for takeaway and it was fairly poor, but the mate who recommended it told me you have to ask for their authentic menu or something, otherwise you get the usual gunge. This seems so weird that I never went back, but I live really near so I will give it a go for sure now.

yep this is the same place, the waitress checked which menu we wanted when we sat down. seems like a good place to go with a group of ppl, get a plate of bbq skewers of various things & then some big bowls of other slow cooked or stir fried things.

ah cool i'll have to ask for the secret menu next time. that's within hangover striking range which could be useful.

someone else has been there > http://meiweifood.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/liao-wei-feng/

it'd been years since i last went, but i'd forgotten how good bedford & strand is http://www.bedford-strand.com/

really top-notch steak tartare & blood pudding salad, bloodies meal i've ever head

Meant to revive this to say the bar at the clove club is awesome. Not tried the restaurant.

Was at ceviche yday, thought it was good but the actual ceviche wasn't great IMO, kind of soggy, flavours not mixed well.

The other dishes were good and it had a great atmosphere.

Anyone been to Kopapa in Covent Garden? Going there for dinner tomorrow and not sure quite what to expect.

Had a great meal at Asakusa last night, made a homesick Japanese friend very happy. Thanks for the tip, london restaurants thread!

Followed by Ryoji Ikeda at the Barbican as a kind of reverse palate cleanser.

has anyone been to floyds in dalston? going there for a birthday dinner on saturday

Kopapa? Don't expect to see AA Gill.

Was it any good? Looks a bit pricey but possibly worth considering on a pre-theatre deal?

does anyone have recommendations for good sunday lunch places? got some cousins visiting and kinda realised i don't know that many restaurants that are

- central-ish (say from soho roughly along the 38 route up north/east)
- light/airy looking, i guess the restaurant equiv of smart/casual? a lot of the places i frequent are a bit "well it looks like a kebab shop on the outside" or, like, basements or the kind of place that's fine for dinner but you can't quite imagine lunching there

(any cuisine really, except hipsterburgers obv)
(not brunch - i have brunch type places covered if they want it)
(i'm sure i KNOW places like this but jog my memory plz!)

i suggest this all the time but... st john b&w?

or is that not in the right area

Our meal at Kopapa was great but we played it relatively safe and shied away from anything too fusion-y - some of the dishes certainly had the potential to just not work at all, which might explain the wildly varying reviews I've seen of it.

The space is really nice though, kind of modern and bar-y and would feel pretty good to eat in at any time of day.

Lex - go for St John for a (reasonably) expensive option or somewhere like Brasserie Zedel if you're looking to spend less money. Zedel has the advantage of a bit of visual wow factor and the awesome Bar Americain adjoining it.

st john is def an option - oh yea the other thing might be "short notice booking" as they still haven't got back to me about definite plans :/

(Zedel is a basement as well but it's a very light and airy one)

oo brasserie zedel looks pretty great

Medcalf on Exmouth Market is great for Sunday lunch!

barrafina is pretty quiet on sundays, unlike the rest of the time.

right, they seem to have requested a PUB, and the duke of cambridge, which was my first thought, is fully booked. anywhere else? am basically thinking "somewhere near the 38 route" but only roughly

Down at my end, there's the Eagle and the Easton.

Yeah the Eagle's good, If you can get there early in the short Sunday sitting. The Fox and Anchor might do the job also.

have had the eagle recommended but i CANNOT DEAL with no-res policies esp if i'm carting three cousins i barely know around london

which would you say had more historic interest out of the easton and the fox & anchor? (real shame the grapes in limehouse doesn't seem to do food on sundays, the mckellen connection would've def gained me kudos)

O WAIT i actually phoned the grapes up and they DO do food on sundays it's just not the main menu

sorted

was gonna suggest wetherspoons but this is probably a better option

Not a restaurant as such but the gelato at Cremeria Vienna on Blackstock Road is excellent. Probably as good as anything I've had outside of Florence and reasonably priced.

otm- I live over by clissold park and quite often get off the tube a couple of stops early to walk by this place. I think I read maybe it's quite a big chain in italy?

not really a restaurant question per se but does anyone have any recommendations where to buy good crab meat in london? suzy?

on restaurants, has anyone been to beard to tail? am going next week, the menu looks brilliant but the reviews i've seen have been...mixed

re: crab, steve hatt on essex rd

ahh thx for that!

Steve Hatt seconded. But the Chapel Market fishmonger's stall is also a good option - and a bit kinder on the wallet.

On crab meat, depends if you want fresh or frozen. If you're happy with the frozen, the big Chinese supermarkets are fine. (Wing Yip, at Staples Corner, also has one of the best wet fish counters I've ever seen in the UK, specialist fishmongers included.)

anyone been anywhere good lately?

was at quality chop house last weekend, it was mixed, really. great wine, some good dishes, some stuff a bit weird or disappointing. probably would go back but more as a small plate and a drink type place.

also the street kitchen pop-up on shoreditch high street is one of the better ones i've been to.

that sucks to hear, was just going to book in quality chop house for my gf's birthday

Finally going to trullo next week!

Went to NOPI a couple of weeks back. The vegetarian main dish was a bit of a let down but other mains were good, I was told. The small plates really made up for it, as you'd imagine. We were downstair in the store cupboard, good use of space!

i wouldn't say definitely avoid - about 60 per cent of what we got was good. it was just a bit odd, eg my cousin got kid and it came with just... loads of boiled potatoes, which were fairly nice but a bit weird as a side dish. rillettes tasted a bit gone, a friend got those and sent them back. mine was good overall without blowing my mind, i had veal offal for main and quail with morcilla to start. the wine is amazing.

we ate in the bar so it may be diff in the main room.

xposts

on restaurants, has anyone been to beard to tail? am going next week, the menu looks brilliant but the reviews i've seen have been...mixed

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Friday, April 12, 2013 8:40 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the event this was teeeerrrrrrible, fyi. not even the the way i ordered saddleback bacon with cockles and they only bothered to tell me they had no cockles that day when they brought the dish to me cockle-free, nor even that i had to ask them twice to bring that dish back to me because we were pushed for time and i decided to have it anyway (they gave it to us free), but mostly because it was the most disgustingly salty meal i've ever had in any restaurant, let alone one costing £15.

otoh this is barely in london but i was there this weekend with the bf and the food was absolutely incredible http://www.swaninndenham.co.uk/

in the event this was teeeerrrrrrible, fyi.

yeah i'd read awful reviews.

At the top end, went to Galvin at Windows, on the top floor of the Park Lane Hilton, last week. The food is fantastic but the view is pretty difficult to beat, even though if you're in a couple one of you has to draw the short straw of facing into the restaurant. That was me, in that case.

i'd been hoping beard to tail would have taken the sundry criticisms on board in the intervening months since the terrible reviews but nope, neither service-wise nor food-wise. you wonder what they're playing at if they can't get the basics right. i guess the cocktails are good

So it was basically just a plate of bacon?

a plate of really salty bacon in whatever the sauce was. i got an extra starter (that wasn't free) of rather average, overly greasy squid to make up for it.

jeez