Cafe Rouge

Another day of staycation, and as we had been to the exhibition of funerary decorations at the Korean Cultural Centre at the top of Northumberland Avenue (well worth a visit before September), Cafe Rouge at the top of Villiers Street was a reasonable choice.
I have been to CR many times, and it represents predictable eating, sometimes with French flair. They all look pretty much the same as a mock French Bistro. I tried the set lunch at £8.95 for two courses.
I tried to check on line for exactly what I had, but what is on their website does not match.

I had a somewhat strange meal of mushrooms followed by mushroom. The starter as shown above is a sauteed mushroom in a light sauce with excellent French bread. This was followed by linguine with mushroom (not very French). The linguine dish was a trifle bland, but both dishes scored an 8 on the CHOF scale. Ruth had the Salmon fishcakes with chips, which was deemed to be excellent.
I came away with the feeling that I might have been better served by the main menu, and that having opted for the set lunch, I got something more suited to English taste. Given that London is awash with international olympic visitors, this may be what is being sought. I am pleased to see that unlike some cities, the Olympics have not been a reason to escalate prices noticeably. Others may think differently.
With one beer and a coffee, the bill came to £25 without service. I just had it in my head that it might be a bit more French, and I guess I should have gone for the main menu which looked a bit more promising. However at the price, it is difficult to complain. It made a change from sandwiches.

Angelo's

28th July.
Last weekend, we went for an unscheduled visit to Al Fresco, and this weekend in a short lived escape from curry, I booked Angelo's. They do not have a web site, but the information on TripAdvisor is sufficient:http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d2363686-Reviews-Angelo_s_Italian_Eating_Place-London_England.html

This is another local place for local people, and contrasts starkly with the Al Fresco in most ways. No photo's as I did not have a camera, and my phone battery was dead, but my description should help.
It is a small place on the High Road in Whetstone, in a small parade of shops/businesses. It attracts locals of a slightly less flashy nature than Al Fresco. The front of house is run by the lady of the house, and those on tripadvisor seem to know her better as Carmela. She knows us by sight, but she greets everyone as a long lost friend, and lets you understand that this is personal. It is a family run business, and they used to have a place in North Finchley, but this more out of the way place is busy. In fact I have tried to get a table for two here on a Saturday night as a same day booking many times and failed. You have to book in advance for the weekend, as it is small (holds about 25-30 tops), and they don't seem to be in the business of extracting as many covers as possible. I probably got in because it is the start of the summer holidays, and the first full day of the Olympics where the Team GB hubris is starting to disintegrate, but no one knew that the day before.
The food is typical old fashioned Italian with lots of veal, and other favourites.
I had the stracciatella soup (which is a Roman egg drop soup, and you don't find it everywhere) followed by calves liver. Ruth had a prawn cocktail followed by Veal in a cream and mushroom sauce.
To my way of thinking the soup is tasty, unusual because of the added egg and Parmesan at the last moment.
My liver was tender and tasty and was accompanied by sauteed courgettes and potatoes (possibly a little too greasy for my taste). Ruth said her cocktail was good, and I tasted her veal which was soft and cooked to just the right amount. We finished off with a shared pannacotta with blackcurrant dressing, which was very rich. The meal was accompanied by a bottle of pink pinot grigio.
The whole meal scored a 10/10 on the CHOF scale, meaning it was served hot, and was sufficiently hot that one had a wait a minute to eat it. 9 is as hot as one would want to eat something.
This is not a fine dining experience, and apparently the place operates as a cafe during the day, but it is a friendly honest place and we have found that the food is consistently good. The place is basic in appearance with a few pictures on the walls, a list of daily specials, and a cafe like work serving counter. It is not as noisy as many modern Italian (and other) eating places, and we have found it a good place to dine in company. Portions are big, and frankly we should not have even shared a dessert. Pricing is average, and the bill was almost exactly the same as the similar meal at Al Fresco (a shade under £60). The difference was that we came out of there with a feeling that our presence had been welcomed, and we were expected to return. Many of the people in there were regulars. It is interesting that even in these times of austerity, there is no shortage of people eating out in London, and you still need to book on a Saturday night.

Eat

23rd July. Staycation. I have some leave to use up, and luckily today is a good day to do it. Visited the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy and the museum/legacy collection of the Association of Anaesthetists. Late lunch at Eat on Regent's Street on the way back to the tube. At 1430 Eat is pretty much empty, and their shelves of Sandwiches the same. They say that they make fresh each day, so the shelves may be sold out. Ruth had a chicken and mayo and I decided to be different and tried their retro chicken curry soup. The sandwich was judged average (Pret seems to be the winner at the moment) and the soup was hot (8 on the CHOF scale) and spicy, but seem to have its legacy in a tube of curry powder rather than original taste. Perhaps that is what they mean by retro. This is what their web site says: 'Retro Chicken Curry
It's curry sauce exactly as you remember it...cooked with chicken and peas to make a mildly warm soup.' 
Well, that is probably not far from the truth, but in temperature it was actually hot, and in spiciness I would put in in mulligatawny but not Madras. I think it was fair value for money, and 2 coffees, a sandwich and the soup cost £9.30. I will probably use them again, but Pret is winning the battle of the light lunch at the moment. Service was good, and the staff greeting was appreciated.

