Bam Bou

Bam Bou is a French Vietnamese restaurant not far from Tottenham Court Road. I had read about it some months ago and thought the menu sounded delicious – a combination of the strong, tasty flavours of Vietnamese food cooked in the somewhat ‘fancier’ French style. Or at least, that is my interpretation! However you described it, it has been on my ‘restaurants to try’ list for a while, so when I saw that Top Table was advertising a deal for 50% off food, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The restaurant was already quite full at 7pm on a Wednesday night (the deal was only available Monday – Wednesday), but we were seated at a nice enough table for two in the corner. The menu was oddly laid out with white wines on the left, food in the middle and red wines on the right. Very strange.

Anyway, it was a really interesting menu with plenty of delicious sounding dishes, including prawns on sugar cane and pork, watermelon and cashew nut salad. It took us quite a while to decide and involved some serious negotiation. In the meantime, the waitress came over and, we thought, asked us if we wanted more time. We said yes. We thought they were being very generous when some edamame beans and giant prawn crackers arrived. Turns out, she asked us if we wanted some snacks to start. Still, they were very good, the edamame beans in particular are always a fresh, tasty nibble.

We finally ordered and our starters arrived quite quickly. Kyle had ‘won’ the first course and ordered the crispy-fried soft shell crab with chilli and lime. It was a generous portion of crab, crunchy on the outside making way for the soft give of the crab underneath. Almost more of a texture than a flavour, but that was more than made up for by the super-fiery chilli dipping sauce that accompanied it!
I chose the most non-date starter you can imagine (luckily we’re married, so that didn’t matter so much!) – Hanoi-style short ribs with chilli, garlic and red wine vinegar. This was also a generous serving of six ribs coated in a thick, sticky sweet marinade. The marinade was rich and delicious but it was all quite hard work and far too messy for public! Luckily, I was offered a couple of damp towels to clean myself up with!

Kyle’s main was the Sichuan-spiced duck breast with tamarind and chilli, cooked medium-rare, sliced thinly and beautifully presented on a bed of asian vegetables. The duck was soft and tender with the greens offering some variation in texture. The sauce was quite mild and could have done with a bit more kick.
While Kyle may have ‘won’ the choice for starter, I won the main and honestly – no contest! The Seared scallops, sweet pork and perilla cress was possibly one of the best dishes I have ever had. Four plump scallops sat alongside three big chunks of pork belly coated in a light, but sweet marinade. The scallops were excellent – well-seasoned, seared until caramelised and almost crunchy on top and with more flavour than I think I’ve ever tasted in a scallop. The pork was also good and the fact that it was pork belly was a pleasant surprise. The meat fell apart to the touch and the coating of sesame seeks offered a further flavour dimension. My only criticism – and this is nit-picking – is that the pieces were too big to be bite-sized and therefore elegantly eaten with chopsticks. Like I said, nit-picking. This was a classic, but very well-executed combination.

We also ordered some egg fried rice from the sides menu, which was also a good example of a typical dish. Lots of flavour, good bit chunks of egg and just the right amount of stickiness to be eaten with those chopsticks!

Seeing as food was 50% off, it seemed a waste not to have dessert. It is also one of the rare times I can remember Kyle looking at a dessert menu and instantly wanting something, that something being banana fritters. I must admit, I’m not a fan of bananas or of deep-fried desserts in general, so this was never going to be my thing. Kyle, however, thought they were fantastic! The pistachio ice-cream was not an obvious accompaniment and had a slightly odd flavour.
I chose the Vanilla and lime cheesecake with kiwi. The cheesecake was quasi-deconstructed with the buttery biscuit crumbled on top rather than forming the base. The cheesecake part was fairly standard and I had to really concentrate to detect any particular lime flavour. The kiwi was very strange – part of it looked and tasted canned. Can you get kiwi fruit in a tin? It wasn’t very pleasant.

Overall, the food at Bam Bou was generally very good and at 50% off, offered excellent value for money (all that food was about £30). The wine list was quite good with some unusual choices (we had a lovely Marsanne/Viognier blend) and service was attentive without being intrusive. I really enjoyed Bam Bou and I’m so glad we went – at full price, it would add up (fairly typical central London prices), but with this deal, it was a bargain for the variety and quality on offer.

