limster's Profile
London the capital of Indian restaurants? [moved from UK board]
I wouldn't say exactly the last sixty years. While the cultural revolution had its effects, the re-emergence from that probably occurred >20 years ago. And it wasn't as if they had to start from scratch; some restaurants that have been around for over a century in mainland China are still in operation today.
Need Restaurant Recommendations for London, Please
I've been there in much less formal attire (polo shirt, jeans and trainers on one occasion), and never had any problems.
Need Restaurant Recommendations for London, Please
For mid-high end wines, Trinity in Clapham is one of the best values I've encountered (they claim to add corkage but not markups). Superb food too. Not necessarily close to Kensington but savings on wines are potentially worth the trip.
In Kensington, the Bombay Brasserie's weekend (sunday?) buffet is excellent.
I haven't been particularly impressed with the various Galvin restaurants (Bistrot de Luxe or La Chapelle).
London the capital of Indian restaurants? [moved from UK board]
I think a related (if not completely overlapping) point is the difference between different goals of innovation:
1. To make things more delicious, at least to the chef who is making the changes.
2. To make things more marketable and hype-able to a bigger market without regard to whether it is (more) delicious, to exploit folks less familiar with the depth of certain cuisines. Often causes one to pay more for something that is better packaged, but not necessarily as nuanced or mature as a dish.
1 is certainly very possible and we celebrate those, whether it's a small or big.
2 is unfortunately more common and perhaps quite a number of the examples cited fall into that category. Not saying that some of these Frenchified Indian cuisines aren't delicious; to some they might very well be, but the key issue is whether they are more or less delicious than the dishes they were derived from (if that's recognisable). We should also consider whether the excitement is over novelty rather than actual merit. It could be "interesting" merely because it is different, but is it delicious?
What's important is that we learn to distinguish 1 from 2.
London the capital of Indian restaurants? [moved from UK board]
Erm...there's been restaurants in China for at least a thousand years. Restaurant dining isn't a recent social phenomenon there.
Some places in Brixton Village market, London
I thought about it -- the food wasn't so great that it was worth a whole thread on its own , but we'll see how it evolves. BTW the place is called Heritage Deli.
Some places in Brixton Village market, London
A newish vaguely Turkish/Mediterranean deli with various baked items opened next to Breads Etc. The filling in the mushroom, cheese and truffle pie was very savoury, the slippery mushrooms and soft cheese enhanced by good truffle oil, woodsy and aromatic. Crust was somewhat flat though, lacking any crusty or crispy nature.
Federation Coffee has an outpost that is open on weekdays, off Brixton High Street (at least according to the map in the BV location).
{London] NY Times article on Indian restaurants
Went to Cafe Spice Namaste a few years ago, was good not great: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/616953
Ate well at New Tayyabs recently; standout was the excellent shami kebab.
Have only been to Chor Bizarre for their rendition of their afternoon tea with some savoury items and it was ok: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/613242
I would recommend:
Truly Indian for Punjabi on Borough High Street (steps from Borough Market)
Ragam for dosa (Bloombury)
Indian YMCA (also Bloomsbury)
Elephant Cafe for Pakistani (Brixton Village)
And obviously the various places in East Ham that various chowhounds, especially Jfores, have been picking out.
Tierra Peru, Islington, London
It was surprisingly mixed. Starters were great, but mains only decent. Don't know what to make of it yet.
Tierra Peru, Islington, London
Pisco sours were ok -- sharp and sour with a frothy top; lighter and less creamy/eggy than some I've had elsewhere.
Tierra Peru, Islington, London
A newish Peruvian place on Essex Street.
Addictive tasty cancha/toast corn.
Great anticuchos, grilled beef hearts with a savoury marinate, tender yet decisively snappy in texture. Excellent sauce, pepper heat with herbs in the background. Further enhanced by the side of rocoto pepper sauce, which cranks up the heat quite a bit.
The marinated fish with aji amarillo and lime was excellent -- supple texture in the fish slices, sharp lime juice with tangy aji amarillo. Wonderfully supported by boiled and roasted corn.
