A Little Korean - Assa: Soho, Monday 14th March, 2010

I've been to both branches of Assa before, but this was a visit where I think I understood the appeal of simple Korean food more than my previous experiences. A very traditional, get-you-in, get-you-out London Asian restaurant, there is much to be said for spending £10 or £15 here on some uncomplicated dinner.

I was also more informed about what it was we actually ate. Last time I was part of a group which sort of ordered and left me to get on with it. This time, in a party of three, I was able to have more input into what was on the table.

When eating Korean food, there is an iconic dish one must try: kim-chi. It's important to try this because it is synonymous with Korean eating right down to the roots. Rough, fresh and assembled at the table, it's a stunning synthesis of several quaint and traditional culinary forms. The only problem is, it's horrible. Sour, ridiculously spicy and generally unpleasant. Which is a shame, since hot rice, vegetables, sauces and a raw egg combined at the table in front of your face should be amazing.

Of course, not everyone agrees with me. The other half and the friend who was at the table with us devoured some kim-chi soup - like the should-be-good rice but actually predictably vile - which had a huge lump of tofu floating in it. I tried some, choked and didn't try any more. However if you like thin, spicy, sour soup (with tofu) this will be right up your street (left).

Fortunately, the rest of what we ordered pressed my buttons. Pork belly was peppery and snappy but unnecessarily dusted with sesame seeds. The taste was good but the slices so thin you were quickly transported from flavoursome meat to unpleasant fat and back again fairly quickly. The same seafood pancake as before was enjoyed as thoroughly as before (right). It was crispy, thick and soft in the middle. It's much like an omelette but one you feel happy to fill with other foodstuffs.

We completed our table-full with some noodles. Glass noodles were ordered with vegetables and they were practically fought over. Glass noodles, unlike the standard kind, are based on sweet potato and as such they have a far more distinctive, chewy texture. They work remarkably well when combined with old-fashioned greasy sauce and veg to make a delicious and filling comfort food. Beef udon noodles were similar: the kind of thing you just didn't want to stop eating (left).

The right kind of dishes can make a lot of difference when it comes to Korean food. When you've got the food on the money, sharing it and wolfing down mouthfuls of assorted dishes becomes a treat and one that is easy to see the appeal of. It's not glamorous cuisine but it can be a lot of fun. Best eaten with friends or having a few dishes to share, Assa is certainly a good, cheap meal out.

Odette's & Wang-Fu-Don: Camden, Saturday 19th February, 2011

Primrose Hill is probably my favourite place in London. The view across the city is second to none, perfectly encapsulating London's special disparate charm. The hill itself is simply picturesque, with green rolling verges punctuated by lush trees, and it feels as if the sumptuous beauty of the park rubs off on the surrounding area. The side roads which you walk down to get to the hill from Camden are stunning: old industrial conversions along the side of the canal, resplendent detached houses and picturesque suburban-urban peacefulness.

North London (particularly surrounding Camden) is not known for good eating, but there is food to be found if you look hard enough. One place I'd hoped to try for some time was Odette's. A star dish in two consecutive London Restaurant Festival visits, their lamb had ensured the name stayed etched in my memory and it was always on my 'to visit' list.

One Saturday earlier in the year, we took the plunge and went for the set lunch menu and then followed it with a walk and some tea-time food which made for a typically indulgent and memorable day out. Lunch was the main event naturally, and even though we were on a set menu deal, we were still expecting to be impressed.

Bryn Williams is the main man at Odette's. He's something of a quintessentially modern British chef without the eye-rolling. He's done his time, training under Marco Pierre White and Michel Roux jr. He worked in France for a while. He's excelled on The Great British Menu. And he's a native Welsh speaker. There's not a lot to dislike about Bryn Williams.

When you go inside Odette's there's even less to dislike about him. Having taken over the place in 2008 as chef patron and owner, the theme of the restaurant is simple and current: comfortable, old-fashioned, Great British eating. It's not too pricey (the weekend lunch deal was three courses for £25) and the setting entirely welcoming and unpretentious.