Food: 9/10
Drinks: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Bam Bou
Percy Street
London W1T IDB

Moro, 8/10

For our last couple of anniversaries, we have splurged on a really fancy meal out - Pied a Terre in 2007 and The Square in 2008. Both were exceptional meals (unfortunately before I started this blog) and a lovely way to spend our anniversary. This year, our anniversary fell two days before moving flats and three weeks before a visit back to Australia. With the finances already feeling a little pained, it was hard to justify a super-expensive, Michelin-starred meal out. In the end, we decided on Moro, a restaurant that always gets great reviews, including recently being recognised as the Best Restaurant in the 2009 Observer Food Monthly awards.

Being so close to my work, we were fairly early and so headed to The Ambassador across the road for a drink. The Ambassador is a restaurant (and the food smelled really good - I'd like to go here one day), but they were more than happy for us to grab a drink at one of the tables. There was a great wine list (I had a glass of Deutz champagne) and a few beers on tap (Kyle had a Budvar). The service was great and it had a really lovely vibe. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready to go, it was absolutely pouring down! Luckily, Moro was close.

We had a reservation, which you absolutely need - they were busy the whole time at both tables and the bar. There was a real buzz to the restaurant. We were shown to our table and given bread and olive oil, offered tap water and then asked if we had any questions about the menu. This was a bit of a theme for the night - our waitress was very intent on making sure we didn't order something we didn't like.

For starter, I chose the grilled squid, rocket and coriander salad with preserved lemon. The squid was so soft, it was silken in texture with just a few crispy bits on the edges. The rocket and coriander salad was coated in an oily, lemony dressing and dotted with pieces of chilli, adding a spot of heat to that soft calamari. The recommended drink was a glass of Tio Pepe sherry, which I have had before in Spain but struggle to order. As it was recommended, I decided to give it a go. It is an amazing drink - cold and oily to start, then immediately warm and exploding with flavour in your mouth.

Kyle's starter was the very simple para negra jamon with figs. As this contained only two ingredients, it was vital they were amazing. I think the ham was - it was so meaty, deliciously salty and almost tannic like. Two out of three of the figs, however, were a bit average. They didn't look that good and were slightly mealy in texture.

My main was the wood roasted pork with field and wild mushrooms and braised chard. I was warned by the waitress that the pork was roasted whole and cut into slices, so contained some fat and crackling - was that okay? I agreed it was, but when the dish arrived, I can see why she mentioned it. It was very fatty, but the fat was meltingly soft against the crunchy crackling and pork meat. It was a huge portion and was piled onto an equally large portion of chard. All of that was sitting on a pool of jus and piled with mushrooms. The mushrooms were really tasty, lots of flavour and meaty texture. Initially, the jus tasted similarly beefy flavoured, but the salt in the jus became increasingly overwhelming and ended up being the predomiant flavour in the whole dish. I do like salt in my food, but this was just too much.

Kyle's main was charcoal grilled sardines with salpicon salad and corn migas (fried corn breadcrumbs). We did have to ask what both of these accompiments were and the waitress also checked Kyle liked oaky wines before he proceeded with his order of an oaky white Rioja. The dish was very summery and almost like an over-sized tapas plate. The oiliness of the fish was balanced by the crunchiness of the migas and the freshness of the salad. And the oaky white Rioja went well.

After these enormous (well, mostly mine) main meals, dessert was a bit of a challenge, so we decided to settle for the malaga raisin ice cream and a couple of glasses of Pedro Ximenez sherry. In fact, in retrospect, this was also the anniversary of when we first discovered PX at Pied a Terre. Truly one of the most amazing drinks - liquid raisins. The ice cream was a perfect conclusion - light and creamy but with chunks of fruit and the odd hit of rum to give it a kick.

I think Moro mostly lived up to expectations. It can be a risk going to places like this that carry a lot of hype, but the restaurant did offer a great night out. It wasn't perfect - there were some problems with some of the food, the chairs were pretty uncomfortable and I did find it somewhat disconcerting that the couples sitting either side of us were Australian (do they group us?!). That being said, some of the food was really good, the service was excellent, the menu was interesting and the atmosphere was brilliant.

