Mirage Restaurant, Ilford/Newbury Park: very popular local restaurant with shortcomings.

9th December 2016
December is never the best time to judge a restaurant as they are inevitably overstretched and know that it is a sellers' market. We got involved with an outing here because a friend of a friend had a husband who was providing the musical entertainment. I am always game for a Turkish Restaurant, but the menu is far more extensive than just Turkish. I would also re-iterate my opinion that it is difficult to give a fair judgement when large parties are being served. But it was what it was, and here is my opinion. Their web site is on http://www.miragerestaurant-ilford.com/ which makes it look more like a wedding venue.
The menu is mixed and the Turkish side of it is a bit unchallenging, being mainly mainstream kebabs and moussaka etc, even on the halal menu. It is more of a Meditteranean/Continental menu, which is probably responding to the needs of the local customers, of which there were many. In retrospect, I should have chosen the steaks, because that is what they seem to get most accolades for.
For starter, I had the Calamari with salad.

They were satisfactory and hot scoring an 8.6 on the CHOF scale. What should be evident even from this blurry picture is that this is the boring side of calamari. Nothing challenging here.

Given that we were a 7.30 kick off, this picture is time stamped at 9pm. I really have nothing more to say about them.

For main course, mainly because I knew I would be getting a real Green Lane Turkish experience the following night, I went for the "CALF LIVER LYONAISE 

PAN-FRIED WITH SAUTÉED, ONIONS FLAMED WITH MADERIA WINE". Not very Turkish. This actually would have been something from an Italian Trattoria.

I had this with an accompaniment of cauliflower cheese and sauté zucchini. The cauliflower cheese was a bit of disappointment as it was clearly boiled cauli that had been put in an oven dish, and then a lay of cheesy sauce poured over, and then put back in the oven. Not really what I would have hoped for. The liver was fine, if not a tiny bit on the rubbery side. This main course was time stamped at 2158, meaning there was a gap of an hour between starter and main which could not be compensated for by the efforts of the male crooner singing to his rat-pack backing tapes. I can't wait until punk becomes the music of yesteryear that we all want to hear.

I was luckier than one of our group, who seemed to have been forgotten altogether, and was made to feel that it was his fault for not ordering in a way that the staff would take notice of. I really don't care for it when any restaurant makes their problems your problem, and then expect to put 10% service or more on the bill.

Whilst the house red was reasonably priced at £12.50/bottle, they did not bother to take the sticker off which said 'retail price £4'. So they were selling very cheap wine.

Others had a mixed experience with some meals better than mine and some worse. The key issue was poor service, and lacklustre food. However judging from the full house, it looked as if it was a crowd that knew what they wanted, and it was not challenging food, and not really caring how long it took to come.

I would avoid going there again at a weekend. May be it is better during a quiet week.

Three Jolly Wheelers, Woodford Green : Formulaic 'gastro' pub with strong following

7th December 2016
A cousins' lunch had been long in the planning, and it was left for one of the others to choose a venue. I have some favourite pub lunch destinations, but it seems to me that some of the chains have got a bit out of hand presenting themselves as up-market destinations with restaurant prices. I was fascinated when I arrived here, as the menu appeared in wording and pricing almost identical to the menu at the recently visited Old White Lion. At least I thought I knew what I might be in for. What you do not get is a 'pub lunch' but you do get pub prices for drink. Interestingly the Three Jolly Wheelers, whilst a 'Vintage Inn' is own by the same umbrella company, Mitchell and Butler and more detail can be found on http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/restaurants/london/thethreejollywheelerschigwell .
For starter I chose the salt and pepper calamari with chorizo-flavour seasoning and chipotle mayonnaise

This was pretty good and hot enough at an 8.4 on the CHOF scale. However what is apparent is that this is a triumph of style over quantity and is drowned out by the relatively inedible green leaves and a surfeit of unnecessary chipottle (sic) mayo and not a lot of discernible seasoning.

Just to be different, I did not choose the fish and chips for main, but the Steak & mushroom pie

(described as slow-cooked British beef in a red wine sauce, topped with puff pastry, served with mash and seasonal vegetables, £11.50).

This was not so much a pie, but more a dish of stewed beef covered with a pastry lid with some tired carrots. This is presumably the outcome of corporate boil in the bag supplies of pie filling and is not really the stuff of pies of pub lunches that I yearn for. It was very hot (a 9 on the CHOF scale) but tasted a bit bland.