Good bread and butter came in a basket and said basket was sent back to the kitchen minutes later with nothing left in it. Our first starter was something altogether unexpected from a very British institution: cured salmon, or as we might know it: sashimi (left). It was exquisitely fresh and tender, something we practically squabbled over sharing. Fish this good doesn't need much with it. The radish, avocado and ginger was a nod to the already pronounced Japanese leanings of the dish but the salmon was so good none of the rest really registered.

Along with this, we sampled one of those dishes that was so exceptionally conceived you wish you'd opened a restaurant just so you could've thought of it. Or at least claimed the creative rights. However I want to eulogise this won't do it justice: it was a bloody good serving of quail (right). Roast on the side of a toasted goats cheese sandwich with broccoli, I was in heaven through every bite. The entire premise was gloriously simple but incredibly satisfying. Naturally, we ended up fighting over this one too so we wanted to eat both starters exclusively by ourselves.

We were told that unfortunately the kitchen had run out of the braised pork shoulder as a main course. I was a little disheartened but since we were (I believe) the last table to be seated for lunch, I could understand. Instead, they were replacing the pork with rabbit. So that was braised rabbit with Alsace bacon, white bean and apple. Now, I did not really see rabbit combining with these, but rabbit in general is not something I usually turn down. I don't know how good the pork would've been with this dish, but the rabbit tasted like it was meant to be on that plate all along (left). Beans cooked to perfection, bacon crispy and rich and apple smoothing over the meat which was falling off the bone.

Our second main course was not one you'd usually see us ordering. The other half and I are a couple of fairly pronounced meat eaters but the look of a butternut squash risotto with parmesan and pine nuts was too much to resist. Fortunately we had chosen well. The rice was light, unimposing and fairly sang with the sweet, subtle notes of the root vegetables (right). The dish looked a picture and delivered on all counts.

Desserts were not to be sniffed at and we were right to indulge. We decided to pay £20 for our two courses and go for a la carte desserts. Two in particular looked too good to miss out on. Some apple tart was exactly as we'd hoped: crisp on the bottom and sweet on the top. It wasn't quite what I'd eaten at Ramsay or Launceston Place but nice nonetheless.

The stand-out from the dessert menu was the chocolate mousse (left). Served around passion fruit & banana sorbet which sat atop some small cubed biscuits, the mousse was quite wonderful: moderately aerated, slightly swirly, a little creamy and winningly rich. Four warm madelines on the side and the place had gone from great to tapping the spirit of St. John. A truly special dessert.

That was lunch. Lunch was terrific. We were ready for a leisurely walk from the base of Primrose Hill through the side streets down the canal to Camden Lock. The walk along the Regents Canal to Camden is a special walk. It's riddled with tiny elements of historical spice, from the still-operational freight mainline bridge over the canal to the narrow boats constantly moored in the lock.

Despite the slow and steady soul extraction of Camden, developers have yet to remove all its whimsical charm. The stables market proper may be gone, but the myriad of shops and small home-made sellers still operating on the banks of the lock retain their own special vibrancy. Camden is a town for all seasons, all comers and, relevant to this February Saturday, all cuisines.

We came across Wang-Fu-Don, an apparently rather above-average restaurant. But it's not really called that. You and I would know it as Yum Cha Silks & Spice. I certainly think the former is better than the latter so I will continue to refer to it as such. Dim sum was the order of the day and despite that fact that we didn't altogether need it, we wandered in and were sat at a wipe-clean, no-nonsense, utterly typical Chinese restaurant table.

This was not the best dim sum I've eaten. Nor was it even the best Asian food I ate that day (that cured salmon was still sashimi to my mind), but it was pretty nice. I will say immediately the plate of duck tongues the other half devoured were pretty vile: chewy, bone-lined and pointless. I must have missed their point immediately but she loved them.

