Sadly, I believe the building he we going to move into fell through. He's doing plenty of popups though, recently did one at Dukes.

I agree about the Taps and Harp being great pubs. Don't know the last time you went to the Draft House on Tower Bridge, but it's gone downhill recently and there's much better pubs in the area (the Dean Swift, Simon the Tanner or the Rake)

Basically, the best way to find decent pubs in London is to download the Craft Beer London app http://craftbeerlondon.bluecrowmedia.com

The cask is a great pub, I'd also recommend one of the craft beer co pubs as well. There's 3 around London. The best pubs are to be found around islington, clerkenwell and east London. But plenty of other areas are starting to catch up and offer a good beer pub or two.

Zero Degrees is a strange affair. It's been around since before the recent beer boom, so it seems to almost offer the beer as an afterthought. It feels more like a bad 00s cocktail bar crossed with pizza restaurant; they once wouldn't let us in in trainers!

The beer is pretty good though (the food is bad) and I hear they're closing it to refurb it, so I hope they'll update it and make it more of a beer place.

In greenwich, I think the best pub is the Greenwich Union, which is also a Meantime place.

There's a great Malaysian place near paddington called Tukdin. Some of the menu can be quite authentic depending on how adventurous you are (think plenty of Malaysian anchovies) but their beef rendang is lovely.

http://tukdin.co.uk/

There was one at Brockley Market in the summer. Their website says it's available to hire

http://www.rubyviolet.co.uk/Ruby_Viol...

Chicken Tikka Masala is authentic in the UK though given it was invented here :)

In addition to the very fine establishments recommended in this thread, I'd also reccomend needo http://needoogrill.co.uk/. They do very some very good tikka there I find.

The food stalls tend to rotate at Brockley Market and you do get many of them at other markets, but the ready-to-eat regulars I like that you get that are not at any other markets:

* Mike and Ollie - http://mikeandollie.co.uk/?page_id=62, great middle-eastern/mediterranean inspired wraps but they always have massive queues
* Mother Flipper - fanastic burgers
* Dark Fluid - local coffee roastery
* Egg Boss - fantastic scotch eggs
* Moons green - great charcuterie
* Blintz boy - great blintzes

Other of my favourites that are easier to find at other markets are Luardos and Fleisch Mob.

1. Coffee I'd recommend Tapped and Packed http://www.tappedandpacked.co.uk and Store Street Espresso http://www.storestreetbloomsbury.co.uk/shop-eat/ss-espresso/
2. There's plenty of places on Goodge Street and Charlotte Street with varying levels of quality and price. I'd say the best moderate places are Koba ) (http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/venue/2%3A27138/koba and Salt Yard (http://www.saltyard.co.uk/restaurant/) although you might have to be slightly careful to get under 40 quid. I hear good things about bubbledogs (http://www.bubbledogs.co.uk), I'm off there myself soon; it's Gourmet Hot Dogs and Grower Champagnes.
3. Goodge Street has the better pubs. The best is the Draft House on the corner of Goodge and Charlotte Street. It's a bit small, but very lively and does great beer. Further south down Charlotte Street and around there's a clutch of pubs: The Fitzrovia and The Newman Arms probably being the best.

With a little bit of travelling (by foot if you're confident, by tube if you're not) you can also get to some other great areas like Soho and Marylebone. But that would bring hundreds of recommendations for places to go :)

I'd second the cider tap, and also recommend The Southampton Arms (http://thesouthamptonarms.co.uk/) in North London.

I like cider but I'm not a buff, so I can't recommend any scrumpys I'm afraid.

As for mass-produced scrumpy, the only one I can think of would be Scrumpy Jack, but that's not really scrumpy. Plenty of mass-produced ciders such as Bullmers, Magners, Strongbow...

Maltby Street and Borough are great places for cheese and sausages.

If you're interested in a curry, then you could go to Needo (needoogrill.co.uk) or Tayyabs. They're both close to each other and are probably the best reasonably-priced indian food that doesn't require a journey to the outskirts of London. There's no booking as far as I know for Tayyabs, so the queues can get long. So I normally go Needo as you can book. I personally would avoid streets like Brick Lane, that are famous but not as good as they used to be.

There's plenty of markets that do food and the some dedicated street food markets here and there.

In the evening there's:

Street Feast is good and is held at the Camden Town Street Brewery every Friday evening http://www.streetfeastlondon.com

Daytime markets:

Maltby Street is a collection of under the arch units that sell all kinds of fresh produce and there's a few interesting places to eat, including a brewery (http://maltbystreet.com/

Borough Market, which divides opinion, has some cooked food places. http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/ and it's open a few days

If you're in South London, on a Saturday there's Brockley Market http://www.brockleymarket.com/, and if you're East there's Broadway Market http://www.broadwaymarket.co.uk/ and Netil Street Market. And Brick Lane has a market on the Sunday.

Finally, there are a couple of lunch focussed markets, Exmouth Market, Leather Lane and Eat Street http://www.eat.st/

I'd say that Street Feast is your best bet, has about 12 stalls and the beer is great (the brewery has a bar

Any particular fast food you're after, I may be able to recommend some stalls?

We were at Moran's a year ago and it was great. One of the highlights of our trip.

I can also recommend Wild Honey Inn (http://www.wildhoneyinn.com/) in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare.