Food: 8/10
Drinks: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 9/10
Overall: 8/10

Moro
34-36 Exmouth Market
London EC1R 4QE

Dotori, 8/10

I have written about Dotori before and we have been a few times, but this time, I finally convinced Kyle to have something other than the Katsu Curry. I was really keen to try the Japanese set menu, particularly the sushi and sashimi. This is probably not the kind of thing you should admit as a bit of a 'foodie', but I do find sushi quite intimidating. It is expensive and so difficult to just randomly pick off a list, but I do enjoy it when I have it.

The restaurant was quite full on a Sunday lunchtime and rather than share a table, we opted to sit at the bench at the window. The downside is that all your chopstick skills are on display for everyone walking past, so pressure is on not to drop anything!

The set menu started with Gyoza - hot, crunchy fried dumplings filled with chicken mince and served with a delicious soy dipping sauce.

The next course was a somewhat dramatic plate of tempura king prawns. The prawns were meaty and large enough to stand up to the crispy tempura batter. Another dipping sauce complemented this dish.

The next was the sushi and sashimi platter, beautifully presented on a traditional wooden board and comprised of 4 pieces of sashimi and a special roll. Neither of us have ever had sashimi before, so I'm glad this was good. There were two pieces of salmon, one tuna and one that we weren't sure of! The salmon and tuna were better than mystery fish and had an incredibly clean, fresh taste and a surprisingly firm pleasant texture. I really enjoyed the sashimi. The sushi was also excellent, in my opinion, although being far from an expert, I couldn't really say how it compares to others.

We had a choice for the final course between chicken teriyaki and seafood yakisoba. As the chicken teriyaki is my equivalent of Kyle's katsu curry, we went with the yakisoba. The thin noodles were coated in a delicious sweet rich sauce interspersed with plenty of big chunks of seafood, including prawns, calamari and mussels.

Unfortunately, the service was not quite up to its super-friendly standards on this day - the waiter seemed to be having an off day. Still, all of this food was excellent value at £25 (it would have included a coke or green tea as well, but we had Asahi instead, which was extra) and a brilliant way to try some different dishes from a Japanese menu. If you're a Japanese philistine like me, anyway!

Food: 9/10
Drinks: 6/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

Dotori
3 Stroud Green Road
London, N4 2DF

The Drapers Arms, 8/10

I rather fancied a drink after a particularly awful day at work and recalled a recent post by Dos Hermanos, where they raved about a new cocktail bar near Angel called 69 Colebrooke Row. After a suitably decadent cocktail (Blush - Rose Infused Wybrowa Vodka with Rhubarb Syrup, Perrier-Jouet and a Grapefruit Twist), we went for a wander up Upper Street and then off the beaten track to find The Drapers Arms, recently reviewed by Giles Coren. Amazingly, I managed to find it based on my memory that the street started with B and it was equal distance from Angel and Highbury & Islington tube stations.

The Drapers Arms is pretty classic gastropub fare and was a world away from 69 Colebrooke Row - from fancy stools and cocktails to mismatched chairs and real ale on tap. The daily menu was a typed one pager containing a selection of 'solid' dishes, nothing too fancy, good sound English fare. The wine list, however, was actually quite good and included three types of sparkling wine by the glass - to be commended, in my opinion.

We chose a table in the corner and were surprised to be offered table service. After placing our order, we were given some complimentary bread and butter, including one of the best sourdoughs I have tasted in such a long time. There was a real yeasty sourness to it that meant I ate far more than was strictly necessary. The butter, unfortunately, was unsalted. What is the point?

After gorging myself on bread, I moved onto the razor clams and a glass of prosecco, while Kyle opted for a pint of Spitfire and the devilled kidneys on toast. I've never had razor clams before so I can't comment on the relative qualities of this example, but for me, they were delicious. They were more remiscent of squid than, say, scalllops, with a pleasingly chewy texture. The accompanying red onion pickle was surprisingly good for someone who doesn't like uncooked onion. It had a softness and flavour that must have involved some lengthy soaking. The dish was fresh and summery and I really enjoyed it.

Kyle's starter was as far from fresh and summery as you can imagine (and to be fair, the weather was hardly fresh and summery!). The kidneys looked like little sausages on the toast, but carried an amazing depth of flavour from plenty of worcestershire sauce and mustard. They were served on more of that excellent sourdough, soaked through with the sauce. Very traditional, very good.