All in all this was a bland packaged meal, and I guess I am always looking for something a bit more challenging in a pub lunch. I was spoiled by my numerous experiences at the King's Arms in Bexley near where I used to work.

My wife had a slightly more expensive meal, and by the time the bill came, for a 'pub' lunch for two, it came to nearly £50.

Whilst the food was hot enough, it was all a bit bland and corporately uninteresting and this was not the sort of hit I had expected for a mid week pub lunch.

I will not be going back there in a hurry: I can get far better far cheaper: a pub lunch should not cost £25 per head.

Bleeding Heart: Trendy smart Clerkenwell Restaurant with consistent reputation.

2nd December 2015
If you had to choose a name for a Restaurant, would you choose Bleeding Heart, especially if you had a vegetarian to feed? The name relates to the location which is in Bleeding Heart Yard.
According to wikipedia, Bleeding Heart Yard is a cobbled courtyard off Greville Street in the Farringdon area of the City of London. The courtyard is probably named after a 16th-century inn sign dating back to the Reformation that was displayed on a pub called the Bleeding Heart in nearby Charles Street. The sign showed the heart of the Virgin Mary pierced by five swords.
Urban legend has it that the courtyard's name commemorates the murder of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the second wife of Sir William Hatton, whose family formerly owned the area around Hatton Garden. It is said that her body was found here on 27 January 1626, "torn limb from limb, but with her heart still pumping blood." The location is mentioned in Little Dorrit as the home of the Plornish Family.
I have been there a few times over the years both to the restaurant and bistro. Fortunately this has always been with someone else footing the bill.
The restaurant is old fashioned higgledy piggeldy looking more like a converted house on different levels, and the main eating areas are downstairs.
It is now a groupe and has a web presence on   http://bleedingheart.co.uk/ . It says it is French, but the food is more French influenced than pure French. Reports on TripAdvisor are consistently good.
The meal started with an amuse bouche of a piece of smoked mackerel (I think) on a sliver of bread. Not very amusing as one of our party did not eat fish.
For starter, I had the cauliflower soup:

Not a very helpful image, as the flash went off on my phone. However, it was hot, and as can probably be discerned from the picture, was home made. The soup comes in a little pouring pot, and the waiters make a ritual of pouring it into the plate. Anyway it was a good 8.6 on the CHOF scale and was an excellent representative of such soup.

For main course I had haunch of Yorkshire venison with Juniper braised venison cheeks, ruby plums, roasted red chicory and elderberry sauce

It also came with mashed potato and I had a side order of spinach.

The meat was cooked very well, and was tender and tasty and scored an 8.4 being hot enough on the CHOF scale. The helping of spinach was huge.

This was an excellent meal (I shared someone else's desert) and another good experience here.

If you look at the web site, it is clear that this is pretty upmarket, and you could easily expect to pay £80-100 per person for a three course meal with drink. I did not get to see the wine list at the time, but the web site shows it to be comprehensive, and house wine (not that most people were drinking that) would be about £25/bottle.

I would recommend this restaurant but it is not for routine eating unless you have deep pockets and very high standards.

Old White Lion, East Finchley- Sort of local pub with almost gastro pub food

1st Dec 2016
People keep asking me if I am still writing my blog, and I have not had much activity this year. Many of the places I have been to are repeat visits (better the devil you know) or have not been very relevant, or have been reviewed on TripAdvisor, where I know I have an audience. But it is time to get cracking again, as it gives me something to talk about. If you are live person and do read this, please make some kind of comment, even if it is impolite.
December is never the best time to try out a restaurant for the first time. I am guessing that it is the time where the customers are less discerning and prepared to pay more and be squeezed into tighter places. My wife was invited for "drinks...." with her mates from the gym, and as food was clearly on the menu, and we had no better plans, we ordered. We did not order as a group, and each little subgroup was treated separately.
The pub, which has a substantial web presence on http://www.theoldwhitelionfinchley.co.uk/  is just a few yards south of East Finchley tube station, and therefore amenable to public transport. I suppose you could park, but parking in that area, near the Phoenix cinema is never good. The houses in the area (except Bishops Avenue) were all built long before the notion of personal car ownership had penetrated the population, and is a very popular commuting zone (zone 3). The building looks like a pub should, but inside it has been renovated in a style that says created pub rather than evolved pub. Whilst not unattractive, it has nothing to hold the eye.
We did not avail ourselves of the many areas, but stuck to the tabled area were food was served, and even at 7.30 on a Thursday it was starting to get busy (but it was December). We later discovered some live music, but it was out of earshot in the restaurant area.
The menu (see website) is classic pub style food, dressed up in the new gastropub language. We both had 'British ale battered cod with triple cooked chips and mushy peas'. I do not know if anyone really likes mushy peas, but everyone has them on the menu. Also, as it looked like fish'n'chips, I could not attest to whether the batter had ale, or if the chips had been cooked three times.

