This month we set our wits (and stomachs) against two competing gourmet Thai restaurants, visited the openings of two trendy new bars, travelled to an Indian restaurant that serves none other than Chinese food and even got home in time to celebrate the 140th birthday of the Langham Hotel.
Restaurants reviewed this month
Noble Rot Mayfair. A smart restaurant witha remarkable wine list.
Ping Pong Soho. Dim Sum and then some in designer surroundings.
Chor Bizarre Mayfair. An unusual Indian serving above average food in beautifully eclectic surroundings
La Porte des Indes West End. Another unique Indian restaurant, this time housed in a beautiful Edwardian ballroom.
SOUK Westminster. Fast and funky food for your lunchtime dining requirements.
Blue Ginger Harrow. An Indian restaurant where Chinese food is also on the menu.
Thai on the River Battersea. It does exactly what it says on the tin
Homage Patisserie The Strand. Classic afternoon teas done to perfection.
Brilliant Southall. With a name like that it has to be good and it is
Hell Spitalfields. We go there. And come back
Sugar Reef Soho. On the rocks?
Dylan's Cockfosters. The rabbit from the Magic Roundabout?
Whits Classy food in chic surrounding
The Swan at Iver Out of town but not out of mind.
May we as usual take this opportunity to remind you that if a restaurant really gives you a bad time, please talk to them and allow them a chance to explain/make amends before you trash them on the website!
Langham - we're loving it
To the Langham Hotel where this venerable old lady is celebrating her 140th birthday. This classic hotel has always kept its standards very much of the old school, whilst embracing new technology. Outside are horse drawn carriages with liveried footmen but at the same time I also spot a Mercedes SLR McLaren - £343,000 worth of state of the art supercar parked prominently. It seems apt for a hotel that has such amenities as a marvellous modern indoor pool made from an old bank vault as well as a fine spa and gymnasium
Inside the place is heaving and champagne is flowing. A giant bar has been made out of pure ice from which a team of ‘mixologists’ are sending out a steady stream of seriously good cocktails. There is also a steady stream of melting water coming off the ice bar. Someone’s going to have to deal with a lake come tomorrow morning, I fear.
Food is excellent, kangaroo steaks, crocodile sausages and green lip mussels plus a variety of other yummy things. I bump into Brian Turner, an old-hand TV chef who is also excecutive Head Chef of the restaurant at Brian Turner Mayfair. His comments about the drummer, who was making it impossible for us to talk properly, revealed some true Yorkshire bluntness.
The Langham Hilton is steeped in history and recent and sympathetic renovations have returned it to splendour. The restaurant, too, has been revamped as ‘Memories’ and has excellent views out over London. A liitle bit of old splendour in an increasingly homogenised restaurant world.
N.H.
An Indian restaurant serving Chinese food? Whatever next?
With a menu that contained Indian, Chinese, and Thai food...and a drink list longer than a James Joyce novel, we thought taking the trip down to Middlesex to eat at the Blue Ginger would be worth it. Even after spending forty minutes on the tube, taking the wrong bus, and then walking for another twenty minutes to backtrack our mistake (which included my partner starting her dinner early with a healthy serving of ground after she tripped over the thick cobblestones on the sidewalk), we were convinced that our decision to take the trip was a good one. The manager insisted that parts of the eclectic menu were based on Indian interpretations of Chinese food, while my partner insisted that the atmosphere was an Indian interpretation of a TGI Fridays. But they made up for it by bringing out brilliant platters if various dishes with lots of tasty exotic cocktails. By the end, we had drank so much that we almost started craving late night Indian food. “Nope. Already stuffed,” I said as we drunkenly hobbled out to the wrong bus stop.
A.B.
Tossers at the bar
At the opening of the Asian-flavoured bar/nightclub Karma, I was surprised
to see how much of the Chelsea set would jump to experience a culture other
than their own. But with cool golden Buddhist statues all over the place,
trendy fluorescent lighting with twinkly stars on the ceiling, and a strange
exotic
techno music that reminded me more of a French rave than a Tibetan monastery,
I began to understand a little. Grabbing some authentic Asian champagne,
I set out for a little light conversation. The
task was hard, as most were too busy staring at the sexy looking bartenders
and exotic décor to notice
me. Instead, I spent most of my time watching football in one of their very
posh and private tatami rooms, spreading myself out over the gigantic multi-coloured
couch that mysteriously took up the entire room. When so many people showed
up that they had to start charging for drinks (£8 to £8.50 for
exotic cocktails like the Honey Tiger, Singapore Sling, or my favourite,
Phuket Beach) I thought it best to make my way to the door.
A.B.
Take two Thais - Blue Elephant and Mango Tree
Mango Tree and Blue Elephant are large Thai Restaurants, perhaps the biggest in London and twin global players. With both launching revamped menus this Summer we put them to the taste test.
Blue Elephant is a big old pachyderm. It’s been in its Fulham location for as long as I can remember, I certainly remember that when it opened I, as an underpaid copy writer, couldn’t afford to go there. My art director did, frequently, but photographers back then weren’t inclined to waste money on the word bloke when they could bribe the art tart. And so it is with some excitement, some fifteen years later, that I scuttle to the land of the rugby playing Nigel and his publishing wife Arabella to try the a sample of the Food Festival menu along, it has to be said, with many other freeloaders.
