Akropolis, Station Road, Westcliff on Sea. Competent Cypriot Food

28th July
Probably to save any confusion between the culture of North and South Cyprus, the Akropolis plants is origins clearly in its name. If you were expecting Greek food, this is slightly off target, but if you want Cypriot Taverna, this is the place.
The menu is very standard. What picks this place out is the balladeer that is there nightly. On a wet Monday night in July, the place was very busy. We had wanted to try the place for many years, but were rarely there at night time, but today was our chance.
We somewhat boringly chose the Meze. This was exactly what you would expect. There was a series of cold dishes and dips followed by meat fish and sausage. There are absolutely no surprises.

The brownish balls on the left are scampi

Haloumi, ham and spicy sausages

kleftico and stifado

All the hot food was hot, scoring 8 or more on the scale. The quality and the taste were excellent. My only criticism was that the meal was somewhat thrown at us to their timetable. There was a big party in that night which may have consumed most of their interest, but on a wet Monday, were were not going anywhere, so it was a pity that they could not have made the meal a bit more leisurely. Entirely competent, and hot, but not exciting enough to make us regular customers. Better places nearer home. Meze cost £19.95 per person min two persons.

Victoria Inn, Burnham on Crouch: Safe bet for a pub lunch in Burnham

28th July 2014
If you ever fancy a day trip to Burnham, don't go on a Monday. They obviously get very busy weekend and need Monday to recover. One of the more popular restaurants in the town has now closed but Victoria Inn seems to be a good place for people who like drinking beer and eating pub lunch.

The menu is quite simple. It lacks some of the pub classics such as Ploughman's and plates of salad, savouries and sandwiches. But it has plenty of other stuff such as pie and chips, baked potatoes, sausages and so on. Whilst there is web-based information about the drink there is nothing to read about the pub food.  To keep it simple I chose sausage baguette.

You get quite a lot of hot sausage for your money. You can probably tell that it is not one of the rustic sausages but is more of a smooth variety. It was perfectly hot and tasty scoring and nine on the scale. They threw in a few chips as well, which was unexpected. I fancied a coffee after the meal. The best they could manage was a cup of instant. Shame on them.

My wife's baked potato was judged to be good.

The food was hot and could not be faulted, but lacked any originality or flair. Fair value.

Sukanya, Station Road, Denham: I wish it was nearer home

8th July.
I had a business group meeting in Harefield, and this place was suggested for a post-meeting get together. On a wet Tuesday night in July, we were in a pretty empty place. There are quite a few restaurants in Denham, which may get lunchtime business from the business parks nearby. There are actually two Thai restaurants in the immediate area (forgot to say it is Thai) and I don't know why this one was suggested in favour of the other, but I am glad it was.
It is not an inspiring place,and was so dimly lit, that it might have been closed. There were only a couple of other tables occupied, one of which was the staff. There is little to learn about the place from the internet, and the best information comes from TripAdvisor, and seem accurate enough http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g616258-d4093645-Reviews-Sukanya_Thai_Restaurant-Denham_Buckinghamshire_England.html  .There is nothing unusual about the menu and it is pretty standard stuff.
I was with a colleague who did not have any particular needs, and so to keep things simple we went for the set menu A, at just under £20 each (very fair price I thought). You can either have soup or a plate of hot starter, which is what we went for:

Again, pretty standard stuff with the prawns in batter, spring roll, prawn toast, but also some ribs that cannot be seen and some chicken thighs. Hot  and tasty with suitable sauces.

The main selection was also fairly standard stuff with a green chicken curry, beef, vegetables, prawn and fragrant rice. This was also big quantity, tasty, and all the dishes were hot scoring about 8.8 on the CHOF scale. Service was a little slow, but that did not matter. The staff were very pleasant, and were it not for the fact that this is an inconvenient location for north London, I would definitely go there again. Recommended. The set meal for two, including coffee was about £20 which was extremely reasonable, and a bit less than average.