Main courses were ordinary-ish. A dried potato stew with lots of small cubes of potato, a chicken thigh, and a pork rib was decently flavoured with a vaguely tomatoey(?) base. Aji de gallinha, a classic Peruvian dish seemed a little more like chicken in a cream sauce, and would have benefitted with more of the namesake peruvian pepper; was otherwise homey with slightly overboiled eggs (blueish copper tinge around the yolk).
Picarones, freshly made donuts was fairly basic, somewhat home-style and basic, but could have been more crisp on the surface; a sweet sticky syrup made from (raw?) cane sugar (iirc) for dipping.
Chica morada, their purple corn drink, tasted a bit like a tropical drink mix, somewhat different from the usual corny flavour.
The quality of the starters make me think that there's serious cooking going on; will have to be back to see if the other main courses are better.
Seven Park Place, St James Hotel & Club, St James, London
A sizeable portion of elegantly seared foie gras, smoky richness with a smooth finish of liver, contrasted against the sweetness of caramelised pear. Generous, luxuriant.
A single scallop, once again perfectly cooked, the texture buoyant and slightly chewy. Smooth puree of what I thought was Jeruselam artichoke, and a darker richer sauce, meaty and savoury.
Poached lobster (half a tail) with a wonderful snap, bright red stripes and spots, brilliant against green leaves, thin slices of muted but nutty black truffle (away from the typical peak of the season anyway). And a truly stunning oil, richly and intensely flavoured with the crustacean flavours of the shells, one of the finest flavours I've had in a long while.
Sea bass with thin crisp skin, delicately flavoured mushrooms, a red wine reduction and perhaps a vegetal puree of some sort, coming together seamlessly, reminding me of the classic combinatino of shiitake mushrooms with steamed fish in various Cantonese renditions.
Lamb encrusted with herbs, were very tender, but with rare slightly resilient spots. Elemental flavours from caramelised garlic, browned shallot sliced and fried under a crispy shell, airy turnip; a well edited array of great savoury, vegetal and aromatic flavours that shepherd the lamb.
Roasted pineapple sweet and exuberant, if a bit simple, with a hint of spice and vanilla in the syrup, against a creamy and soft (pineapple?) ice cream on a thin crispy biscuit.
Petit fours were excellent: delightfully chewy and nutty nougat, a perfect choux pastry encasing a delicate praline cream. Only the chocolate confection seemed merely good, without the finest temper on the shell.
Awesome pillowy grand marnier marshmallows.
Excellent understated cooking, flavours to the point, dishes with no loose ends, fine technique, without any unneeded showiness.
£69 for a 5 course tasting, which seemed reasonable for the quality.
Wines seemed subject to typical hotel heavy markups. The pinot noir by the glass was fairly simple and rustic, but worked well with the mushrooms and the red wine reduction in the sea bass dish.
Excellent steak tartare @ The Bountiful Cow, Holborn, London
Thanks for the Steven Stars herring tip, will do the next time I'm in the area.
Excellent steak tartare @ The Bountiful Cow, Holborn, London
Good balance between the beef and the sweet sour notes from chopped gherkins, and perhaps onion and shallot, a rendition that emphasises the beef, coarsely chopped, a medium meaty flavour, savoury and mellow.
Sirloin on bone was a solid rendition, on the medium side of medium rare, fair good flavour, the fibres dense, ropey and meaty. Decent chips and the green peppercorn sauce that was slight too sweet for me. In the realm of very good but not great.
Post-theater dinner - Palladium
Princi also serves a fairly large selection of salads and hot dishes that aren't bakery items (remember seeing osso bucco in the past). Their stuff (baked and otherwise) varies somewhat often, possibly as specials. The menu should be used as a rough guide, rather than a definitive list of what they serve.
London - Yauatcha (Update)
Woops - the downhill comment was not meant seriously, more of a little joke, hence the smiley.
