Stomachs on legs are proud to present

London is a city that's hard to unravel via the internet. For every reliable price estimation on the Squaremeal website, there's a hundred conflicting comments and reviews to weigh up, and top Time Out accolades can be meaningless (especially when it comes to Lebanese food. trust me on that).

So today I'm throwing up a few culinary highlights of our 6-week work stint in London: spots that came recommended by locals or researched by friends. A reliable way to seek out delicious grub in the capital.

FISH N CHIPS

'Wile Out' crackhouse producer DJ Zinc took us to the Butler's Wharf
Chop House on the south side of the Thames - see phone-cam picture at top. The Chop House serves what's probably the best chish & fips I've ever had, with jars of tartar sauce and mushy peas, fish unfurled from a sleeve of grease proof paper, and fat rectangular chips that were not crispy at all but so yummy and potatoey when sprinkled with malt vinegar.
DJ Zinc wisely ordered sides of baby carrots and steamed spinach ("hold the butter and garlic please").
The restaurant is near the Design museum, right on the edge of the river, and we never had trouble getting a table, which is pleasing in a city where diners love to queue. Fish n chips was the cheapest main at around 16 quid.

Butlers Wharf Chop House
36e Shad Thames, London SE1 2YE



PAKISTANI FOOD

Portuguese producer J-Wow took us to his fave London restaurant, the award-winning Tayyabs. The queue is LONG (literally takes an hour) but it is really worth it. The mixed grill is essential and the naan, chana (chickpea) masala and saag were also dope. It's BYO, and open from midday to 11.30pm. Definitely take beers to drink while you queue. Cheap! And goood.

Tayyabs
83 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1JU



BRICK LANE
Another one of our colleagues, James Pants, is a well known curry aficionado, and he tested out many Indian restaurants in London. He took us to his favourite on Brick Lane, Shampan. It was most notable for not having curry hustlers outside (the ones who tell you if you come inside you get a free drink, and then the staff inside later claim no knowledge of this mysterious drink deal). I had a xacuti curry with tamarind and toasted cumin that was pretty good, but some of the thali plates looked a bit lackluster.

Shampan
79 Brick Lane
London E1 6QL





CHINATOWN & SURROUNDS
London's Chinatown is the kind of place, late at night, where you might see a drunk brit spraying air freshener on their socks in an an alleyway. But there's also quite a few decent Chinese supermarkets and a stall selling dragon's beard candy, and another stall outside a hairdresser selling really good baozi/steamed buns (it's opposite Baozi Inn on Newport Court).

Being fans of Sichuan food and also of the writing of Fuschia Dunlop, we tried out all three restaurants at which she is a consultant: Bar Shu, Ba Shan and Baozi Inn.
To be honest, they're all much of a muchness. The fanciest and most expensive one, Bar Shu, has slightly fancier furniture and the staff wear earpiece headset things, but the atmosphere is not really posh despite the prices. My advice if you eat there is to go all the way and get a whole fish or crab, because the smaller plates (though yummy) are like really, really good home cooking. It's hard to feel they warrant the price tag.

Ba Shan (photos above and below) was just slightly better value and still tasty, though the Mapo-dofu (photo below) was a bit gluggy - we prefer the one at our local in Cologne which has tons of chillies in it. The chinese cabbage in broth with goji berries was comforting. I expect Antipodeans would find the prices quite hard to stomach.

My favourite was Baozi Inn, the cheapest restaurant of the trio: despite the uncomfortable wooden stools and the waitress making us take valuables out of our coat pockets before she hung them up. The baozi were sold out, but some reviewers say they're not the best offering there. The handmade dumplings in a slick of chilli oil were yummy, as was the flower tofu with peanuts and homemade tofu hiding under more chilli oil and ground sichuan pepper, and I really loved my red-braised pork - with its stodgy, slightly overcooked white rice.. it was good for a rainy winter evening.

Baozi Inn
25 Newport Court, London WC2H 7JS



Another decent spot in Chinatown is Haozhan, where you can get a decent meal including a couple of beers for 20 -30 quid. In the couple of years since it's opened (during which time the ex-Hakkasan chef moved on), it's become more shabby than sleek. For someone who doesn't get to eat pan-asian food often though, the singapore noodles, salt & pepper squid, small bowl of egg-fried rice, and softshell crab with curry leaves will wash down very well with your Asahi beer.