Durum, Finchley Central. Consistently pleases

5th July 2014
One of the problems with this sort of blog is that there are some places I tend to go to repeatedly, and if there is nothing new to say, then I don't say anything. That is why there has been fewer entries recently. However, one point I have made is the fear of disappointment returning to really good places. A routine Saturday night meal out took us back to Durum in Finchley, which I have mentioned before. The web site has changed: it used to have a somewhat persistent music track. Now on http://durumrestaurant.co.uk/ . The web site is less informative and tells us nothing about the food, but there is now a branch in Golders Green. The pictures on the web site pretty much tell the story except the queues for takeaway kebab on Saturday nights.
Nothing much changes here except the prices. It is very busy early on Saturday night, but I booked the same day. If you go after 8.30 pm, you would probably get in without booking.
On this occasion I had the beyti kebab which is kofte in a spicy sauce on a bed of flatbread.

This was just sooooo good. It was very hot: a 10/10 on the CHOF scale, and very tasty,being in a piquant tomato sauce. It was a big helping, and I probably should not have ordered the portion of chips (also a 10 on the scale) which I shared with my wife but I did not know about the bread base. We had shared a cold mixed meze starter, which was also probably too much, and we left feeling very full. Prices have crept up a little here, and this cost £10.50 I think. 

Definitely going back again.

Meze Mangal, Lewisham, The Turkish Restaurant of South East London: upper crust Turkish

8th June
A premature Fathers' day outing with my family to this location because it suited the majority, and this was definitely not North London. This Turkish Restaurant, very popular with the locals, describes itself as comparable to many places in Green Lanes (if you live in N London, or Cyprus, you know what that means). The ratings are very high, and my daughter has eaten there before, and so it seemed a pretty reasonable sort of choice. There is lots of information on http://www.mezemangal.co.uk/ . I think it would be difficult to get to by public transport without a significant walk, but there is parking at the frontage of the restaurant and in the sides streets out of business hours.
The menu is fairly conventional and it is a large place used to parties/families en masse. The place seemed a bit vacuous just after opening time on a Sunday, but I guess it is very popular and fills up. I would not want to go there without booking. They also do take-away.

For Starter, as we were a family group, with one vegetarian, we had a plate of mixed cold meze starters. This photo was taken a bit late, and shows it part consumed.

Suffice it to say that there were good quantities of the usual tasty stuff. For main course I chose the Adana Kofte:

This was hot and scored a 8.8 on the CHOF scale, and was pretty big portion. I would say that the kofte meat was a little on the underseasoned side (which of course is better than the other way) and some kofte I have had elsewhere is more pungent. This reminded me more of the sort of kofte that you might get in a Cypriot Restaurant. However, there was no fault, and it was tasty and fresh with a salad accompaniment.

The web site shows the menu and I am guessing that we will go there again. I may choose the Beyti next time.

Service was friendly and flexible and our family was made most welcome. The pricing is possibly a bit higher that the North London counterparts. A main course costs £12.50, and I guess this is a couple of pounds more than a typical counterpart in North London. However, this is quality food. I would definitely go there again.

Royal Carribbean Independence of the Seas: The case of the missing Kidney and the food must have been hot at some point?

17-25th May
As an experiment, we deserted our usual smaller cruise ships, and went for a short holiday on the second biggest cruise liner in the world. You can get an idea of the size on
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=independence+of+the+seas+2014&es_sm=119&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=Tu2NU7L5KMu_POzNgJgI&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=869#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=PRGLG-9_0q-K2M%253A%3BW6wx4vd5kOMM1M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.royalcaribbeanblog.com%252Fsites%252Fdefault%252Ffiles%252Ffriday-photos%252FIndependence%252520of%252520the%252520Seas%2525203-2014%252520415-rcb.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.royalcaribbeanblog.com%252F2014%252F05%252F03%252Ffriday-photos-saturday%3B1024%3B695

When it is full, which it was on this occasion, it is carrying about 3800 passengers plus crew. You can imagine the logistics of trying to feed that many people about three times a day. It is a slick production line with a very American slant. The way the pricing of some cruise ships work is that the basic price is quite good, but you have to pay a bit extra if you want to go to some specialty restaurants, and in the case of the IotS, the drink is pricey, with a cheap bottle of wine costing over $30 including 15% service. Wine by the glass is about $10. Whilst these prices may seem expensive to UK eyes, this is seen to be the norm for US customers. Drink on board some of the UK favoured cruise lines is more in line with pub/restaurant prices. Expensive bottles don't bear thinking about.
So, if you don't want to pay extra (and what you get by paying extra does not really seem worth while unless you have a very special occasion), there is no problem. There are four levels of breakfast service ranging from coffee shop type outlet, to buffet, scrum buffet and silver service. At best there are three types of lunch: pizza cafe/sandwich, served and appalling scrum buffet. There are three dining rooms open for dinner. There is either the traditional two sitting multipassenger fixed table, or a much sought after choose your own time with potentially tables for two. So on paper it sounds ok.

