10 Dec, 2024.

 Cork and Bottle

44-46 Cranbourn St, London WC2H 7AN

This place is a favoured watering hole of my wife, and she said that it would be a good place to go to meet with friends before a theatre outing, as you could have just a drink, a snack or bigger meal. I was there at 5.30 pm on Tuesday before Xmas, and it was quiet. We were in an alcove, so it made it pleasant for a chat. I found that the hard surfaces and walls favoured by so many restaurants give me a bad hearing experience, and so it was good to be in a more peaceful surrounding. I cannot say how busy it might get later, but my wife reported that it had been quiet when she had had lunch there a few weeks before.

I was pretty hungry, having been for a swim and a walk earlier in the day, so I ordered the somewhat unfashionable dish of ox cheek and mashed potato with gravy.

 

Apart from the meat being a little too salty for my taste, and having made the mistake of using salt before tasting, this was an excellent choice. The meat was tender and 'all meat', and the accompanying mash and green beans were well prepared. All was hot, scoring about 8.2 on the CHOF scale. Cannot complain about the food. I did not have alcohol to drink, and as it is a wine bar, it has a biggish selection of wines, but they are a little above average in price for central London, and you could expect to pay at least £10 for a modest brew. The dish cost just under £27, which, again, is pretty much the par for central London eating.  This was a good venue for a pre-theatre meal a la carte, and the staff understand that. I would go there again.

Bianca, Independent Italian Pizzeria at bottom of Haringey Ladder.

 It's been a while since I contributed anything to this blog, and it has been inertia and apathy on my part, and too much use of Safari browser, where it was not a bookmark. 

We ended up here at the suggestion of my daughter, as somewhere to take two subteenage children for an early supper that was not MacDonalds. The restaurant is an unpre-possessing site at the end of the run of Turkish restaurants along the Ladder, and could be easily missed. I knew it was there, but my wife had never noticed it. It is very near traffic lights, so easy to get to from the other side of the street. It is basic inside, with a few bright geographic based cliche decorations, but no television blaring in the background, and I cannot remember if there was background music, so if there was, it was not a problem. The menu is short, covering pizza, pasta, some starters, and basic Italian secundi. Prices are the lower end of usual for suburban London. There are apparently only two staff, as far as I could see: the chef and the waitress, and pizzas are cooked in an electric pizza oven rather than wood fired.

We had one starter of garlic bread, two pizzas and one pasta between the four of us - the children are not adult eaters, and there was no children's menu apart from chips.

I ordered the Quattro Stagnioni pizza as the one most likely to have quantities of meat on it. I could have added extra meat for a couple of quid if so desired.

I think my picture is a fair representation of what arrived. Clearly not a corporate pizza, and enough topping, but not overloaded. There were bottles of chilli oil on the tables. Crusts were crispy but edible. Probably about 30cms. It was hot enough scoring 9 on the CHOF scale. The lasagne served to one of the children was 10+ on the CHOF scale, and needed time to settle to eating temperature. I was very happy with my pizza, and there was enough, with other leavings to make a box to take out, which was instantly provided and made a good lunch for two the next day (but you have to like microwaved pizza).

My companions were all happy with their food and service was friendly. At about 6pm when we went on a Saturday night, it was quiet, and I cannot tell how busy it gets, or how much of its trade is takeaway. There are some other chain pizza shops nearby, but this seems more authentic. The meal for us, as above, with a one glass of red wine, but no desert, and the shared starter came to about £50 including service.

We don't often eat in, in Green Lanes, except Turkish, and this was a highly acceptable place to go, avoiding the braying crowds of Saturday night (but it was early). You probably do not need to book. I will be happy to go there again, and will probably try one of the pasta dishes next time. Some people seemed have ordered Calzone, which can some times be a struggle to finish.