Haozhan
8 Gerrard Street, London W1D 5PJ


COFFEE
If you have a bit of time up your sleeve - say two weeks - you can do as our American coffee-loving colleague Todd Osborn did, and get up early to walk to a different coffee spot on the East side of London as research. Thanks to him we know a world champion barista at Prufrock and his Swedish colleague claim to have invented the flat white, and churn them out of a clothing store which is in turn disguised as a cigarette shop in Shoreditch.

Prufrock
140 Shoreditch High St

Other notable mentions: Tina, We Salute You in Dalston, The Whitecross Coffee Cart, Monmouth Coffee at Borough Market (they don't do soy milk), Climpson & Sons, Caravan.

Coffee with breakfast:
My London-based kiwi friends Alice & John are into serious brunching, and my favourite of their haunts is The Modern Pantry in Farringdon, with its omelette with sugar-cured prawns and smoked sambal, or poached tamarillos & yoghurt w manuka honey. They also do a caramelly version of hokey pokey ice cream that's so delicious I've been known to eat it for breakfast.

JERK CHICKEN or PATTY
For a city so famous for its nightlife, a lot of the clubs in London close quite early (they often stop serving alcohol at 2am), and good post-clubbing snacks are thin on the ground. Judy's Divine in Brixton is open til 1 or 2am, and they serve a patty between two fat slices of white bread if there's no buns. It's also just down the road from a club called Plan B, which has a Funktion 1 soundsystem and some good artist line-ups.

Judy's Divine
423 Coldharbour Lane
Brixton, London SW9 8LH





BISTRO FOOD and DUCKFAT FRIES

Last but not least, Comptoir Gascon in Farringdon has really delicious meats (pork belly with parsnip puree! and little raviolis swimming in a yummy sauce that tastes like posh mushroom soup). YUM.

Comptoir Gascon
63 Charterhouse St
Ec1, EC1M 6

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a cookbook slut. And the River Cafe cookbooks are amongst my favourites. They're written nicely, the recipes are very cleverly selected - curated, if you will - from Italy's wealth of offerings, and they do not rely on cream and butter but more often artfully employ red chillies, lemon, anchovies, herbs or judicious applications of heat. However, though I'm usually turned off by cream, I must say their fennel-parmesan gratin is fine, and their calorifically splendid Penne con Sugo di Salsiccie alla Cloe is a staple of ours by now. (It must be the latent German in me that enjoys those dishes).
Other staples include cucumber, fresh chilli, mint, lemon and mascarpone; a way of serving potatoes half-mashed with tonnes of parsely, and grassy-tasting olive oil; various pasta or polenta techniques; and zucchini trifolati with tomato, which is insanely good.

Sage is one of my favourite herbs, and it's Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers who've shown me the best ways to deploy it in the kitchen.

Dishes I still need to try from their cookbooks include a soup of broccoli with red wine, roast duck with purple figs, Vignole (fresh peas, broad beans, mint, prosciutto etc), Ossobuco in Bianco (veal shin with anchovies, white wine, lemon, parsley etc), and Maiale al Latte (pork cooked with milk, sage and lemon).

So anyways, to visit their restaurant, which has sat at its far flung outpost in the West of London beside a gray-ish section of the River Thames since 1987, has long been a goal of mine. (Although it has nothing to do with my desire to go there, the place has held a Michelin star since 1998).

I was happy to achieve this goal shortly before Christmas with some friends who had booked a lunch there unbeknownst to me.

Atmosphere: very pleasant. I think I had expected the place to be a bit more cosy (with a name like River Cafe), but the most rustic thing there was the customers (see photo at top). The restaurant itself had a vibe somewhere between school teacher's canteen, (with the floor to ceiling windows casting gray London light on one side), and a vaguely chic early '90s bar (with the long stainless steel counter, and a glimpse of the wood-burning oven at the far end).



Service: excellent. A large team of wait staff performed their duties swiftly and skillfully. Some were attractive beanpoles of Russian or East African descent, all seemed contented: a well-looked after and efficient team. The Maitre-D was very friendly and made a big fuss over our not-so-impressive camera; the female Sommelier was down to earth but very knowledgeable, it was easy to imagine her as a peer or friend e.g. part of the old Verona crew in Auckland. They all sat down to a staff meal shortly after ours was served, which seemed familial. I've always found it absurd when restaurants banned one from eating in front of the customers. Like, god forbid the customers should think that the staff need to breathe or drink water, either.



Food: the highlight for all of us I think was the two pasta dishes: tortellini of roast pork belly with sage leaves and butter, just a handful of soft expertly made pasta....mmm....and farfalle with cavalo nero and new season's olive oil from Fèlsina.
Herbacious, savoury, just delicious. Happily I found the recipe for the farfalle in The River Cafe Cookbook so I'll share it at the bottom of this post later tonight.