There's a great article about what happened to the firkins here:

http://www.goodbeergoodpubs.co.uk/articles/what-happened-to-the-firkin-pubs/

What was it you liked about them? For me it was my first introduction to real ale when I was a student and I'm sure there's a hint of the rose-tinted spectacles about it.

But you can still get dogbolter. A UK brewery has revived the beer:

http://www.ramsgatebrewery.co.uk/dogb...

The Market Porter is definitely worth a visit, and if you do go down that way I'd also recommend the Rake. I think the Rake look after their cask better and whilst the Market Porter has a wider selection of beers, the Rake has much better beers. It's a tiny place, but it's fun, especially if the sun is out and you can stand on the terrace.

I like Brodies a lot and need to get myself down the Old Coffee House. What's it like as a pub? I know they've a great selection of beer, I just never thought the place looked all that?

The harp is great. Other places to go would be the craft beer co on leather lane, they have 16 pumps with cask and 10 with keg. The wenlock arms in islington is also a great pub with a good cask selection. The Old Red Cow is a a good beer pub in the city. You do need to be careful in London, there are many pubs which look great but don't keep beer very well.

Des De Moor's site is a great resource for pubs as well. http://desdemoor.co.uk/

Finally, I'd say give our burgeoning craft beer movement a go. It's very contentious; I'm considering handing back my CAMRA membership over their attitude to it. Sadly they represent the encumbent brewing industry so there's a lot of hot air in the arguments. Some of my favourite breweries are Revolution, Brodies, Thornbridge, Kernel, Magic Rock and Moor Beer.

You're a bit far from any of the specialist places; they tend to be clustered more east of paddington. Someone's mentioned the Euston Tap, but that is a couple of miles away. If you are happy to travel a little down the tube line to Euston you could go a bit further to Farringdon and there you have The Craft Beer co on Leather Lane that is one of the best beer places in London, the Gunmakers is also short walk from there and specialises in ale from London (and environs) breweries.

You're not too far from the Cask, one of the best beer pubs in London with a great collection of beer, and they do pretty good burgers and ribs.

http://www.caskpubandkitchen.com

Riding House Cafe have a bar you can sit at. It tends to polarise opinion, but I think it's pretty decent.

Spuntino could be another option, as most of it is arranged around a bar. It's a great place as well.

In fact, I think those kind of bar/restaurant combo places would be good.

I remember commenting a while back on a thread for solo diners in London and some of the recs there were for places where you can eat at the bar, so there may be some crossover between recs.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/782855

Sekara is a pretty good Sri Lankan restaurant near Victoria. http://www.sekara.co.uk

But the cheaper cuts of meat have better flavour, and fat is a good thing as it carries that great flavour.

I think wagyu is massively overrated; I had a wagyu burger and it didn't taste of much. My fillet-eating friend tells me I'm missing the point and it's all about the texture. But I prefer flavour over texture. Give me a rib-eye over a fillet any day of the week.

It's personal preference at the end of the day.

I wasn't comparing them as such; just saying that I tend to favour those kinds of places over the more plusher london restaurants at the moment. Although they can be compared in trying to achieve a spin on US themes.

There's definitely a hint of industrial design thing going on in both; meat liquor has these great ridged-perspex shelves over the bar for glasses. It was little details like that I liked.

But yes, Spuntino has the better interior design. I asked for the name of the supplier of the great carbon filament bulbs when I was there; normally I'm asking for the supplier of the ingredients!

I loved the decor, but then I took design hints for my new kitchen from Spuntino :)

I'd say it's more a bar with food, rather than a burger restaurant. So it's loud, but it's great for groups and parties. Having said that, the queuing and the fact they were mostly admitting tables for 4 isn't conducive to that. It's been a victim of its own success.

As for the noise, I went last week and I found it fine. We were sitting by the bar and we could all talk quite happily, but like I said, I found it more bar-like than restaurant-like. Maybe they've turned it down?

I can't remember all the prices, but I had the dead hippy burger and it was about 8 quid. Fries were slightly pricey though at £3, but there were loads. I don't think the wings were that expensive, about £5. The food is cheap, given its location and the quality. But you can rack up the bill with booze, understandably.

I've ordered some burgers from them, and they were superb. Definitely going to get some steak from them in the future.

London is a city of around 13-14 million inhabitants and covers many thousand square miles. It actually qualifies as a megacity.

It's way bigger than all of those cities you've mentioned.

I've got some uk-grown naga chilli sauce. it's very good indeed, has a really fruity flavour to it and is way better than most of those 'endurance' sauces.

Shepherds pie is lamb with a topping of mashed potato. As for how it's prepared, you can probably get away with any kind of lamb. Normally it's minced, but I think it would work equally well with shredded shoulder.

I'd second Hawksmoor, but I'd also recommend Buen Ayre an Argentinian steak house on Broadway Market. It's in East London and could be a bit of a pain to get to depending on where you live and work. But I'd also agree with Theresa above; Latin American isn't something that London does that well.

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Hawksmoor
157 Commercial St, Poplar, Greater London E1 6, GB

Hawksmoor
157 Commercial Street, London E1 6BJ, GB

Buen Ayre
50 Broadway Market, Hackney, England E8 4, GB

If you're in Scotland, you should check out Brewdog http://www.brewdog.com/

Great craft beer, they have their own bars and I'm sure you should be able to find it.

I'm surprised you can't get Swiss Chard in Scotland. It's very easy to get down south. Maybe look into a local organic box scheme, I always found it in my Abel and Cole box.

I did like the look of Gregan's and we'll definitely eat there next time we go.