The Ivy Brasserie, St Albans: at last one to recommend

This was my daughter's choice for a birthday lunch, so all the family deposited themselves in this popular branch of the chain. I had lunched previously in the original Ivy market Grill in Covent Garden, so was looking forward to this.
The place was packed on a Saturday Lunchtime with the well-heeled residents of Hertfordshire, and it was clear that if you did not have a booking, you were going to be out of luck.
I did not realise just how extensive the chain is (not mega, but enough to widely available throughout the country in places with money) and it amazes me, in retrospect how they have not fallen foul of the curse of chain restaurants: indifferent foods catering to the lowest common denominator. In the current times, when well known mid-priced chains are falling like dead flies, it is reassuring that someone knows how to make things work.
We had a big family table, and must have frightened some of the other diners with our collection of small children, but they know how to behave in smart establishments, so we all just got on with it. The menus are not huge and this is probably part of the key to success. Find a few great dishes that can be produced consistently in a pleasing manner. Whilst none of my particular favourites were available, I had no difficulty in choosing dishes different to my last experiences.
For starter I had the duck liver parfait which came with Caramelised hazelnuts, truffle, tamarind glaze with pear and ginger compote, toasted brioche (toast) and was a pleasingly large portion of tasty pate

It looked a bit strange before cutting into it, rather like a rice crispie pie with jam on the top. I found this very satisfying.
For main I chose Monkfish and prawn curry - £17.95 Keralan curry with jasmine rice, coconut “yoghurt”, coriander and sweet potato crisps

Whilst not the most spicy of curries, it was properly flavoured, and more importantly, hot, scoring 8.6 on the CHOF scale. Wonderful stuff with enough rice and yoghurt which I did not use. I liked this and would recommend.
I shared a creme brulee with my wife for desert, as the food had been most filling.

Whilst lacking the warmth of a freshly cooked/flamed brulee, it was a good one of its kind.

Also recommended.

We did not drink as a group, and I just had a pot of coffee, which could have been fresher.

Altogether this was a memorable meal, and the hot food was hot. All our party were happy with the outcome, and we would definitely go there again.

It does get crowded, and it was a bit on the noisy side, but the inside is attractive and spacious. Service was slow but accurate: it did not matter for us, but I think that if you dine when it is busy, you need to leave enough time. It is not cheap, and you are unlikely to emerge for under £50-60 per head, but you get what you pay for.

This place hit the spot for me, and I would go there again, no question.

Piebury Corner, Kings Cross. Smart Pies for the nouveau pie eater

8th Feb 2019
I first read of Piebury Corner in Time Out, and my love of Steak and Kidney Pies made me put on the 'to do' list. When the opportunity presented, finding myself in Kings Cross (just up the Caledonian Road) rather than the other home at Highbury Corner, I gave them a try for a late lunch on a Thursday.
When I went, which was at about 2pm, the place was pretty deserted except for a younger David Hockney lookalike (who made the staff take a video of him eating his pie and had successfully parked on the double yellow line outside).
I was only really interested in the s and k, so the lunchtime offers were not available to me.
Everything is sold separately, so you have to order the pie and the side and even the gravy is an extra.
The cafe is small with old fashioned zinc topped table and chairs. It can probably hold about 20+ at a pinch, and I noted that for evenings, they took bookings. I would be interested to find out if that is when the action really happens.
When you go in, from the point of view of the door, it might look as if you had entered a bar/bistro with its small range of bottles and the gleaming expresso machine

 The picture above give you a sense of scale of the place. At the time of my visit, they were also offering an art exhibition by Tony Husband, who I knew to author the Yobs cartoon in Private Eye, and had drawn the cartoon for a story which I had published some years ago. Most of his work was on the tiles of the toilet, so worth going if only to see the art.

My order was a budget order of Steak and Kidney pie and chips. The quality of the pie was excellent and it scored an 8.6 on the CHOF scale. In retrospect, I think I should also have ordered the gravy to go with it. The chips were also of good quality.

It is difficult to tell from my photo, but the portion sizes are small. Another web site has described them as being 'sensible size', but when you are into eating pies, sense does not come into the equation, and to be frank, I had expected to leave feeling a bloated, but this was not the case. In terms of quality of the product, I could not fault them: unlike so many commercial steak and kidney pies that you might buy at a supermarket, this had lots of kidney and meat. The pastry was not too thick and the consistency was just right.

The staff were encouraging and friendly, and a I got chatting to the waitress/counter staff who claimed to come from Baltimore via Arkansas. It was a bizarre mix of the merits of Bill Clinton and the dangers of downtown Baltimore.