My main was probably the most disappointing, but only because (for the second time) I forgot that I don't like monkfish. If a rubber eraser mated with a squid, this would be the dense and chewy offspring. However the Fritto Misto - with artichoke and sage and lots of lemon squeezed on top - were yummy.



The lamb with rosemary branch and puy lentils, and the snapper/sea bream with roast pumpkin, borlotti beans and pesto, were very fine.





The cost was not insane for the size of the portions (note: when I say 'not insane', I mean 'not insane if you are thinking in terms of euros or British pounds') and considering that it included a very nice bottle of white, Soave la Rocca, & a glass each of prosecco with clementine orange juice and Campari as a pre-Christmas tipple. Beautiful! I recommend this drink very highly, in fact I might have one right now.



Thames Wharf Studio/Rainville Rd
Hammersmith
London
W6 9HA
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7386 4200
(easiest to get a cab from District Line or Hammersmith tube stations)

This is an account of a meal at Hakkasan, that I've been meaning to post for a while, eaten during our London stop-over back in November (ammended version).
Hakkasan is another of Alan Yau's restaurants, featuring chef Tong Chee Hwee of the Summer Pavilion at the Singapore Ritz. Quite amazing how many reviews mention Yau, the owner, but do not mention Hwee at all. This, in a city where celebrity chefs hold the middle class enthralled, where St. John's is usually booked out and it seems that the newspapers are filled every single day with columns, recipes or christmas tips from Fergus Henderson, David Thompson, Rose Gray, Ruth Rogers et al. Oh, and Gordon Ramsay is some kind of national hero.

This below-street-level restaurant on a quiet back alley has a Michelin star. When Hakkasan was first awarded a star in 2003 it was the only Chinese restaurant in the UK to possess one, and the fifth Chinese restaurant to be granted a star in the award's 103-year history. We here at Gut Feelings are inclined to view things like Michelin stars with suspicion, though: and places like Nobu in London holding onto them when reliable commentators naysay their food, doesn't do much to instill faith.

However, having missed out on Susur Lee's food in Toronto due to such kneejerk (misinformed) aversion to hype, I really wanted to have some top-class dim sum before going back to Germany. Of course we could have gone with some blogger's favourite dive in Chinatown but just did not want to risk greasy, bloated Har Gau.

All in all, we really enjoyed Hakkasan.

ATMOSPHERE:
We went at a time of day when it was only filled with a smattering of people - we had a screened corner all to ourselves.
The blue lighting effects and maze of high black carved screens (by French designer Christian Liagre) brought to mind a deluxe gay German bordello, Louis Vuitton store, or a movie set, or all three at the same time...quite an entertaining atmosphere in which to eat dumplings.
However I'm not sure I would want to be there when filled with noisy rich people.





SERVICE:
We didn't have a booking but it was no problem.
I found it a little odd that they have brusque English women wearing smart black clothes (by Hussein Chayalan?) as maitre-D's at reception, but servers are all fresh-off-the-boat Chinese – and dressed in cheong sams. Apparently the cheongsams were designed by William Chang (designer of Maggie Cheung's cheongsams in the film In the Mood for Love) – this felt a bit forced, and when worn by a waitress, almost colonial, or something. But certainly in keeping with the upperclass theme park vibe.
The server wasn't exactly friendly, but being mollycoddled at yum cha would be odd, in any circumstances! She literally chucked the napkins in the directions of our laps.



FOOD:
We went there planning to spend the bare minimum, on just the dim sum platter and vegetarian dim sum platter (you can read their description and price on the menu below), but ended up also buying the smoked Jasmine Tea chicken (about another 10 quid if I remember correctly), a pot of Chinese green tea and a large bottle of Voss mineral water, and some rice.
The dim sum were juicy and gleaming, just what I wanted. Nothing too crazy or modernistic but certainly excellent quality...filled with crunchy bits of water chestnut, fresh herbs, topped with red & black fish roe and goji berries and a dab of some sort of crayfish reduction...



The jasmine tea chicken was DIVINE - I was surprised to read reviews online claiming it was dry - I adored this dish...moist, dripping with brown juices, teak colour, and rendered to a tasty state where you could swear you were eating duck...

One curious item on the menu (see above) is Braised Emperor's Seafood, which has to be ordered ahead, and costs 120 pounds. That's pretty steep, man... even without considering the inclusion of rubbery paua/abalone.