It is not a chip shop sized portion, but adequate. The chips were very hot and tasty, and the fish was fairly hot (8.4 on the CHOF scale) and did not have a hotness issue. The peas were a 7.6. It did come on a plate, with the faux 1921 newspaper underneath. My wife and I both enjoyed this, but it was not as good as a recent unreviewed meal we had had from a chip shop in St Albans. The meal as depicted cost £12.25, and the relatively short pub favourite menu is pitched so that a two course meal would work out at about £20 each. Drink was London pub prices.

I think that Fish and Chips is a safe test of a pub's cooking as it is unlikely to be pre-pack boil in a bag. Service was accurate and friendly but a little slow. 

This was an OK experience. The food was enjoyable, but not so great that you would rush back. I would commend this pub as an acceptable face of evening 

Oakhill park cafe: a hidden lunch gem for those with a taste for eastern Europe.

17th August 2016
I go to Oakhill Park in East Barnet to use their pitch and putt course. When we went there last Wednesday, the course had not opened, so we went for a coffee. It was then that we noticed that the cafe was serving Eastern European food for lunch, so we gave it a go.
The cafe has a web site on http://www.oakhillparkcafe.co.uk/ which is somewhat crudely put together, but it does not reveal that there are daily boards outside offering a taste of Eastern Europe with numerous dishes such as Goulash, Zureck and pierogi.
Coffee was decent an £2.10 for a big mug.
I chose the Zurek soup, but when it arrived, it seemed that there had been a misunderstanding and it was Goulash soup that arrived for both of us. We opted for the bread bowl thinking it would be a bowl of bread, but it turned out to be a bowl of bread. You eat the bowl.

Just what you need on a hot day, and it was also very hot, scoring a 9.6 on the CHOF scale.

I have to say that this was an excellent surprise having the taste of the east, with a very home made bread. I have no reservations about this experience, and am looking forward to having another al fresco lunch in the park. The soup and a cup of coffee cost £8.20 which is great value for what it was: a real foreign experience.

Soko Barnet: pan Asian restaurant with mixed outcomes

13th August.
One of our dining club had noticed this place at the top of Barnet High Street before it becomes Hadleigh. It is a small place with a main claim of having a Japanese grill, which you can see just beyond the entrance. They have a fairly helpful web site on www.sokorestaurant.com . This is helpful except it does not give an exact address and some of the menu information is slightly inaccurate.
When we booked, the staff seemed uncertain if they served wine, but they have a decent enough wine and drink list when you get there. The staff are a mixed bunch, as are most restaurants these days, and I am unsure of the Asian provenance of most of them, but never mind.
At 7.30 on a Saturday, we were the only customers, but over the evening it filled up. It is not a big place, and I would not want to turn up there on a Saturday without a booking, but many did.
For starter, I had a grilled chicken gyozo.

I have had gyozo before in a Japanese Restaurant. These were a little disappointing in that the fillings were a bit gelatinous and gloopy with little taste, and the sauce did not bring much additional taste. They were OK and scored a 7.9 on the CHOF scale. My wife's tempura vegetables was by far the better bet, in that she had a huge plate of freshly fried veg, and I would recommend that.
I cannot remember exactly or find on the on-line menu what I had for main, but essentially it was a teriyaki style fillet beef in a hot sauce. This was tasty and hot, and scored a 9 on the CHOF scale. I enjoyed it, and also had a taste of my wife's seafood and rice, which was excellent.

Service was a bit hit and miss, with the first of our party of 5 being served a good 15 minutes before the last, but may be that shows it was freshly cooked. The staff just seemed a little confused of what was expected of them.

Reviews elsewhere of this restaurant have been mixed: people either love it or hate it. I fall in the middle, in that I would not rush to go back there, but would not say no if it came up again. I would probably choose something different to eat.

A meal for two including drink came to just over £60 which is fairly representative.