This had started out for me with the intention of being a cheap quick lunch stop, but the Pie cost £7, and the chips £3, and there was 10% automatically added on to the bill. I was too mean to ask for drink and/or desert, as it seemed that this could quite easily get out of hand. On the other hand, if you were coming here as an evening main event, I could see that the extras would only bring this into the realm of a reasonably priced night out. I could have had the set lunch meal for about £8, but I wanted to try the S and K, which was not on the lunch menu.

If I wanted to take the pie home in its cooked cold state, that would be £4. I am contemplating buying a batch for the freezer.

Will I go back there again? Probably, but this is not the place for a romantic meal, and women might fail to be impressed, unless they really really like pies and small cafes. This was probably the best steak and kidney pie I have tasted in a long time.

Plum and Spilt Milk: upmarket treat

10th September 2018
My wife and I were given an outing to this newish restaurant as a birthday gift. It seems that at our stage of life, experiences rather than stuff is the way to go.
Many years ago, my boss had used the meeting rooms at the Great Northern Hotel as a base for organising London meetings because they were cheap and available. The hotel has been greatly revamped since then, and I dare say that would not be the case now. It is completely unrecognisable compared to 25 years ago. This is not a place we would have chosen to go, mainly on grounds of expense, but as it was a gift, we said thank you very much and boarded the Picadilly line.
The restaurant follows modern trends being fairly open, hard surfaces, and staff who can border between patronising and obsequious. At the time of visiting, there was major work going on in the hotel which limited the routes of entrance or egress, but the main consequence of this at the moment is that there are no accessible lavatories near the restaurant.
This is what the restaurant has to say for itself (from website)
"SIMPLE CLASSICS, BEAUTIFULLY COOKED
COURTESY OF HIGHLY ACCLAIMED CHEF MARK SARGEANT, IN AN ATMOSPHERE ELEGANT YET RELAXED
Theatrical destination restaurant Plum + Spilt Milk, celebrated for the quality of its seasonal British dishes. Our new menu includes Wild watercress soup, wild garlic oil & sourdough croutons; Wye Valley asparagus feuilleté, orange hollandaise sauce; Organic Wiltshire burrata, broad bean puree, pickled red onion, chilli, pine nuts & raw rapeseed oil; Grilled lamb cutlets, roasted & wild garlic creamed spelt, slow braised lamb shoulder & mint sauce croquette.

One hundred and fifty hand-blown glass lamps suspended from the ceiling set the atmosphere; leather banquettes curve luxuriously around tables of cracked black lava".

Nuff said.

For starter I chose Spiced Cornish fish soup, red pepper rouille & croutons. This was a winner. It was really really hot, about a 9+ on the CHOF scale. It was only mildly spiced, and the red pepper relish, which I rightly or wrongly chose to add to the soup, made for an interesting taste.

This was a good choice, and if the opportunity presented, I would definitely do it again.
The choice, as I mentioned before is limited, and for the main course I chose a flatiron steak, not really knowing what to expect

They had turned down the lights by then and it started to get tricky to take pictures.

I asked for my meat to be medium, but not bloody, and I think that they followed my instructions. The dish came accompanied by triple cooked chips

You get nine large chips in a dish.......... and I also had some mixed vegetables.
Desert comes from a pairing menu, but I decided not to pair my desert with a wine.
I had  iced peanut parfait, chocolate ganache with salted caramel sauce.

At first glance, it looked a bit like a deconstructed Snickers bar, and as I love Snickers, it was pleasing to find it tasted similar, particularly as I like to keep my Snickers in the refrigerator.

I am off wine at the moment, but the wine list has house white and red which are realistically priced. I finished with a coffee which was excellent.

The meal was of excellent quality as one would expect, and what was supposed to be hot was actually hot. No problems there, but of course, medium steaks may not always be hotter than they are supposed to be.

I have no idea what this meal cost, but you can probably work it out from on line.

My only criticism would be that the place was very noisy to start with, with braying businessmen creating a non-intimate atmosphere. However that is a sign of the times, and almost every modern restaurant one goes to is unsuitable for a deep conversation. That is probably why you see so many diners texting each other during meals. To help that, all tables here had charging points and USB sockets. A sign of the times.