On the plus side, egg tarts were crumbly, sweet and had just enough of a greasy hint to leave an impression. I love these things so much as I have mentioned before, so if they're even half good they're worth it. Alongside these we ate some barbecued pork puffs which had the correct buttery and flaky pastry to be contradictory and so brilliantly Asian (both right). They might be terrible at desserts but that seems to be because they've used their effort in putting strands of dessert into main courses.

Pork and prawn cheung fun (thin, white, pasta-like dumplings) were the highlight. Tender, salty and delicate meat fillings with silky smooth outer cases were exactly as we hoped (left). We also made it our business to try one of the yardsticks by which any dim sum meal can be measured: barbecued pork buns. I vividly remember eating these for the first time many years ago. My first taste of dim sum, I recall thinking "where have you been all my life?" These were not necessarily that good (maybe it's metaphysically impossible any others ever will be) but they were delicious enough: fluffy, moist, warm and comforting.

I really do like the part of London that sits proudly at the top of the tube map. It's fun, genuine and a place that really does appeal to a vast and diverse crowd. Lunch and tea time were both great fun. The latter was an unnecessary indulgence which revealed a decent neighbourhood Chinese restaurant: something which deserves noting in anyone's book. The former was a delight which I won't soon forget. I'll be back to both of these places I'm sure; just Odette's will be a more special occasion.

Odette's

Yum Cha Silks & Spice

Launceston Place...Again: Kensington, Wednesday 9th February, 2011

I've mused long and hard (if one can indeed muse hard) on re-visiting places with dire consequences before, so I shan't do the same here. Launceston Place, for the third time since I've been doing this blog, was another visit that provided much to talk about.

At the turn of the year, I had really been pushing myself. I was keenly showing my intent to apply for a vacant manager's position at work, a promotion which I did actually get (and one, incidentally, which helps to explain my posting slowdown in 2011), but in doing so I was close to burnout. I was instructed to take a morning or afternoon off and enjoy myself to get away from work. Naturally my mind quickly reasoned 'afternoon off = lunch out'.

The other half had a day off too, so we decided to once again sample Launceston Place's ridiculously reasonable lunch offer. It turned out to be even better during the week: £22 for three courses sounds decent, but considering the great time we had some months earlier, it sounded almost too good to be true. To top it off, it was one of those outstandingly sunny days which make the gradual end of winter and the eventual entry to spring a beautiful time.

Launceston Place has confounded certain critics in the press for some time. They believe the place deserves a Michelin Star and it remains a scandal that it hasn't had one yet. The food here is branded as British but I think it can't be pinned down to one sort of cuisine. Like many other popular venues, this is food based in Britain that has picked up traces of worldly spice along the way into defining quite a unique product.

On the other hand, some say this place is just trying too hard, that head chef Tristan Welch has gotten caught up in the extensive and diverse culinary background he has catalogued. (Welch has worked with Gary Rhodes, Michel Roux and Marcus Wareing amongst others.) I sit on the fence, safe in the knowledge that no Michelin Star means no price hike-up and more effort from the kitchen.

What I love about Launceston Place is the little touches they put into their meals. When you sit down, you get home-made devilled crisps (left). These are crunchy and flavoursome; a little greasy but fresh crisps should have a touch of grease about them. Just the ticket with a glass of fresh orange juice as we had here.

What followed was even better: home-baked bread with salted butter and pickled herring (right). This was excessive, filling, rustic and undoubtedly extremely English. There aren't many meals which good bread & butter can't improve and this as a starter was just the ticket. The problem was the crust being slightly hard and had that unwanted gum-cutting feel to it at times. That and the fact that you had wolfed down so much bread so quickly you didn't want to eat anything else.

Still, we weren't to be deterred by our bread indulgence and hungrily looked forward to our starters. As per our last visit, duck egg with toast, black truffle and truffle purée was nothing short of outstanding (left). The fumy magnificence of truffles is something that restaurants have a duty to get across (the misuse of truffles should be an arrestable offence) and in this starter, Launceston Place know exactly what they are doing. I don't see any reasonable way this dish could be improved upon.

