Midnight Feast – Bincho: Soho, Friday 18th December, 2009

‘Tis the season (or was the season anyway) for Christmas parties. Fortunately, my colleagues and I had been lucky enough to experience one of the better mass-dining events on show by eating a traditional Christmas lunch at the Hyde Park Hilton. For mass-prepared and quickly-served food which is hard to glorify, they did a decent job.

The lunch segued into a drink-fest, then a disco, then a pub visit, so by around 10pm I was starting to get peckish again. A friend on a separate Christmas do called me to suggest some late dinner, so sometime later, myself, two friends and the other half wandered into Soho in search of some food just before midnight.

Soho is great for after-hours drinking, and we weren’t hugely keen to hit China Town on this particular day, so we chanced Old Compton Street (possibly my favourite road in London) for some late-night eats. We came across Bincho, a Japanese barbecue joint who could accommodate us at this late hour. Bingo!

The principle of the place is fantastic: you order small dishes of whatever takes your fancy, all fresh from the grill. It’s essentially bite-size barbecue. And it’s good. Really good at times. The main highlights were quail eggs wrapped in bacon (below left), chicken oysters (small spheres of delight found in between the leg and body of the bird and below right) and eel.

Worthy contenders were also some chicken wings and a delicious platter of assorted fish, meat and veg. Add some rice on the side and all is well. We tore into the assortment of lightly-grilled delights on offer with the sort of vigour that can only result after a day of partying through to midnight.

We raised our eyebrows slightly when the bill arrived: it was well over £100, but then we had gone a little overboard with how much we asked for, and certain dishes (especially the eel) weren’t cheap. It didn’t really matter though, as it was exactly what we needed at the time of day, and it was enjoyed by all.

Bincho