The Haven Bistro and Bar, Whetstone: very popular local eating place

1st September 2018
I have eaten at the Haven several times and also organised to celebration dinners there in their semi-private room. It is probably one of the best places to get decent food in Whetstone, and over the 17 or so years I have been using it, the standards have remained constant, and it is fair value for money. It also serves bar food if you don't want a full meal.
I have also used it for a set lunch which was fantastic value for money.
On this occasion, we had to go on a Saturday night, to offer hospitality to a family member, and it won the choice competition of where to go on a Saturday night. It gets busy on a Saturday night, and you must book. I would not chance turning up there without a reservation, but because the owner, Julius knows me as a long term customer, he says he would always fit me in.
On this occasion the menu had changed from its long term pattern, and instead of being a sort of fixed price shortish menu, it had gone a la carte. So instead of my usual bang bang chicken starter, which I always found to be the best choice for me, I had the salt and pepper Calamari

This is not a true reflection of what came, as I had given my wife a couple of rings, and clearly had some of the dish before I started. Suffice it to say that this was a very generous starter portion and not the measly 5 rings out of a bag of frozen that so many restaurants stoop to.
It was well cooked soft and satisfying. It was also hot scoring an 8.4 on the CHOF scale. Recommended.
For main, I had the pan fried lamb liver.

It had a piece of bacon on it, and it was only when I downloaded the photo from my phone that I saw that it almost had a porcine face appearance: weird. I had asked for my liver to be cooked so that it was no longer bloody, which is my preference, and that was exactly how it came. It was exactly right. The only comment I would make is that it was promoted as coming with baby spinach, and the green vegetable it came with was a kind of cabbage or kale. No matter, as the liver was great. It also scored well on the CHOF scale at about an 8.3.
I did not bother with a desert, but had a coffee in a strange Germanic cup.
This was a good experience, and we emerged thinking that it had beed a good place to offer hospitality. The bill came to £125 for three of us, but there were only two glasses of wine, two coffees and two deserts, so expect to pay £50 per head for a full meal with drink.
The down side is that it gets very busy on Saturday night, and with its hard-surface decor, it can be difficult to hear. As much of the clientele being the comfortable retired of the area, who may already be on the way to hearing impairment, I am guessing there were some raised voices.

Nippon Izakaya, North Finchley: Consistency needed if this place is to survive

I have been to this Japanese Restaurant, usually at weekends, twice before, and it really hit the spot. Good food at a fair price, and what was supposed to be hot was actually hot.
I recently went at 8pm on a Wednesday towards the end of August and it did not live up to expectations in many ways: so much so, that I might give it a miss in the future.
There is a web site on https://www.nipponizakaya.co.uk/ and it tells you that it is a non-chain Japanese restaurant in North Finchley. Strangely enough there are quite a few to choose from in the area, and given that the Japanese are long departed from Woodside Park/Finchley, it can only be because of the popularity of Sushi (which I do not like). However it serves hot food, which in the past has been great.
On this occasion there were five of us, and we ordered nothing clever from the menu. The staff seemed confused by their own menu and actually one of our party failed initially to get any food despite the fact that the place was not especially busy. My wife and I ordered bento boxes, she having a tempura one, and mine being a grilled salmon and beef mixture. The portions are big, and there was a taster portion of miso soup provided before.
The food arrived only moderately hot, scoring no better than a 7 on the CHOF scale. However the included rice was almost cold. There was absolutely no point in complaining, as clearly these people had lost the plot on the night we visited and our lives are too short to wait for a re-run of preparation.
On previous occasions, we have been awarded a 10% discount (even at weekends) but some weak reason was found why we were not eligible this time.
At 10p.m. without actually saying the words, they were trying to turf us out. They have longer hours on a weekend.
If you are not a drinker, the food is reasonably priced, but when hotness is a factor, then no price is right if the food doesn't meet expectations. Our friend who suggested the visit ( he has a well filled loyalty card) was apologetic, and thought the real staff might have been on holiday.
The morals to this story are that August is a problematic month to eat out in the 'burbs of London, and that consistency of delivered product is what generates loyal customers.

Dec 2024. I update this review to say that I have been several times after this review, and the restaurant, having been through a food hygeine scare, is now back on track, and is serving consistently good meals at a reasonable price.