Abshar Restaurant 694 High Road, North Finchley, N12: A star was born, but went unnoticed

5th August 2016
Now Closed after a fire.
Have not tried the successor


I had noticed this re-incarnation restaurant in the run of shops nearby Argos in North Finchley. I had never seen it at night, but it looked smartly set out but deserted.
Fortunately they left copies of the menu outside, and it looked sufficiently interesting and moderately priced to be worth a try. In the light of being let down by others, my wife and I went there last Friday night (a better test than going on a Saturday).
North Finchley seems to have become a focus of Iranian ex-pats with grocery shops, restaurants, tea shops and a cultural center. A big Persian Restaurant a few hundred yards away had closed with no signs of life. It had to be worth a try.
When I booked, I saw I was the only name in the book, and was invited to choose where I wanted to sit. There is a completely European main area, but once you go out to the back, you are in Shisha land. Passing through an area of booths for relaxed smoking, you go out to the back, where you are somewhere that is not the UK. It has the look of the middle east with wall carpets, ornate lights and strange statues. This looked like fun.
When we got there at 8pm on a Friday, I was a bit worried that the back area we had booked might turn out to be a full blown passive shisha experience. Knowing that one pipe is the equivalent of about 90 cigarettes, I needed some assurance that this was not going to be a respiratory experience. They said no problem, and as the top was essentially open (presumably to comply with laws about smoking in restaurants), we took our seat.

The menu is fairly short, and you can have vegetarian dishes, lamb or chicken with some fish available. Our Romanian waitress confused us about what could be had on the mixed starter (only some of the cold ones, and some of them won't fit on the plate), so we plumped for individual starters to share.

This is a spinach bourani (yoghourt with spinach) and a Kashke Bademjan (fried aubergine with fried onion, herbs, spice and Iranian sauce)
This is served with a large lavash bread. The portions were huge, and extremely tasty. The Kashke is a little on the oily side. The taste was the taste of the east, and you immediately felt that you were in a very foreign place. If this had been not in the UK, it would have not been a surprise, and it was like being on holiday.
The drink list is a bit short, and I suspect that it is largely aimed at non-alcohol drinking ex pats.
There was red or white wine, and three types of bottled beer. We both went for Corona (a strange choice for the nationality of the restaurant, but I dare say there is not much Iranian beer around).
For main course I opted for the Chello Kebab Sultani which is one skewer of baby lamb fillet, one skewer of minced baby lamb served with grilled tomato. My wife opted for Bakhtiari which is a mix of chicken and lamb kebab.

This had definitely been freshly cooked but only scored an 8 on the CHOF scale. Service is a little slow, but amiable.

The meat was very tender, and there was a mountain of rice with a little packet of butter.

We could not work out what they had done to the lamb fillets, but not only were they very tender, but also had a marinated taste of the east. This was excellent, and together with the two starters made for a big meal.

We did have a desert to share.

We had this tailor made for us, and it was a mix of ice cream and a rice based noodle with citrus sauce (and an umbrella on the top). A person from the next table seemed to know what this was, and assured us that it was an authentic choice. Very good indeed.

Whilst the service was a bit hit and miss, the experience was one of the best we have had for a long time as we felt that we had dined somewhere very out of the ordinary. The bill for the two courses, one desert and two beers came to just under £40.

When we left, the local ex pats had arrived and were sucking away on their pipes in a very convivial atmosphere. The front restaurant was deserted, giving a very misleading impression.

We loved this place, and we only hope that not only does it stay, but does not get spoiled by being too widely discovered. However, it needs the customers to survive, so this is the only significant review on the Web at the moment. The only other two review found on AllinLondon were very enthusiastic. I suspect that this is authentic food, and an atmosphere that might have been found in Iran before the revolution in the late 1970's.

(NOTE THAT SINCE WRITING, THE RESTAURANT SUCCUMBED TO A FIRE. IT HAS BEEN CLOSE FOR SOME TIME, BUT SHOWS SIGNS OF REOPENING0

Westminster Lodge leisure centre cafe bistro, St Albans: so good it made me take up my pen again