The second starter looked so rich and heavy on the page that it did not appear to be a starter at all. Braised short rib of beef with polenta should really be something that comes in a steaming bowl with perfectly-cooked vegetables when you're hitting main courses, but somehow it was a starter here. It was rather pleasant: the beef was cooked exceptionally and the polenta was quite a fun accompaniment, as were the mini-onion rings on top. It looked great too (right). However, the nature of the dish was a little lost on me. For a starter, it was on the heavy side and it felt like more of a converted main course than an impeccably conceived dish. Maybe I'm nit-picking though; we devoured it.

Main courses proved to be rather fun too. It seemed Welch had gone for playful ideas and impressive concepts last winter. Chicken cooked au vin with bacon was, at first glance, one of those deconstructed, pretentious efforts of reviving a classic when you looked at it but when you tasted it you got the point (left). Two separate styles of chicken, one with a dark, sticky glaze and one with a more saucy, gravy-like accompaniment, worked rather well as a contrast. The bacon was smoky and rich enough to stay on the plate.

The stand-out was the pork, though (right). Cooked with cider wood (which they then left on the plate for show) and served with apple compote and hazelnut mash, the stuff was absolutely charming. Aside the inconvenience of removing the hazelnuts and debating whether or not to make a small shed out of the cider wood, the meat was divine, the potatoes were creamy and the small fruit jellies they scattered on top of the meat were the crowning touch. Seriously tender meat which made for superb late-winter lunch.

Dessert was of course necessary, but we were starting to feel the effects of the bread, crisps and other heavy fare we'd eaten up to this point. In a cruel joke of a move, they soothed us with lemon posset and thyme jelly as a pre-dessert (left). I say it was a cruel joke since they didn't need to give it to us, we probably shouldn't have eaten any more than we needed and it was a little out of place on a winter menu. It turned out to have the desired effect: eaten double-quickly, making one think it was clearing one's palate, as opposed to filling one up even further.

Picking ourselves up for the final push, we trudged into a treacle tart with creme-fraiche ice cream (right). Back to British for the desserts, this was really decent treacle tart. The pastry was verging on the dry side but the filling and the ice cream were both wonderfully pleasant and complimentary.

The last part was possibly the best. Unless the sun is out in spring or summer, you can't really get away with a rhubarb crumble on an English menu. Unless you call it 'baked egg custard, rhubarb and crumble'. Before you start sighing and shaking your head, let me tell you why this was a stroke of brilliant brio on the kitchen's part. Baked egg custard is not a summer dessert - rather than a sauce they're turning it into a pudding - and rhubarb, whilst synonymous with warmer climes in the UK, is apparently even better when it's force-grown in winter. Giving a stronger, fresher taste and a bright pink colour it lends more to the dish on all fronts. Finally sprinkle on the crumble and you've got your winter dessert. It was sensational (left). We practically fought over it.

They had one last chance to send us out of the door and straight to lie down with some lovely vanilla mousse and lemon madelines to finish with (right). This was great, enjoyable and excessive eating. Too much by half but we couldn't help ourselves. As I said, it's all about the little touches here.

The lunch we ate was not, as I mentioned earlier, something I'd label 'British' as it were. But it was filling, driven by the eager hunger, giving way to outright greed, of two enthusiastic diners. There's not a lot about eating that's more British than that. A Michelin Star may not be in the wings for this place - it's not French enough and the service is never perfect - but the food is simply wonderful.

Launceston Place

Taiwanese New Year: Phoenix Palace - Marylebone, Tuesday 8th February, 2011

This post could be entitled 'Chinese New Year', but anyone who knows me well knows that I am predisposed to label it as I have. My Taiwanese connections are strong and there are fewer worse faux pas you can make than assuming anyone oriental is Chinese.

Inter-country rivalry is something that has always fascinated me. Being the rugby fan that I am, I have a once-yearly showing of primal, chest-beating, nationalist pride with the coming of the Six Nations. Wouldn't you know it, the Six Nations runs right about the time of Asian new year. In fact, the preceding Saturday had seen England kick off their campaign with a victory in Wales. Given that a Welshman was amongst our attendees here, I was in the mood to differentiate nationalities. As such, Taiwanese New Year it was.