As I crash around in the greenery like a gourmet Ray Mears and avoid falling in the cute river that runs around the restaurant, I get given a rather nice cocktail and begin the task of hunting down the canapes. Some smart satays and strange looking, but delicious, purple steamed things, as well those delicious wraps of betel leaf containing chilli, dried prawns and nuts are all being freshly prepared by beautiful Thai girls. I could eat a lot of these (the canapes! the canapes!) but better is yet to come apparently. Pat Chapman is here, the revered author of many a curry-stained cookbook in my kitchen. It’s thanks to him that I have spent many a happy afternoon making curry sauce in massive batches and freezing it in ice cubes. The smell lingers, I tell him. His wife agrees with a heartfelt sigh and a sideways look at her cheerful husband. Pat introduces me to the Excecutive Head Chef of La Port des Indes, a partner restaurant in the Blue Elephant book and man who has just written a delightful cookbook for which Pat has provided an authoratative. After a speech of welcome and a round of applause for the kitchen team, its off to the tables for the banquet to begin.
With fourteen separate dishes grouped into starters, mains and dessert, and wines to accompany chosen by the Elephant’s talented, and vairry ffrench sommelier it was a marathon scoff. I mistook my steamed cod puree in a crab shell for something else and bit right though it, the resulting crack deafened me and my teeth are still a little loose. My own fault though. Dishes just kept on coming some a little lukewarm but all showing the consistency all to be expected from a near industrial operation. Which, I have to say, is a little blander than you might expect. But this isn't really a fair test as the kitchen rarely has to turn out so many dishes all at the same time. For a lunchtime feast it takes some beating, though.
N.H.
Mango Tree
Before I took the long plane ride from the States over to England, I was routinely haunted by the terrible and incredibly untrue rumor that British food was just a tad bit less than spectacular. Pieces of Fish and Chips and chunky bits of Shepherd’s Pie danced up and down through my head, taunting me night and day. But little did I know, when I got to the UK, I would be eating Thai food.
I was invited to Mango Tree, along with many others, for a PR event. The new head chef, Mark Read, was unveiling his new menu to a select few, probably to get some opinions on his newfound creations. As I didn’t know what to expect, I was a little surprised when I walked in.
The atmosphere of the place reminded me more of a Gourmet European restaurant than Thailand. Compared to the jungle of palm fronds and artificial rivers of the Blue Elephant, Mango Tree looked rather plain. But the designers were obviously going for a classy and sophisticated look.
I stepped into the bar to order some cocktails. Hearing about their famous Mango Champagne, I decided to give it a try. The barman poured the ingredients (some grenadine, mango juice, and then a healthy dose of champagne) on top of each other to form three concrete layers. Having trouble stirring it all up as the ingredients were rather thick, I ended up sipping straight grenadine for a minute until the drink decided to settle. This was not much to my taste, so I decided to order some regular champagne the next time around.
After a few minutes of making polite but restrained conversation and nibbling on some lovely shrimp chips (or at least that's what I considered them to be), we made our way to the table. Shortly, Chef Read himself brought over a starter of crispy sweet and sour frogs legs made with satay. Since the closest I’ve tried to frogs legs in America was a piece of grilled chicken, I was rather surprised with the intense flavour of the dish and the tender way they peeled off the bone into my mouth. Another starter, the grilled stuffed baby squid, was a little less flavourful, and tasted more like a sausage. The man sitting next to me spoke my feelings when he bluntly asked the chef if there was any squid in it at all, because he couldn’t taste any. He might have been my hero for the night, except I was too busy watching for Chris Martin from Coldplay (who is rumored to come here often.)
Since the portions were small, I was getting a little worried that I might leave the dinner table still hungry. But my worries were soothed when the chef brought out a hefty plate of panang curry lamb shank. The brown spicy sauce was a lot for my unprepared palate, but gave the tender meat an explosively peppery flavour. The lobster and rice noodles stir fried in kow tang na tang sauce finished off the job. They looked like chow fun noodles that I would only see in a Chinese restaurant, but the sauce tasted like the familiar pad thai dishes that are a staple of Thai food in the States.
By the time I finished the noodles, I was too stuffed to even consider the massive load of dessert and after dinner drinks and coffee I was offered. But not considering them isn't the same as not eating them. Let's just say that by the time I wobbled out, there was no room in any part of my body (especially my brain) for scary dancing Fish and Chips.
A.B.
Into Bullet...out like a bullet
A champagne reception at the Bullet Bar in Kentish Town seemed like a good idea...until I realised it started at 6:30 in the afternoon and ran right through dinner. After trying for an hour to get somebody else to sacrifice a precious meal and go with me, I finally gave up and took the tube to Camden by myself. After being approached by a rather scary group of punks with tri-colored mohawks as long as one of my limbs, I was feeling rather uneasy. Fortunately, I was comforted at the door by the bouncer who gave me his personal card. Much to my dismay, this turned out to be a drink ticket, good for one glass of champagne. After the bartender sweetly informed me that there was no champagne at the champagne reception, I took my one beer and set out to find some food to replace my missed meal. A dark haired lady carrying a gigantic plate of canapes swerved around the room, always seeming to jump away when I made eye contact with her. How she did that with all of those kebobs on her arm, I have no idea. Instead, I stayed for ten minutes and stared at the pretty red couches full of people and tried to figure out if the person sitting in the corner really was Tom Cruise, or just a paid actor. Heh, maybe a multi-millionaire like Tom could afford this disaster of a night.
A.B.