After our wonderful salt beef experiences in New York, Kyle found it difficult to go past the salt brisket served with mash, carrots and green sauce. The meat was soft and succulent and the very herby sauce cut through the fattiness of the meat.

I ordered the guinea fowl with bacon and mushrooms for main. What's that you say? That's not guinea fowl? No, that's what I thought too. This was most defintely lamb leg, which I had not ordered. I finally re-located our waiter, who agreed I had ordered the guinea fowl, took the lamb away and then came back to say apparently they're out of guinea fowl, don't know why they gave you the lamb. Slightly odd to be out of something and just choose the replacement yourself. In the interests of time, I chose to take the lamb back and the waiter agreed not to charge us for it. All well and good, but unfortunately the lamb was the least successful dish of the night. It was okay, but it was pretty boring and the lamb managed to have both excessively fatty sections and dry sections. I would never normally order something like as it would be too easy to cook myself and this proved why. Shame.

Still, it didn't put me off trying the chocolate cake with cherries for dessert. I wasn't quite expecting it to be literally served with cherries, but as cherries are so good at the moment, it was actually really lovely with the rich dense chocolate cake and clotted cream. The chocolate cake definitely made up for the disappointment of the lamb.

The Drapers Arms was a really lovely gastropub, with generally well-executed British food based on simple, seasonal ingredients and a good range of ales and wines. The atmosphere was lovely and the service was good (apart from the issue with my main, but I guess they compensated as much as they could). I would return to The Drapers Arms, but would definitely choose the more unusual dishes from the menu.

Food: 7.5/10 (But would no doubt be an 8 with the right dish)
Drinks: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

The Drapers Arms
44 Barnsbury Street
London N1 1ER

The Chancery (8.5/10)

The Chancery was a last minute choice from TopTable on a Thursday night, to celebrate my promotion (yay!). It is located just off Chancery Lane (you may have guessed from the name), somewhat hidden on a side street of a side street. The restaurant was pleasantly busy, with most tables eventually filled, but the tables were nicely spaced so that the restaurant was full, but not crowded. The floor to ceiling windows also meant it was also lovely and light, perfect for the beautiful Summer weather we have been enjoying. I should also mention that as this was an unscheduled visit, the photos are from my camera phone, so a little blurry - apologies!


We started with some excellent bread and salted butter at perfect room temperature, before an amouse bouche of gazpacho. The cold tomato soup was ideal for the weather and packed with tomato and garlic flavour.


The TT deal was for three courses for £25, rather than the usual £34.50 (£24 for 2 courses). Of course, as per usual, I found it impossible to go past the foie gras, especially as it was served in my favourite way - a slab of foie pan fried in butter, so that it is smooth and creamy inside and slightly crispy without. Exquisite. The advertised salad of cranberries and hazelnuts also included, somewhat bizarrely, sweet corn and apple. The corn rather overwhelmed everything else, but despite the odd combination, was refreshing and tasty.

Kyle started with the seared scallops with aubergine pakora and curry spices. The scallops were excellent, well-cooked with lots of flavour. The pakora, however, was another odd addition, being rather remiscent of a bit of deep-fry from the local Indian takeaway. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it does seem a little inappropriate as an accompaniment to delicate scallops.

My main was the roast skate wing with fondant potato, cockles and watercress puree. I haven't had skate wing before, so was a little surprised by all the bones, but once I worked out how to eat it (scrape the meat off rather than try to cut through), it was very enjoyable. Very delicately flavoured, with a lovely brown butter crust. The highlight, though, was the amazingly intense sun-dried tomatoes scattered over the dish - yum!


Despite the summery temperatures, Kyle opted for the rather wintery traditional British dish of calves' liver and onions with smoked potato cream, but he enjoyed it. The roasted garlic cloves were a lovely surprise.

We also received a lovely little chocolate mousse as a pre-dessert, which was intensely chocolate-y, but fluffy and light. It almost made me regret that I had chosen the chocolate brownie dessert . . . until I had my first bite, that is.

Chocolate brownie always seems like such an easy, obvious choice, but so good. It was somehow simultaneously dense and light and came with a mint-chocolate sauce and mint ice-cream (I love mint!). The brief regret of double chocolate was forgotten instantly.