As a party of nine, we decided to celebrate the occasion at a venue well-suited to the group's size. We settled on Phoenix Palace, a well-renowned Chinese place near Baker Street. It's absolutely the right place to take a big group: tables of all sizes all over the place. It's the kind of place that you might not want to go if there are two of you; the greater the numbers, the better your chance of getting noticed.

There were many predictable negotiations on what we were going to order. Some wanted seafood, some wanted dishes we could share, Mike wanted meat and lots of it. I was happy to let the other half flaunt her expertise on both organisation and knowledge of oriental food. We got the order in and were presented with a huge array of diverse Chinese dishes.

We had a traditional Beijing roast duck to start. Ask more or less any English advocate of Chinese food which dish they like best and the odds are it'll be this one. Of course, the standard answer will be something along the lines of "that crispy duck with pancakes" but this is what it's actually called. And, in the true style of "that crispy duck with pancakes", this stuff was moreish, sweet and satisfying. It's essentially comfort food, but it's great to be sharing this kind of stuff with friends on a winter's night.

Sharing was certainly the name of the game this evening. Some people have reservations about sharing food but I have no time for this. One of the wonderful things about eating with open-minded friends is that you can get your fingers grubby, trust their hygiene and relish in the special atmosphere of communally enjoying a great time. Anyway, if you're that worried about hygiene, you shouldn't be eating in mid-price restaurants.

The cavalcade of dishes that followed was breathtaking, mainly for the fact that we had ordered so bloody much. To start with, some sweet & sour pork wasn't the usual pot of glazed gristle and sugar you get in your average takeaway... But it wasn't a million miles from that because that's more or less what sweet & sour dishes are. On the side, some mini pak choi (Chinese cabbage, essentially) was served with garlic, along with that semi-stewed, semi-overcooked feel you always get with Chinese veg.

Some stir-fried beef with mango was a new one on me (left). When you think of stir-fried beef, you conjure an image of either shredded or hopelessly overcooked meat swamped in thick, salty sauce. This was vastly different: a light, almost unique take on modern Chinese food, and one I did not expect: I would never have paired beef with mango.

Next up was an assortment of perfectly fried chicken. Wings, legs and thick meat all cooked to within a crispy skin of excellence. And served with prawn crackers, as if to remind us where our heritage in Chinese food comes from. Another new dish for me was some ostrich (right). I'd never eaten it but the idea of ostrich served with port and shallots, flambéed for good measure was enticing. And not particularly Chinese either. Wherever they got their inspiration, it was worth it for the spectacle and the unlikely sensation of a gamy jolt to a meal you'd not normally expect to get one.

The centrepiece of the evening was a whole seabass (left). The other half described it as "stunning" and the rest of us agreed. Served in a typically Asian way - soya sauce, ginger, coriander, garlic, spring onion and white wine - and presented as only a big fish should be: on the bone, whole, we loved it. Impressively fresh, tender and delicately balanced flavours. A winner with a bowl of rice on the side.

(This might begin to sound greedy now, but remember there were nine of us...) We inhaled a round of battered oysters (not quite as good as The Harwood Arms a month or so earlier) which were fairly amazing. Mike's comment  that the best way to get him eating seafood - "covered in greasy batter" - was actually a comment full of praise, though my one-time contributor has a flair for disguising goodwill as criticism.

Two final meat dishes saw us off: the imaginative but not out-of-this-world lamb with honey and asparagus (this seriously veered away from the Chinese feel of the food for me) and a very well-executed rotisserie selection (the pork belly was the highlight) because we didn't feel as if we'd done ourselves justice with the nine dishes we'd eaten thus far (right).