What impressed us at Lily's House wasn't so much the heaviness or lightness of the cooking, but the refinement of technique and textural control.
Theoretically, XLB shouldn't vary in a systematic way between Taiwan and Mainland China, AFAIK it's essentially the same dish. But there would be variation from restaurant to restaurant (e.g. Ding Tai Fung's version seems to have slightly stiffer skins). The chef from Leong's Legend (at least when it started) claimed a stint at DTF; don't know if he's moved from place to place -- IIRC the various Legends restaurants in Chinatown are owned by the same group. As for XLB variants, there are some that seem NYC-specific, that tend to be larger, but not sure of the origins.
London - Yauatcha (Update)
The food at Lily's House was superb, the only instance of xun1 yu2/smoked fish that I've ever enjoyed. Perhaps LBL went downhill after this guy moved to the US. :)
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/449064
looking for a variety of great food in London near Earls Court.
Try the White Horse in Parson's Green, a short tube ride away form Earl's Court.
Irish fillet @ Goodman's, City, London
An outstanding hunk of beef, superbly tender, meaty and melting easily to give off its mellow meaty flavours. Medium rare, which for them was cooked to a dark ruby in the centre, and very juicy. Decent value at £26 for 250g. Nice baarnaise sauce, but the meat doesn't really need any accessories.
A sturdy Stellenbosch Merlot ('07 Journey's End) held well with its medium strong body, balanced woods and fruit, a slight lick of acidity and just the right amount of tannins against the beef.
Truffle chips were ok, slightly less aromatic than the ones I had at the Mayfair branch recently but provided roughly the same textural contrasts of decisive crispiness and a smooth creamy interior. Creamed spinach were richly flavoured, vegetal greens rounded off by the very rich cream, the strands of slightly nutty gruyere perhaps gilding the lily.
Cheesecake has the classic sticky dense texture, enhanced by some cherry compote.
London - Yauatcha (Update)
I've had the venison puffs at Hakkasan a while ago and did recall that it was excellent. The other thing that I previously enjoyed at Yauatcha was the prawn and lychee in shredded filo. Am glad to read that they'e been at least more generous with their crab filling etc... -- I still remember a crab dumpling with mostly pea greens and a tiny pinch of crabmeat the size of a chickpea and paid a royal £8 for a basket of 3.
Next time we'll have to do a Min Jiang update. The xlb there were previously superb, comparable to anything else I've had, including one made by the ex-head chef of Lu4 Bo1 Lang2 in Shanghai when he was at Lily's House in Lafayette CA. But the last time I had them, nearly a year ago, they were still very good, but perhaps a touch less delicate. What I missed was their outstanding shanghai styled shao1 mai4/shumai (filled wtih savoury glutinous rice) that were also no longer on the menu. Perhaps their Shanghainese specialist had left (tried the one in Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore as well, and these weren't available either).
Obviously apples and oranges, but Royal China Club has a lamb shen1 jian1 bao1 that I think is every bit as delicious as the venison puffs, and I especially liked the micro-shiso that enhanced the lamb filling quite dramatically.
London - Singaporean Eats at Bugis Street Brasserie, Millennium Gloucester Hotel.
It's a pretty good deal, and I recall the laksa being probably the best thing I had at their buffet, although it was a couple of years ago. Sounds like they've kept fairly good consistency.
London - Yauatcha (Update)
It been a while but I think the brew your own option was listed in the tea menu, but could be wrong.
London - Yauatcha (Update)
What were the prices like? When I wen t a few years ago, I though the food was quite nice, but severely overpriced. Do they still have tea service where they provide a pot of water, with a covered bowl/gai4 wan3 for one to brew tea at the table?
Definitive list of best Asian restaurants in London
Unfortunately no one's reported much tasting of the southern Thai dishes at 101 Thai yet. A prawn curry we had a while ago was excellent; iirc one of the owners is Southern Thai. Won't be able to draw any conclusions without any information. Would be interesting to see how their massaman curry compares with Kaosarn's.
Recent info on wine list at L'Autre in Shepherds Market, Mayfair, London?