Unfortunately, Kyle finished with the most disappointing dish of the night. The cheese platter looked quite attractive and reasonable value, containing a blue cheese, goat's cheese, a cheddar and two soft cheeses as well as some toasted fruit bread and grapes. Across the board, the cheese was bland and too cold. Shame.

The night finished with petit fours (pretty average), some unnecessary excitement when the waitress knocked a candle into my handbag (took me quite some time so scrape the candlewax off later) and then more petit fours as an apology (we didn't enjoy them the first time). All in all, not a brilliant ending!

Despite this, I really enjoyed our evening at The Chancery. The service was generally very good and there was a perfect atmosphere - enough people to create an environment, but not so that it was too loud, busy or big. With the exception of the cheese plate, the food was also very good and quite good value with the TT deal.

Food: 8.5/10
Drinks: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10

The Chancery
9 Cursitor Street
London EC4A 1LL

The Fox Reformed (8.5/10)

We had visited the Stoke Newington Farmers Market in the morning and wandering back up Stoke Newington Church Street, decided that lunch was on the cards. On a warm and sunny Saturday, the primary criteria for a lunch destination was a pleasant outdoor dining area. The Fox Reformed is a wine bar with a pretty small garden, but being quite empty and in the sun, qualified perfectly.

While perusing the menu in the window, some friendly locals decided to offer their 2p worth: "Nice place if you like pretentious food". Thanks for that. To be fair, the menu was not exactly Summer lunch in the sunshine (sausages and pork belly featured), so the choice had to be the burger. It sounded very promising - homemade bun, organic beef burger, caramelised onions and mozzarella served with fries and salad. I suppose this could be considered a pretentious burger.


While The Fox Reformed is a wine bar and has a very good wine list (they also run monthly wine tastings), given the glorious weather, we decided to start with our first Pimms of the Summer (we may have been inspired by the rather bossy sign in the window - Have Garden, Drink Pimms). I love, love, love Pimms. It is such a typically English drink and has come to truly epitomise the English Summer for me. This was a good strong version with plenty of fruit and was the ideal drink for the sunshine.


The burger arrived fairly quickly (sadly, there was almost no-one at the Fox and no-else eating) and looked as promising as it had sounded. The homemade bun was lightly toasted and almost scone-like and was a lovely vessel for the main event - the medium-rare (without even asking), juicy, packed-full-of-flavour burger. I have been reading all these blogs that rave about burgers and I'm not sure I've had many burgers that qualify for that level of raving. I think this one does - plenty of fresh herbs and garlic and really well-seasoned. The caramelised onions were sweet and the mozzarella added a lovely texture. Even the sides were lovely - crispy, crunchy chips and super-fresh salad with a delicious pesto dressing.

For a spur-of-the-moment choice based on the fact that they had a garden, this was an outstanding meal. I would definitely consider going back, but given their menu, probably more for dinner and wine.

Food: 9/10
Drinks: 9/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10

The Fox Reformed
176 Stoke Newington Church Street
London N16 0JL

Little Sardegna (9/10)

Little Sardegna is not quite our nearest local restaurant but located literally five doors away, it is certainly handy for a quick mid-week meal out. We have been quite a few times now and typically, the time I decide to write about it, it wasn't up to its usual exceptional standards, but it was still very, very good.

It is a pretty small restaurant with at best maybe 24 seats and no matter when we go, it is almost always full, which is great to see in a surburban restaurant in these credit-crunched times. The menu is largely pasta and risotto, but there are usually a few meat and fish specials, such as tagliati or sea bass. I always find it hard to go past the pasta and in particular the Malloreddus and Papparedelle al ragu - both excellent.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the super-friendly, very Italian waiter (and I'm sure he is the owner) with some foccacia, crispbread and olives. The foccacia is new since last time and is dense and chewy with plenty of garlic. The olives are marinated in olive oil and fresh herbs and are so more-ish, I have a tendency to eat far more than I should, knowing the portions of pasta that await.

We started with sharing the antipasto plate, comprised of various salamis, breasola and proscuitto crudo as well as some excellent pecorino and ricotta with honey. Everything on the plate is of excellent quality and is is light enough to compensate for all those olives I ate.