Phoenix Palace was a pleasant meal which was well-thought out, impressively served and enjoyed by all who attended. It wasn't overly pricey, though I don't think any of us went home stuffed. In terms of a bright, fun night out it's got everything going for it: decorations and zany Asian-ness oozing out of the walls. Well-liked by locals and importantly by tourists, it will continue to stand as one of the better and more popular Chinese restaurants in London. Their menu has more interesting and informed dishes on it than most other Chinese places I can think of.

I would say it didn't have the touch of class we might reasonably have expected - their list of celebrity clientèle is long and illustrious - but it was a great evening out with friends. It's rare that you want any more from life than that.

Phoenix Palace

Tokyo Diner: Soho, Thursday 6th January, 2011

The malady that many multicultural foodies in London commonly suffer from is that you can't get genuinely good Japanese food anywhere. There are exceptions: I personally enjoyed Ribon greatly and many seem to think Asakusa is as close to the real deal as you'll get in London. On price alone, they may have a point.

Chinatown is not necessarily known for its outstanding Japanese restaurants, but Tokyo Diner is standing strong as it approaches its twentieth anniversary next year. Richard Hills is the Englishman behind the venture which has brought a fairly consistent stream of success. Influenced by an extensive knowledge of Japanese people and culture, the inspiration behind the café is to recreate the sort of everyday typical restaurant one would find in Japan. Essentially, this place should have the same pull as Asakusa.

It doesn't, for a few reasons: it's not as charming, it's in Chinatown and it doesn't have the same feeling of authenticity as Asakusa. The only other factor is the food. A perfect test of this kind of restaurant should be an early evening cheap and cheerful lunch with a few friends. So here we go...

We tried a healthy sample of dishes, starting with a sashimi set of salmon,sea bream and sea bass (left). For 12 slices of raw fish, £10.60 is a bit toppy for a place that prides itself on being affordable, but they were rather fresh and refreshing. We also ordered a starter / side dish of chicken kara-agé which is chicken legs fried after being marinated in a soya-based sauce (right). You'd think they had been battered but the delicate balance they struck with the chicken made the skin crispy and the dish light enough to stay on the side.

Oyako don (or chicken with eggs and rice in a bowl) was fairly decent as a main course. The problem for me was that they'd pelted this with egg to the extent that it almost overwhelmed the chicken. Two of us had a tonkatsu bento box, which was fried and breadcrumbed pork cutlets with rice, pickles, sashimi and the typical seaweed-infested Japanese salad that, no matter how it is presented, always looks like the result of trawling a midlands canal. However, as with any good bento box, we were quickly mixing all parts of the assortment of food as quick as our hands and mouths would let us (left).

Finally, we sampled the chicken katsu curry, apparently the most popular dish on the menu (right). It was easy to see why: mild, enticing curry sauce with more or less meat 'n potatoes. Everyone should march out of Wagamama and proceed directly to Tokyo Diner to see what a more proper and earthy katsu curry tastes like. It's curry for the British who aren't obsessed with Indian food.

The issue that some people might take with Tokyo Diner is that it seems awfully try-hard, even patronising at times. They take it as their duty to explain the significance and popularity of each dish, even the styles of dishes, supplemented with extensive descriptions of what it is you're looking at. The haughty, know-all restaurant-goers amongst us may feel this is them blowing their own trumpet at just what a genuine experience they're giving us. We'll judge this for ourselves, thank you very much.

Not me though. This is the effort of somewhere that is so passionate and caring about what they do that they have taken it completely to heart. They are imploring the customer to not only enjoy their food but to embrace and immerse themselves in it and the cultural nuances of Japanese eating.

There is almost nothing to dislike about Tokyo Diner. They are open twelve hours a day all year long and apparently once turned over 550 covers in one day. I would wager that most of those people went home having had a lovely, bustling and lively meal which left them full, satisfied and not much lighter of pocket.

Possibly my favourite part of this place is their ethos on service and patronage. They insist you don't tip at the restaurant, apparently a nonexistent etiquette in Japan. All they ask for is that you recommend this place to your friends if you enjoyed it. Here's me doing my bit for them.

Tokyo Diner