Has anyone eaten there recently and checked out their wine list? Noticed some pretty delectable empty bottles in their window.
Crystal China, Bermondsey/Southwark, London
At a recent dinner, I was really impressed with the di4 san1 xian1, a Dongbei/NE China dish that involves stir-frying potatoes, aubergines and bell peppers. The texturing was excellent -- the aubergines were beautifully soft, the bell peppers had a good fresh snap, and the potatoes, the best of the lot, had a wonderful dense, smooth and ever so slightly waxy texture, cooked just before the point of softness, a brilliant example of skilful textural control and contrast among the different ingredients on the same dish.
Tao Tao Ju, Chinatown, London
A newish place on Lisle street, with a Chinese-Malaysian chef.
Excellent eel with XO sauce -- the texture of the eel is very well controlled, tender but with a pleasant shading of medium dense gelatinous chewiness (I've had a superior example year ago, but that was a chef who had helmed the Beijing Grand Hotel, so perhaps not a fair comparison). The eel pieces are lightly covered in crumbly batter, deep fried, but without a greasy sensation. Then a gloss of spiciness, along with the smoky savoury flavour of XO sauce, perhaps even bits of the the dried scallop flavour among bites; this is refreshingly contrasted with chopped green onions, the richness and the spice cut by the mild sharpness of the green onion. Deft work in the wok.
Also good were stir-fried jie4 lan2/gailan/Chinese broccoli.
Banana deep fried in kataifi shells were pleasant and the textural snaps from the ultracrispy shredded filo shell somewhat novel, compared to more generic batters. Somewhat undersweetened in parts where the powdered sugar did not reach.
Well made competent wan tan ho, but not as hearty as the version at C&R, where the egg is just barely and perfectly cooked by the hot gravy.
The assam stingray looked intriguing, would probably be back to try that.
What is the Proper Way to Order in a Chinese restaurant to receive a spicy dish?
I think the issue isn't so much that dishes aren't hot -- it's more of that dishes aren't seasoned properly.
To use the Sichuan example that the OP brought up, I often find that many of them that I've eaten in the US or UK are seriously under spiced compared to the canonical versions. And because these dishes tend to be a balance of flavours, dramatically reducing the spice levels (be it Sichuan peppercorns or the chilli or both) messes with the overall flavour composition i.e. the low spice results in imbalance. That's also probably why many people think that Thai food is sweet -- no chilli heat to serve as the natural balance to the sweetness.
Not all of these can be fully rectified with spices on the side - the smoky aromas from chilli and other spices in a hot wok that gets into the oil which is then used to season broths or stir fries etc is hard to replace at the table.
It's probably not the most accurate to insist on just spiciness. There isn't just a single type of spice, with Sichuan dishes for example, often balance chilli heat with the numbing qualities of their peppercorns, and I often have to get kitchens to ramp up the peppercorns rather than the chilli. Chillis aren't used for heat, but also for flavour as well. But it's a reasonable first approximation in a number of cases, since often restaurants end up using the right level of everything else, but dropping the amount of chilli.
Perhaps there are those who are doing it for the sake of being macho, but it's also important to realise that there are also many who are merely asking for the dish to be properly seasoned and well balanced. I just want it like the versions I ate back home.
London - Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
I didn't look at the list that deeply at Dinner, but there seemed to be far more European wines.
I had a very good Oregon pinot noir at La Trompette recently, and I think that it's probably not hard to find US wines at restaurant here, although the US wines tend to be from California. I suspect that the quality would vary from place to place, but haven't really had enough to tell.
London - Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
Yep, overpriced wines at Dinner. Dinner's food prices are probably about 5% higher than those at the nearby Koffman's, which I enjoyed more.
La Trompette's wine list is quite well priced, and a couple of their most expensive wines are barely above retail. But the food is merely pretty good; their roast duck pales in comparison to the ones at Gold Mine.
Best deal I've found so far for wines has been Trinity at the higher end, but I really should visit Enoteca Turi.