I tried to branch out this time and chose the Salmon Ravioli with Courgette and Prawns in a tomato sauce. The pasta was perfectly cooked and tasted fresh, but I found the salmon filling a bit too 'fishy' and the dish was overall far too rich. They have reduced the portion sizes since we were last here from insanely ludicrous to just slightly more than you reasonably need, but with such a rich filling, I found it a bit much.


Kyle opted for the always reliable Malloreddus with Italian pork sausage mince and as usual it was excellent - subtly spicy and porky. The Malloreddus are a typical Sardinian pasta shape, which I have seen likened to gnocchi. It is, however, more like pasta and is a great shape for soaking up the sauce.


We finished off the meal with a complementary glass of limoncello, which is very sweet and only mildly lemony (a shame really, because more lemon than sugar would mean that I could get to drink Kyle's!) before undertaking the long walk back to our flat . . . about 30 metres away.

Little Sardegna is an outstanding local restaurant. The service is consistently brilliant (even when you're not there, the waiter says hello when you walk past) and the food is excellent and very good value. At £35 for both of us including a bottle of the house red, if you can get a table, this is a reliably good Italian neighbourhood restaurant.

Food: 9/10
Wine: 8/10
Service: 10/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 9/10

Little Sardegna
170 Blackstock Road
London N5 1HA

Wild Honey (7.5/10)

Aunt Victoria and Uncle Patrick were in London from Australia this week. Of course, that means I have to come up with a restaurant idea (the thought of cooking mid-week in our small flat was immediately dismissed). Always tricky to balance a number of considerations - type of food, style of restaurant, price point. It seemed to me that it would be nice to do something 'British' as we are, after all, in Britain and the next day was the English national Day, St George's Day.

So after reading some good reviews (such as on London Eater, who named it his 'eat' of 2008), I decided upon Wild Honey. Good quality British food, good ingredients well executed, impressive wine list, reasonable price, centrally located. Ticked all the boxes.

No photos this time, unfortunately, but bear with me . . .

I started with a warm salad of purple sprouting broccoli, goat's curd and smoked pork belly. Purple broccoli is one of those ingredients I see around a lot, but my fruit and vegie shop doesn't have any, so we don't get it. In actual fact, it isn't all that exciting. It tasted just like broccolini, but looked a little brown at the top. The salad was nice enough but nothing really amazing. Kyle, however, had the warm smoked eel, beetroot tart and horseradish which was exceptional. Really delicious. Neither of us had ever tried eel before, but I am now definitely keen to go again. Rick, smoky, oily fish cut through with the horseradish on a crunchy pastry base. Yum. This turned out to be the highlight of the night.

For main, I had the slow cooked English veal 'blanquette'. I didn't really know what this would be but Wikepedia now provides this handy and approriate description. After two guilt-enducing veal meals in Venice, I thought I would attempt to redeem myself by having some more 'animal-friendly' English veal. The dish was very pleasant - the veal was tender and flavoursome and the accompanying vegetables of baby leek and cabbage were tasty. The dish was served in an attractive copper pot, but with a plate that you had to dish it into yourself. Erm . . . what is the point of this please? Kyle's main was the soft polenta with portobello mushrooms, pecorino and olive oil. It was fine.

To finish, we shared some cheese. Wild Honey has a proper cheese board in the French cheese trolley style. Kyle chose the cheeses for us and they included a Comte, Brie de Meaux, a blue and another smoky style French cheese (can't really recall the details). They came with some crackers, grapes and honey. The cheeses were all good served at the perfect temperature and the honey was a nice, location-appropriate touch.

My expectations of Wild Honey were very high, I will admit. So it is possible that is why I thought it was just okay. It wasn't cheap, but I wasn't expecting cheap, I was expecting excellent food. The service was quite good (the two girls on the door were in particular very friendly and passionate about the restaurant) but a little patchy at times. The wine list was very long and there were a lot of choices by the glass (250ml carafe). In the end, we chose a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, which was nice enough.

Ultimately, I feel like I missed something. I probably wouldn't go back due to the 'lots of restaurants in London' issue and maybe that's a shame. It wasn't an embarrasing restaurant to have taken people too, but I was kinda hoping for something wow, you know?

