24-Hour Dining, Vingt-Quatre – Fulham, 21st of August, 2009

There’s something about food that stirs a primal feeling of need, of instinctive desire. Usually, said feeling occurs after prolonged periods of tiredness, hunger, drinking or all three. Vingt-Quatre of Fulham is a place that caters to these needs whilst serving up most agreeable eats. Convenience has never been London’s speciality, but there are times when you really appreciate exceptions such as this…

As you might expect, this restaurant is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which I have to say I am impressed by. Of course, you can get 24-hour Chinese nosh in the West End, and goodness knows how many all-night pizza/chicken/kebab places there are operating all over the capital. Yet Vingt-Quatre stands alone (in my mind at least) as somewhere you can retire to at 2am to enjoy a superb Eggs Benedict, or a properly dressed, properly cooked rare burger with chips.

On this (rather early) visit on a Friday, I enjoyed a well-layered and delightfully cucumber-less club sandwich with frites. Just the job with a dollop or three of ketchup on the side. Lightly toasted white bread, stacked properly (although a smidge on the dry side), it certainly sorted me out. My other half plumped for the American breakfast, which I have eaten and enjoyed there, but is possibly a little too rich for me. Scotch pancakes, crispy bacon, powdered sugar, fruit and syrup… I think the description alone suffices.

Desserts aren’t half bad either. Decent apple crumble with ice cream certainly filled a hole, and the chocolate brownie (considering I could only try a small amount of it since it contained nuts which I cannot abide) was pretty good too. I also most heartily recommend their banoffee pie.

The downside is the fact that the menu is limited (but it would always have to be in a place like this), and it is also hampered by the need to get tables turned around quite quickly the later into the night you get. However, I strongly suggest checking this place out. My recommended time to do so is any time after midnight on a Friday or Saturday night. Go out for a while, have a few, enjoy yourself… and when you think the night’s ending at a reasonable hour – but ooh! Wouldn’t some tucker be great right now? – then you will know it’s time.

Vingt Quatre

Underneath The Arches – Nar Restaurant, Vauxhall, 20th of August, 2009

Mike and I met up for a catch-up and a meal on a slightly eerie windy and grey evening, and decided to try Nar Restaurant underneath the Vauxhall railway arches. There’s something about eating, drinking or socialising underneath the arches that makes me think of smoke-hazed air, great jukeboxes, a bustling atmosphere and intimate conversation. What we encountered here was a little different. Dolls’ house wallpaper and chandeliers and rows of tables certainly didn’t translate to the speakeasy theme you long for in a rustic London surrounding.

The first reason said atmosphere doesn’t work is the restaurant just looks odd to begin with. A restaurant that looks like a small aircraft hangar with tables and candles does not inspire an image of fine dining. The second reason it doesn’t work is that when you’re eating a meal in a restaurant that looks like it’s trying to be elegant, you don’t really want to hear trains trundling past with alarming volume above your head.

Of course, this might not have mattered if the food had been good. It wasn’t amazing though, and at times it was just plain bad. Whitebait with tartare sauce is hard to get wrong, and so it proved to be a good’un here. The restaurant was Mediterranean-themed, which sounds promising, but when anywhere is focusing on the Greek/Turkish side of Mediterranean, you may need to approach with caution. (Guess where Nar draws its inspiration from.) As such, I hoped the grilled Cypriot halloumi I ordered to start would be better than relentless, dry and underpresented. Annoyingly it wasn’t, and I couldn’t finish it.

The lamb shank I ordered for a main course was decent enough, if not particularly interesting. I wish they hadn’t pelted the sauce with celery, but it was very easy to eat and not stringy at all. Unfortunately, burnt moussaka is never acceptable whatever the standard of restaurant. The most frustrating part of the evening was the near half-hour wait we endured to be given dessert menus. I tried to find some at the reception desk, but they didn’t seem to have any. We only got them when we requested them. By this point, the passable cheesecake and annoyingly not warmed chocolate fudge cake weren’t enough to raise our spirits.

Under-staffed might be a fair criticism, but you can sometimes get past this if you enjoy the food enough at a restaurant. However, when one of the starters is too dry, one of the mains is burnt and the desserts take half the evening to arrive, you’re suddenly longing for a plate of egg and chips underneath the railway arches, sans any twee decorations and pretences of fine food.

Nar Restaurant

Dim Sum lunch at Royal China, Putney - 9th of August, 2009

I have briefly mentioned Royal China before in my bit on egg tarts. I went there for lunch with a friend on a glorious sunny Sunday and even though I've been there a few times, it never ceases to impress and satisfy. Dim sum is, I believe, the very zenith of Chinese eating. Small and condensed, intensely flavoursome portions of loveliness (almost always served in threes), they're a million miles away from the greasebox takeaways so much of the UK associates with Chinese food.

My friend and I split a plate of Shanghai pork noodles to share, then proceeded to eat our way through yam croquettes (like mushroom in a deep-friend casing), tsim-sha-tsui (thin and long barbecued pork dumplings with soy sauce), roast pork buns (gorgeous parcels of pork baked inside large fluffy white dumplings), pork puffs (similar meat inside sweet and buttery pastry cases) and the aforementioned egg tarts.

It's a lot of pork (it tends to be mainly pork and seafood at dim sum places), but the quality is high and it's a great lunch to treat yourself to once in a while. It is a very convenient way of eating too. The service is always prompt and efficient. It's also super quick - within five minutes of ordering, your first couple of dishes are at the table. It's the proper way to eat Chinese and more people should get involved in it.

Royal China

Côte Restaurant, Kensington - 1st of August, 2009

Tom and I indulged ourselves in a heavy and lavish lunch on the first day of August at one of Côte's premier venues, on a small courtyard off High Street Kensington. It's a chain I've seen many times, but never actually eaten in.

The food was relatively standard fare, but I couldn't complain about any of it. (The roquefort butter Tom had with his steak was a tad too strong for me, but he loved it!) An early sign of promise was a basket of warm and fluffy white bread with soft butter. We're both suckers for a nice bit of butter, and this was wolfed down in minutes. The presentation of the bread (classic basket etc...) set the tone for a lot of pretty dishes to come.

The starters of some exquisitely light fried calamari and a decent rilettes (rough duck and pork paté) effort were a nice precursor to two hearty mains. Tom's steak was well-cooked and the frites it came with were quite as they ought to be. As I touched on earlier, the butter was far too strong for my tastes, but Tom put it away with vigour. I plumped for some decent duck, which came with gratin potatoes and dressing. Just about right, I must say.

We (in a seemingly progressively typical decadent fashion) decided to split a creme brulee on top of the desserts we each had. It was great: served in a cute black pot, replete with vanilla pods, and most importantly, the sugar on top was not overpowering. I went for the chocolate fondant (as I seem to be hunting for the perfect one) and Tom ate a divine creme caramel. I've never been a fan of these, but this was excellent and I could've eaten it happily.

Côte isn't really breaking any new ground, but it's yet another affordable chain where you can enjoy slightly-better-than-chain standard food. Check it out if you can, but don't expect the world.

Côte