14th July 2014
I take up my pen/keyboard again, having had an experience that made me want to write about it, but not on TripAdvisor, which has had too much of my input recently.
This is somewhere we had not been before, and we found ourselves there whilst looking after our granddaughter for the day. We had to find somewhere child friendly that did not cost an arm and a leg.
The cafe/bistro is located in the leisure centre, and is a large open functional space that looks out on to a patio, where it is said you can see the cathedral (did not notice it). Whilst possibly intended for the sporting users, it attracts all kinds and is one of the places to use if you are in Verulam Park, as it is next to the car park (free for first two hours, and £2.30 if you want 3 hours). When we went there for lunch, there appeared to be a lot of people gathering wearing business dress with name tags, so I don't know if it has meeting rooms there as well.
It offers a mix of cafe style food, with a small selection of hot dishes including pasta and baked potatoes.
Knowing my granddaughter would eat pasta, I chose the spaghetti carbonara with chicken and bacon, so that I could share it with her. My wife had a sandwich. Firstly I have to say that whilst in a pack, the sandwich was well filled and attracted no adverse comments.

After a wait, suggesting that it had been made rather than heated up in a microwave, what appeared, whilst not pretty, was impressive. A big portion which as you can see is stuffed with meat, and not drowned with sauce. The pasta was not over-cooked and it was adequately hot scoring an 8 on the CHOF scale. It was a little on the dryish side, maybe, but it tasted excellent, and exceeded my expectations, but not those of my granddaughter. I have had carbonara in proper Italian restaurants in the UK which have not been as good because they were drowned in salty sauce. A huge plate of pasta cost £6.50 . The Americano Coffee was not great, probably having too much water added (using Costa as my benchmark).

My family rate this place highly, and whilst not as picturesque as the other cafe in the park, it is an excellent functional stopping place. It has the added bonus of free wifi and newspapers.

Cocorico, Whetstone High Road: Italianish Restaurant aimed at the masses

13th February 2016
Don't you just hate the rip-off menus and meals that are everywhere on Valentines? I have had it with short overpriced set menus and indifferent food with rose sellers. (NB have you ever heard of a Romantic Curry?). So I try to go out either side of the day, and I think this is catching on. We booked Cocorico about 6 days in advance, because I could not get into the small local trattoria. There had been some initial negative reviews of locally of this place when it first started, and one or two people reported food poisoning. But a year down the line it is still there and I have noted that it is packed at nights even during the week. It had to be worth taking a chance. They promote themselves as a cross between an Italian Nando's and a full Italian Restaurant, but they do not do pizza (yet). The grilled spicy chicken is supposed to be their thing, and is very competitively priced, and avoids the necessity of dining with feral youths at a real Nandos. I would not knock Nandos as I think it is a great product at a great price, but I do not want to queue with teenagers for a table at a weekend. A friend of ours said the Italians do not know how to cook chicken, but I still took a chance.
There is an enthusiastic web site on http://cocoricorestaurant.co.uk/ which is sort of helpful. They accepted a booking immediately slotted in to their convenience, but when we arrived a few minutes early, there was a little queue of bookers and non-bookers. The place was pretty full on a Saturday night at 8pm, and only started thinning out at about 10. I heard that the place was an offshoot of Al Fresco across the road, which I have found very noisy with diffident staff, and I would not choose to go there regularly.
Unfortunately there are no pictures this time as  my phone had run out of juice.
The restaurant is modern, close packed with a bar and fairly open range kitchens where you can just about see what is being cooked. At least the ingredients looked real. Service is patchy and the waiters come from the demonstrative school of waiting showing what hard workers they are and how serving you is a bit of a burden. We were dealt with relatively promptly and got the feeling that they might have a window of attention for each customer before they want them to move on.
Having said that our staters of fried calamari and chicken/chorizo skewers were excellent. They were hot, and substantial portions.
I had the house grilled  1/2 chicken. Unlike Nandos, this is only mildly spiced and you cannot choose the hotness. However there is chilli sauce of high strength on the table. I thought my chicken was a little on the dry side for the breast meat, but my wife's chicken in a fruit sauce was excellent. The grilled chicken comes with two sides, and I chose the fries and sweetcorn, which was very like Nandos. Her meal came with Sautee potatoes, broccoli and green beans. She thought that you do not go to a restaurant to eat broccoli and green beans, and chose some fried zucchini as well, which was a good idea. The food was tasty and hot, scoring an 8.4 on the Chof scale. Portions sizes are very generous, and we might not have needed the starter. There is absolutely no pretension here, and it is a middle of the road place aimed at middle of the road people.
The pricing is also very middle of the road and our bill for a meal for two but sharing desert and a bottle of Malbec came to £61+. I put down 70 in cash and the waiter asked if I wanted change. Yes I did.
Would I go there again. Probably yes, but not as a talking group as it was very noisy, and probably not on a Saturday night, as it was packed and noisy.  The food is fine, and I would probably go for something other than the grilled chicken next time.