Food: 7/10
Wine: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10

Wild Honey
12 St George Street
London W1S 2FB

The Dervish, Stoke Newington (6.5/10)

The Dervish is a Turkish restaurant in Stoke Newington and is quite attractive with myriad different coloured latterns hanging from the ceiling. The restaurant was a third full at best on a Saturday night, but the Turkish music and dim lighting ensured a certain amount of atmosphere.

The menu was pretty standard Turkish fare - meat, kebabs, grill. The difficulty with Turkish restaurants is that the main meals all seem pretty similar and for me, the variety and action is all in the appetizers. So it was at The Dervish.


We ordered the mixed Meze to start, which comprised a broad bean salad, black-eyed bean salad, couscous salad, potato salad, roasted aubergine, houmous, a youghurt dip, felafel and borek. Almost everything on this was quite nice, fresh ingredients and quite a few different tastes despite how similar everything sounds. It was served with bread, which was quite disappointing - Turkish bread is a favourite of mine and this was pretty dull.


Kyle's main was spicy Turkish sausage with pita bread, yoghurt and 'special sauce'. My main was grilled lamb cubes with . . . pita bread, yoghurt and 'special sauce'. So, yes, they tasted pretty much the same. The sausage was reminiscent of chorizo and the lamb was like a nice piece of barbecued meat. While you can't complain about any of this, it wasn't all that special.

They didn't have the wine we selected, so we just went for the house red, an Italian Merlot, which was quite nice.

Service started well but then really fell off towards the end. I was going to get dessert but by the time they finally came back, I couldn't be bothered. Considering the restaurant was pretty empty, there isn't really an excuse for that.

All in all, The Dervish was okay, but considering how many Turkish restaurants there are in the area, I wouldn't bother again.

Food: 6/10
Wine: 6/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 8/10
Overall: 6.5/10

The Dervish
15 Stoke Newington Church Street
London, N16 0NX

The other St Johns - Archway, North London (9/10)

It is interesting sometimes the random methods you use to choose a restaurant. This would have to be one of the more convoluted examples. In October last year, we spent half an hour in a 4WD hurtling through the Wadi Rum in Jordan with a guy called John. We had one of those standard conversations you have with someone that you will only spend such a short amount of time with.

John: "So, where are you guys from?"
Us: "Australia, but we're living in London at the moment."
"Oh yeah? Whereabouts?"
"North London, Highbury."
"Ever been to a pub in Archway called St Johns?"
"No, we've been to St Johns in Clerkenwell? Archway is on our number 4 bus route though."
"My brother is the owner (chef? Little hazy on the details), its really good."
"Cool, we'll have to go one day."
[Everyone returns to staring out the windows at the endless sand dunes broken up by a few rocks and camels]

Fast forward six months and we're standing out the front of The Olive Tree, a Greek restaurant just around the corner from us. They've apparently just won Best Family Restaurant in the Islington Gazette Restaurant Awards and the window is covered in promotional blurb about the awards. So later at home, we try to find more information about it on the Gazette's web site, but no luck. We did, however, come across a review for the Lord Palmerston Pub in Archway (still not there, but soon, I promise), which sounded good, but looked a bit dodgy in the photos. Further googling of this pub brought up a reference to another pub also in Archway. Yes, we've made it - St John's. Distant alarm bells rang back to that conversation in the desert and we decided to give it a go. I did say it was convoluted.

We reserved a table for a Saturday night and were told we had a two-hour time limit. I can understand for the restaurant why they do it, but I do find time limits annoying. Eating out is supposed to be a relaxing and enjoyable experience, not a clock-watching one. That's work.

Anyway, we arrived a bit early to have a drink in the bar. The pub was absolutely nothing special from the outside, but on the inside was strongly reminiscent of other London gastropubs we've been to, such as The Eagle in Farringdon and The Westbourne near Notting Hill. There seems to be some gastropub rule where the furniture has to be as plain, rustic and as mis-matched as possible.


We started with a pint of Pride for Kyle and a glass of Cava for me and then decided to sample one of those strange British culinary creations - the Scotch Egg. I've been interested in trying one since reading the Dos Hermanos blog. This being my first Scotch Egg, I can't really say whether it was a good example or not, but it is certainly bizarre. A hard-boiled egg, wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. The strangest part is that it is served cold, so it is really quite stodgy and heavy. None of the ingredients screamed flavour so the accompanying salt and pepper and mustard took over. Not the greatest thing I've ever eaten, but it certainly looked interesting!