Al Fresco

After the British Museum we managed to get a table at Al Fresco in Whetstone. http://www.alfresco-restaurant.co.uk/ . A local Italian Restaurant for local people. Have not been there for years, as our last experience was less than satisfactory.
This place is amazingly popular and always has been, but we think we got a table at little notice as we agreed to come at 7 pm, and they have extended so much at the back and front that they say on their website that they can accommodate 100 people. Looked like more to me.
No pictures this time.
Suffice it to say that the food we had was excellent and hot. I had a pasta starter and veal in a mushroom sauce for main. Can not fault this.

We found we remembered why we did not frequent this restaurant. With a Saturday night crowd, it is very noisy, being mainly made of hard surfaces and bare tables well packed together, but this is a common thing. The staff are not exactly welcoming, and whilst not unhelpful, it is service with a surl. We simply did not feel as welcome as we do in other establishments, and the head honcho seemed sad to have a full house.
It depends what you want: the prices are reasonable, and the food was excellent, but it is not a place for a quiet meal out.

British Museum Cafe

21st July.
To the British Museum for the Shakespeare exhibition. Surprisingly entertaining. A snack in their courtyard cafe. This has changed franchise since we were last there, and is now run by Benugo, a name with which I am unfamiliar. Apparently they took over on 9th May after a competitive tender, and they operate in other museums. Seemingly a retrograde step, as the choice is less and the prices have gone up. I guess that is how they won the tender.

One sandwich, a piece of cake and two coffees came to £9.23 after 10% member's discount. The sandwich (£3.25) was fresh, and fairly well filled with tasty filling, but a similar sandwich at Pret (see previous comment) cost half the price. Honey and oat cake was a little dry and crumbly - maybe it had been out too long. If you have a family, this would be a big hit. As the museum is largely full of tourists, no one cares, but most of them are taking advantage of the BM being a cheap day out. 

This is simply too expensive for simple fare which can be purchased outside for much less. No wonder there were lots of free seats.

Devonshire Arms

19th and 20th July
To Bolton Abbey to the country house hotel that is The Devonshire Arms. A strange choice for a business meeting, but at least no one will bunk off. The place is full of walkers of a certain age, and a lot of them seem to have brought their dogs with them. If you don't like dogs, then this place is not for you. The hotel has a Michelin starred restaurant (which I did not really get chance to try) and lots of rosettes.
Nice touch is fresh milk available in rooms for coffee.
Dinner in private dining was a pate with a mustard crust, then lamb followed by a panacotta.

The quality of food was excellent, and adequately hot. The appearance is clearly of paramount importance to the chefs, as we discovered at breakfast, and when I ordered scrambled eggs, sausage and mushroom, this is what arrived:

The toast was my addition. Full English Breakfast (FEB) is a pleasure, because I don't do it at home. The best FEB I have had at a hotel in recent times was at the Langham in London, and the best breakfast ever was at the Westin Hotel in Taipei.
See my movie of the Taipei breakfast on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcPg1aVYYSo&feature=g-upl
Working lunch was a buffet:

What you cannot see is the excellent beef stroganoff.
So, excellent quality food throughout with high attention to presentation. If you are in the area (unlikely) it is definitely worth a visit, or if you want a small business meeting this is an unusual venue if you don't mind the dogs.

OK Diners

19th. July. En Route to Bolton Priory.

Stopped at the OK Diner in Carlton-on-Trent on the A1M for lunch. The placed looked vaguely familiar inside, and I recognised it as a remodelled Little Chef which had been a convenient toileting stop. There are a few Ok diners in the UK now, and they seek to model themselves on 1950's American diners of the 1950's. Check out their website at http://www.okdiners.com/  . Basically the website tells you that you will have an American diner experience.
The appearance is an immediate fit to expectations, and the fitting are like the films and media, a spatting of typical road signs, and there is also 1950's rock music as a background.

Now, over the past 30 years, I have eaten at many American Diners in the US ranging from roadside stops, to big city breakfast type diners, and the American experience in OK diners stops at the appearance. The food is definitely British, and the quality and quantity and pricing bear little relationship to the American experience. As I did not want a burger or hot dog or hot wings, I ordered the breakfast bagel with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon at £5.95 (I have never paid that much for much more in US breakfast outlets even in dollars. In fact I have never spent more than $5 per person in a diner (based on 2012 prices) and have usually staggered out full enough to not need lunch.

As you can probably tell from the picture, the egg was dry and somewhat overdone. I suspect a microwave egg here. The bagel was dry and no butter was offered (you usually get sides of butter and jelly in American American diners) and the portion size was indifferent. A very un-American experience at UK motorway prices. The plethora of positive comments on the website suggests a consensus view that does not match mine. The service was OK, but the thing is, if the staff don't have American accents, then it just does not feel right to be addressed by the local Lincolnshire voices. Food was therefore mod satis but only just, and service was ok, but no better. The moral of this story is 'I would rather starve than eat at motorway stops'.
Gets a 7 on the CHOF scale.