london restaurants

I think it's genuinely useful for filtering out can't-be-arsed tourist traps in large unfamiliar cities but I'd never rely on it as a sole recommendation engine, especially in London. In general it tends to balance out reasonably well if there's a critical mass of normal people amid the obvious street teamers/random dicks. When an unheralded place suddenly starts throwing up load of rapturous reviews it's worth paying attention to though. London restaurants, especially new openings, are so heavily PRed nowadays and food blogs etc don't tend to cover really good neighbourhood restaurants that could otherwise fly under the radar a bit.

Seems to me that most of the places high on the London tripadvisor list are fairly random (even ones I've heard of and love, like Zeret Kitchen in Camberwell).

tripadvisor can be useful in london when you want to eat in a specific area that doesn't have buzzed-about restaurants, though it wouldn't be my first research port of call

went to mamuska on elephant & castle roundabout the other day; hits the sweet spot between "cheap n cheerful pre-gig casual diner-style restaurant" and "actually very good, very hearty polish food to stave off these godforsaken temperatures that are still with us"

I loved Mamuska the couple of times I've been (when it was still inside the pink shopping centre). All the lovely carbohydrate!

Medium-range Brit/Euro cuisine in the city centre/Holborn/Farringdon for a birthday dinner, with good vegetarian options, anyone? Cheers in advance!

this was probably a far too generic request right? I booked a table at Salt Yard on Goodge St, anyone been there?

I have. I liked it; not as much as I expected to like it after reading ecstatic reviews on blogs but there was absolutely nothing wrong with the place. Perfectly sound choice.

nice one, thanks!

yeah it's nice for sure.

yeah it's good

thanks guys, looking forward to it now. Any recommendations?

It's a while ago but ISTR enjoying the octopus.

I am breaking a personal rule and going to the Bush Hall in Shepherds Bush on Friday night - any strong recommendations for local places to go before the show?

why is that a personal rule? it's one of the few gig venus in ldn i actively enjoy. i always go to abu zaad beforehand, sooooo delicious and so cheap

It's the getting home after that kills me! Agree it's a good venue but (as you know) I live in the SE and there's no good way to get back.

Abu Zaad, check, thanks!

You need a moped, Tim.

Shepherd's Bush always feels a lot more further out location-wise than it is. Just across the round about is Holland Park, and you're then only a short bus ride from Notting Hill/Bayswater/Marble Arch, whcih I regard as pretty central.

My issue is not how far out it feels (and I agree that it's not that far out, about on a par with Peckham I suppose), it's how long it takes me to get back home after a show. I am old, after all.

Madchen, the good people of London most certainly do not need to see me on a moped. Also: booze.

Uber?

Nah, I'll just get public transport and moan about it :)

Will it be too late to get Overground in/out of Clapham Jcn?

Could do it if we leave sharpish; we'll see.

it's on the central line though, right? prob about what, 20 mins from oxford circus, i'd say even less. i used to work in white city and commute from bethnal green and i reckon it took about 35 mins.

sorry - i'm talking about distance in general rather than specifically from your home, tim.

SE London -> West London or back is probably the most irritating public transport journey in London though, the Overground has made it a bit better but anything involving a change at either Clapham Junction or Victoria can be soul-crushing.

hi from someone who used to have to do hammersmith to homerton post-gig often having to write a review when i got back

the overground would be so amazing were it not for my knack of just missing the train 100% of the time and having to wait 10 or more minutes for the next one

Pretty sure they schedule it like that on purpose. Also, they (we?) don't call it the slowverground for nothing - compare journey times with actual rail where they cover the same stretches.

It's about 75 minutes from our Denmark Hill/Peckham Rye flat to SheBu by public transport, which is why there's a moped parked outside.

like how 'SE London' is being thrown around in this cavalier manner

like, if you're talking about that little patch from Brockley to Camberwell inclusive, be more specific. SE London public transport isn't as bad as you're all saying but then I am 15m bus + 5m walk from North Greenwich

Isn't Denmark Hill within 10 minutes by train from Victoria. Shepherds Bush to Victoria shouldn't take more than around 30 minutes?

Victoria trains are every 30 minutes though, so it's bloody easy to miss them, especially with the Central-Victoria hell-change at Oxford Circ.

Anyway, to answer the Q If you want to visit 1970s Poland, go eat at Patio. Abu Zaad also a v. good shout

And it's 75 mins to White City, would be a bit better to SheBu, though the Overground is infuriatingly slow and slack-scheduled, so you end up more frustrated going that way

SE London public transport is fine. Getting to West London from there is a nightmare. Mercifully I never really need to do it.

it's not a nightmare if you're near the jubilee line :P

"15min bus plus 5min walk from North Greenwich" doesn't sound especially convenient for anything frankly.

the now now now generation

should be sitting back and enjoying the delights of travelling in london

feels frivolous as fuck to be posting itt but this dim sum place in lower clapton is really nice.

http://www.myneighbourstheDUMPLINGS!.com/

anyone been anywhere good lately? was going to go to 40 maltby street with my cousin on friday but turns out it's closed for a summer break. kinda looking at holborn or kings cross but don't really mind travelling - i'm drawing a bit of a blank, was thinking about a wong in pimlico but it's a bit dead around there to have a drink after.

We went to Pidgin on Wilton Way at the weekend and we both came away saying it was the best meal we'd eaten this year. Set menu £40 per head + drinks, worth every penny. I liked it even more than I liked Lyle's, which is saying something.

I live really near there - I should go along sometime for sure.

I was at Raw Duck recently enough and it was good - better than I remember the Soho one.

I went to A Wong in Feb also and it is really really good but you're right there's not much in the way of good drinks afterwards (there are a couple of alright pubs in Pimlico but nothing incredible, I enjoyed the cocktail I had downstairs in A Wong before I ate, fwiw).

i've been keen to go there for ages, i used to work in smith square nearby but my colleagues weren't really into food.

may just revive a long-time friday tradition of queen's head followed by chilli cool as my cousin works in king's cross.

I went to the Typing Rooms in Bethnal Green a couple of months ago, which is a restaurant clearly gunning for Michelin star status but sort of falling short. Some of the early courses and desserts were astonishing but it also failed to realise that the key to really first class cooking is BALANCE. One dish went way overboard on spring onions, another was basically a bit of burnt cauliflower.

Good cocktail bar, mind, even if mine was served with a piece of dried bacon on the glass.

i prefer satan's whiskers across the road - as far as the bars go. never been to the typing room.

I went to Padella, the Trullo people's pasta bar, the other week. Was good, didn't break the bank.

Was it super-busy?

Dying to go there.

Yeah it was, ish. The queue looked bad but took... ~25mins? before we were seated. That was on a tues night, though i think it was just after there'd been a good review in one of the weekend papers. We were downstairs- was laid out quite like the downstairs in trullo.

every detail emerging from this byron immigration story is even more grim and cruel

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/28/it-was-a-fake-meeting-byron-hamburgers-staff-on-immigration-raid