After this not so light appetizer, we moved into the restaurant proper, which was a much fancier, high-ceilinged room decorated with a clutter of drawings and paintings (unfortunately it was also a lot darker, so the photos are pretty bad from here on in). We were immediately presented with some delicious chewy bread, unfortunately let down by another one of my restaurant pet hates, unsalted butter. I mean, what's the point? It tastes like nothing. Luckily that lovely salt came in handy again.

The wine list was quite extensive with a strong leaning towards French and Spanish wines. About 8 whites and reds were available by the small glass (125ml), 1/2L carafe or full bottle as well as another 15 or so just by the bottle. We ordered a bottle of Guelbenzo, a Spanish wine comprised of about seven grape varieties, including syrah, tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon and a few others I hadn't heard of. It was surprisingly light in taste considering the dark colour, but had a wonderful dry finish from lots of tannins.

We had seen the menu already in the bar, which was quite good, as in the restaurant they only had it on a blackboard, that was quite hard to read. It was a daily menu, which always seems a good sign to me, that you will have fresh seasonal ingredients. This was supported by another blackboard listing the provenence of a number of ingredients. There was a surprisingly heavy weighting towards fish (4 out of 9 mains) and as we had been eating more fish pie than we care to mention all weekend, neither of us were that keen to go fishy again.

I decided to try the Cheddar, pea and wild garlic tart to start. I have been reading a lot about wild garlic at the moment - apparently you can find it growing anywhere all over England, but perhaps not in North London. My little fruit and vegie store also doesn't stock it, so I was keen to give it a go. The pastry of the tart was excellent - buttery and crumbly. The filling was also good with only a very mild taste of garlic and lovely texture from the burst of baby peas (frozen, I assume?).

Kyle's starter was scallops with black pudding and asparagus veloute. The scallops were quite small, but did come with the roe on, which Kyle enjoyed. The scallop/black pudding thing seems to be quite a fashionable Masterchef combination but did work well.

As an Australian eating in London, one of the things I don't have very often here is steak. It is generally very expensive and without a barbecue as home, I rarely cook it either. So when I saw a good old Rib Eye and chips on the menu, it seemed like a good option. I asked for the steak medium-rare and it was beautifully cooked with a lovely charred flavour (Oh, I do miss barbecue). Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of fat that hadn't quite rendered out, so it was a little stringy in places, but otherwise tender and delicious. The chips were big and fat, perfectly crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The steak was served with a traditional bearnase sauce, which was quite mild (the charred steak flavour overpowered the sauce) and a woefully inadequate amount.

Kyle's main was a pork chop served with chorizo, beans and kale. The beans and kale in the slightly sweet sauce were delicious, but the chorizo was quite tough and the pork chop, while well-cooked and tender, was somewhat drowned out by the other strong flavours in the dish.

The dessert menu included quite traditional British desserts, such as Bakewell tart, cheesecake and chocolate fondant. There was also a selection of six British and French cheeses at 2.50 pounds each, which I thought was a great idea for serving cheeses. From this list, Kyle chose a Reblochon Fermier, a soft mould ripened cow's milk cheese, and a Saint Maure de Touraine, a medium soft goat's cheese. The cheeses were served with crackers, chutney (which completely didn't go with these two cheeses) and oddly, half an apple and half a pear, just like that. The goat's cheese was the star - rich and creamy with a distinctive but not over-powering goat's cheese flavour.

I opted for the Chocolate Pot with Coffee Cream, which arrived looking like a cafe latte. It was the perfect end to the meal - intense, smooth chocolate, just the right side of rich that it didn't overwhelm.

We had such a lovely night at St John's. The food was proper gastropub, very traditional but with lovely seasonal fresh ingredients. The service was excellent all night and the atmosphere was great. They didn't end up kicking us out after two hours, which was good, but the restaurant was really busy the whole time - every table was full and a number did turn over twice. Good to see in these credit crunch times. Overall, top place, would definitely come back.

Food: 9/10
Wine: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Ambiance: 9/10
Overall: 9/10


St John's
91 Junction Road
London N19 5QU