Yijo, Finchley Central: A taste of Korean Barbecue in North London

6th Feb 2016
Our Eating Group was led into this unique restaurant: it would seem that it may be the only Korean Barbecue in London, but of course there are other Korean Restaurants in London. I remembered trying this many years ago when it was not a bbq place, but could not remember anything about it except that I had not been sufficiently motivated to go back there these past 30 years. It has been in its location for ever, in a side street on the Main Drag of Regents Park Road and Ballards Lane, and is opposite the back entrance of Finchley Central tube station: it is completely invisible to passing trade. It is completely unpretentious, and weirdly enough has the only waitress who speaks English as a first language on their staff.
There is a fairly helpful web site at http://www.yijo.co.uk/ but what it does not tell you is how much to order and how to cook it properly. We were watching the other patrons who seemed to have a much better idea than us of what to do, but we were reluctant to look too naive.
The easiest thing to do is to show you the itemised bill. We order 5 starters for 5 people to pass around, and a bit too much in the way of main courses to get stuff to barbecue and accompaniment.

The first five items on the list were the starters, and this is an idea of what they looked like

It is difficult to explain what the flavour is, as it is definitely oriental, but not Chinese, Japanese or like Thai or Vietnamese. A taste of its own. Suffice it to say that it was extremely tasty, not too spicy, and hot scoring an 8.5 on the scale. The portion sizes were generous for starter, but they were not cheap, as an average dish at this restaurant is about £8.50.

We probably ordered too much for the barbecue course in the way of accompaniments, but the actual helpings of meat and fish to barbecue were quite small and it was only by virtue of substantial starters and accompaniment, that there was enough to go around.

The above gives you an idea of the barbecue arrangement which is in the middle of the table, and the waiting staff come and fill the centre with hot charcoal. We should have had some help with this, as they suggest on the web site, but we were left to figure it out for ourselves and watching other customers. What we did not know was that like a conventional bbq, we should have left the charcoal to heat up, so for the first 20 minutes, it was struggling to cook things quickly enough, and the baby octopus did not cook enough and had to be put back on. The tongue cooked very quickly but was a bit unsubstantial, and the salmon was quite fiddly. The prawns were a bit easier, as we were told that they would change colour once cooked. It was all a bit strange and unfamiliar, but at least with it being cooked by ourselves, it was hot at the point of delivery. The noodles which you can see in the lower part of the upper picture were delicious and had really fat noodle in it, which I thought was asparagus when I first looked at it. The vegetable platter was a bit uninspiring and definitely not £5.50 worth.

So the bill for 5 including 3 bottles of wine and 12.5% service (there was not a lot of service as it was all brought at once, and we cooked the bbq ourselves) was £181 which was a bit of a big hit for a distinctly suburban restaurant.

Would I go there again? Possibly so, but I would not order as much, I would not go for the barbecue, and would probably try some of their soups and stews. I think they should have made sure that we knew what we were doing, and I think 12.5% service is a bit of a liberty take. As we had spent so much, I asked for a loyalty card, but they would only endorse it for the diners who had paid in cash. As this place is probably geared to young ex pats, they probably are not desperate for my repeat custom

The Wolseley, Piccadilly. Expensive, but you get what you pay for.

31st. January 2016
As a treat/reward, we were taken by our daughters for brunch/lunch at the Wolseley which we have been to before for a birthday dinner. They did not actually have a brunch menu, but you can get lunch or a sort of Sunday lunch or just eat what you want from the menu.
When I was a kid, a Wolseley was a boring car, that maybe your teacher might drive in a sit up and beg manner. They were part of BMC/British Leyland, and eventually faded from site. I looked it up, and the premises in Piccadilly were used, in the 1920's, for a somewhat upmarket marque of the time which became the somewhat disappointing marque of my childhood. Then the building became a bank, and then an upmarket restaurant where people might go to be seen. Whoever did the refurbishment did a fantastic job of returning it to its Oriental Art Nouveau style, with a mix of Chinoiserie and Ancient Greece. Frankly it is worth going just to be part of the environment which I found most enjoyable.
They have a fairly comprehensive web site on https://www.thewolseley.com/ which tells you most of what you need to know, but may scare you off.
Having been to some fairly overpriced venues in recent times, I was quite suprised to see that the menu pricing was not silly. Expensive, yes, but silly no. For 4 people for a lightish lunch with cover coffees and service, but no alcohol, and including 12.5% service, you can come in for under £100, which is quite normal for central London.
I had the burger with some fries:

As you can see this is not a stonking great burger, but something a bit more dainty. I got a bit confused as they did not tell me it was coming in a bun, even though I asked. I have to say that this was one my better burgers, and was almost on a par with 5 Guys in New Jersey. It was well cooked with a real grilled taste, and crisp on the outside. A real pleasure, and it was a pity that it was not a little larger. It was hot and scored an 8.7 on the CHOF scale. The fries were a little limp and the top few could have been hotter. You can also see the salt beef sandwich and chicken soup that my daughter chose.

This was pretty good and exceeded my expectations, and it is actually not easy to get a quality burger in London. Most are solid and indifferently cooked. This crumbled and was a joy to chew. There was a little pat of relish that you can see on the plate, but that is not my thing, and I only ate it because it was there.

I add this picture of my post lunch cappuccino for two reasons. Firstly because it now holds my record for most expensive cup of coffee (£4.95) and secondly because of the debate about why we had a glass of water with the coffee. We asked the staff, and we were told that it was for us to rinse the spoon. However a more convincing explanation from the Internet is that the tradition of serving a glass of water with coffee dates back to 1685 in Vienna. In brief, in the traditional Kaffeehaus’s, serving a glass of water with coffee was a way of showing better hospitality and service. The proprietor would encourage guests to stay a while, read the paper and leave at their leisure. Pretentious or what? I rate the Wolseley as pretentious but practical, and on a Sunday lunchtime, the fact that some seemed to be using the place to eat rather than be seen made me feel more comfortable. 

I enjoyed the experience and the food and would be pleased to eat their food again.

The Griffin, Whetsone: competent pub catering but not exceptional

20th January, 2016
We had been invited to join some friends who had been given a complementary meal as a result of serious confusion on New Years Eve which resulted in us being denied access to the pub, despite the thinking that there was a reservation. In the event it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we were about triple the age of the average customer on that night.
The deal was that we could have a meal, but the drink was down to us. Fair enough, and it emphasises the value of complaining about unsatisfactory service.
There is a moderately helpful web site at http://thegriffin-whetstone.co.uk/ but the menu on the web site was out of date at the time of writing, but is not a million miles away and give you the flavour of the typical pub restaurant meals.  Half fancy and not quite yet a gastro-pub.
We were there on a Wednesday night in January, and whilst there were a lot of people drinking, I did not see anyone else using the restaurant facilities. There were one or two somewhat raucous tables of celebratory drinkers which made the atmosphere a bit too noisy for my liking, but it is a pub, and what could I expect?
For starter I chose the fried calamari with chilli sauce

                        

This was a decent size portion with fairly soft calamari, and a tasty sauce, and joy of joys scoring a 9 on the CHOF scale. They were not too oily and clearly some had thought about the appearance which is quite attractive: lots of browns and golds.

For main course I had the Angus Burger with Fries and coleslaw.

I asked for mine to be medium well done with cheese. You cannot see much of the burger as there is a lot of bun served with it, and the cheesed seemed more like cheese sauce. The burger was well cooked and was very hot scoring a 9.2 on the CHOF scale (wow: both courses at my sort of temperature). It was somewhat solid in texture, and I think the best burger I have had still rests with the Jersey City, NJ branch of 5 Guys (I still have not tried any of the UK branches). The chips were quite tasty, but the coleslaw which you cannot see was a bit swimming in dressing. You can see the attempt to also make this attractive by serving on a slate plate.

Altogether a satisfactory meal, as were the meals of my companions, but nothing special and nothing that would make me want to rush back there to eat, given the wide variety of options in Whetstone High Road. The place became very noisy with a big table of girly drinkers, to the point where we decided to move table to somewhere at the front where there were less customers.

I don't know if it was because we were the only ones eating, or because this was known by the staff to be an 'apology meal', but service was attentive and almost bordering on the unctuous. I would guess that for an average customer, they could not put so much effort in, but I may be wrong. House red was about £15/bottle.

Assuming that the quality and quantity are representative of what happens every day, and if you like this sort of formula pub food, then the Griffin will work for you. An average starter is about £5 and an average main about £10.