The rice was spectacularly bad, totally mushy and overcooked - what's up with that, Yau?

Having read mixed reviews of the main dishes there, I don't think I would risk going there to spend up large, but would definitely go back again for that chicken and a snack of dim sum, in the glow of somehow soothingly garish, tastefully lit, London glitz.


8 Hanway Place, W1T 1HD
Tel 020 7927 7000
Tottenham Court Road Tube Station 155 metres

Pictured: violet, kumquat and fig macarons from the mediocre patisserie counter at Alan Yau's Yauatcha restaurant in Soho (it's right across from the kiwi coffee shop called Flat White which was also mildly disappointing).

It seems macarons are best left to the French, and high-end Japanese-style confectionary is best left to the Japanese, rather than trying to imitate both along with a dollop of jammy English blandness.

Macarons from Laduree or Pierre Herme or various small shops in Paris are very delicate, melt in your mouth affairs. These had the requisite jewel-like colours, but the flavours were not pronounced enough and the filling was a shock: a mouthful of sticky sweet jam. Yuck!

I've read that Alan Yau doesn't like Chinese sweets and desserts – so has the entrepreneur decided to tailor his offerings at Yauatcha to the tastes of little old English ladies? That's the only logic I can see behind the stodgy-jam-filled macarons idea. He would be better off making refined versions of custard tarts and puff pastries, or ginger-anise or jasmine or almondy apricot-kernel flavoured sweet rice flour dusted jellies in pretty shapes or, well...Actually there are a range of Asian-inspired French patisserie on offer, but this type of thing is never done properly outside of Asia. Not even the French or the Japanese patisserie chefs who live in Paris (i.e. Sadaharu Aoki) can get it right. Maybe it's our fault for being Westerners with bland palates.

Alan Yau is not actually the chef. He's an entrepreneur, who learned the restaurant trade first in his father's takeaway bar, then by opening the westernised-Japanese noodle chain called Wagamama in 1992, which he then sold and which grew into a behemoth. He has achieved something like celebrity-chef status via his 'soft-engineering' (mega-hussling and idea-mongering) in the restaurant trade.

He now owns two Michelin-starred Chinese restaurants in London, Yauatcha and Hakkasan (chefs Tong Chee Hwee and Cheong Wah Soon, both from Singapore), and a popular Thai chain called Busaba Eathai in collaboration with chef David Thompson. Smart guy... with a knack for seeing those obvious gaps in the culinary scene. I wish I could impress upon him the huge market potential for gourmet burgers or yakitori in Cologne – then he could go do all the venture capital stuff and make it a reality. And we wouldn't even need to have a 4-million pound restaurant interior. Child's play for Yau, I'd say!

But he and his patisserie chef Stephane Suchata at Yauatcha are not that good at desserts.

Here's the mixed game pie I keep harping on about, from the Broadway Market
in London.

That pie was so bloody damn good. It was the apple of my pie, ah, eye.

It was sold by a nice old fellow with a trestle table, from an award-winning pie-maker who had prepared it herself the night before. (I didn't write down the name unfortunately).

This market has a very nice selection of foods (mostly organic or wild) including yummy Ghanaian stews like okra & pork and a peanut chicken stew (very good and a long queue), some nice 2nd hand clothes and a Japanese lady selling cute knock-offs, some overpriced antiques, old children's textbooks and good-looking bretagne-style crepes, brown and oozing with spinach and cheese.
It's very nice to walk there along the canal from Islington.



This trip to London (stopping off on the way back from Toronto) really changed my opinion about the food offerings of Old Blighty!

Other treats over four days included tasty soda bread from Selfridges supermarket, huge decadent Morrocan meringues covered in pistachios piled up in the window of a restaurant near Angel in Islington, very good lamb tagine, dips and flatbreads from one of three restaurants in Islington all called Gallipoli, and, on the more traditional tip, a YUM sticky date pudding – warm, steamed, light-textured but rich flavoured.

Another highlight was the famous London "foodie" (hate that word) destination the Borough Market
, which is in a very urban setting (under the struts of London Bridge?): we had warm organic apple juice with honey which tasted like apple pie, and bought an artisan brown loaf (I say brown because I'm not sure exactly what was in it,) from the Degustibus stall. Is artisan the most overused and confusing word of the moment? We saw an 'artisan toaster' at Saturn mega electronic store the other day. I'm waiting for the slow food movement toaster....it takes five days to slowly dry your bread into a cracker.

Of course there are still plenty of windows advertising jellied eels or baked beans and chips, too...

Top nosh, geezer.

Nothing like a good pie!!