We had chosen what is called 'my time' dining where we had designated time for dinner well in advance. For some bizarre reason the restaurants are named after Shakespearean tragedies and we found ourselves placed in the King Lear restaurant. What we did not bargain for us having to queue for a table and at 8 o'clock, which was a popular time for my time dining, we often had to join the queue about 20 deep. It looked a bit more scary than it actually was and  once the staff came to know us as a couple wanting a table for two in a particular area they usually plucked us out of the queue and positioned us in our desired area fairly quickly.  There was one particular evening after a very popular show in the theatre, when the queue promised to be particularly long. By queueing before the main crowd came out I managed to get our table and the staff left us to our own devices. One disappointing element was the formal nights, and I think it was not reasonable to make people queue up in their formal dress. I guess if we had opted for a fixed table at a fixed time, none of this would have happened. The choice of food in King Lear was excellent, and we were mostly pushed to make up our minds. There was always a fish, vegetarian and hunk of meat option. Whilst portion sizes are not huge, because there is so much food served in the day, the meal sizes are more than adequate, and if you wanted something in addition, the staff did not make it a problem. Staff in the restaurants were universally excellent: I could find no fault.
Here are some examples of dinner served in the King Lear.

The departure meal of soup, a big hunk of American steak, and Bailey's Creme Brûlée.

On another night there was a traditional (not for the ship or the crew, but for the largely British guests) steak and kidney pie. I found no kidney in mine, but there was no point in sending it back, so I put it down to 'lost in translation' and regarded it as steak and mushroom pie. 

I have to say that we what are delighted by and large with the food in the King Lear restaurant. However hot seem to be an alien concept, with food rarely scoring over 7 the CHOF scale. We mentioned this to the staff, and for one night, there was a marginal improvement, mainly because the plates were scorching hot. As the food was plated out somewhere in the bowels of the ship, transported to deck 5, we just accepted that this was simply going to be a lost cause. I think that because few people complain the thing is just accepted, that the food is never going to be hot.

One of the tricky aspects of IotS is the Windjammer cafe and Jade. This is the big open self service buffet that operates at breakfast, lunch, tea and probably dinner (but we never used it for that). It is huge and for days in port and early breakfasts, it was the only choice. It is a very slick operation, geared up to dealing with feeding huge numbers of people in the minimum possible time. In fact it makes the point of reminding the customers that they should vacate their tables as quickly as possible to allow the next guests to take their place. This is not exactly what you want to hear when you're eating. Coupled with the huge number of people is a huge choice and although there is a bit of a scrum in getting served you will succeed eventually.  Somewhat perversely for breakfast it seems to be the place where you could get freshly cooked eggs, but not necessarily what you wanted, more what the cook was prepared to do, and whether you were prepared to wait. If you have not done this kind of eating before, there are huge numbers of people, some of whom are old or disabled, milling about trying to fill their plates as high as they can. I was amazed at the quantity of food that some people seem to be prepared to eat. I guess others were somewhat amazed at the permutations of food that I was prepared to eat

This was lunch on the first day. A combination of hot-dog paella southern fried chicken and lamb stew. What you can't see is that this is served on a plastic plate and the drinks to which you help yourself come in plastic glasses.

This was breakfast served on a day with a particularly early start somewhere about 7 o'clock. They did not seem to be any time too early for the restaurant to not be full. One could only assume that there were significant number of insomniacs on the ship or people we never went to bed at night. Another issue is that one had to learn one's way around the various containers of food and the layout of the restaurants and it was only towards the end of the first week that one was able to assemble a logical mix of food for any particular meal. You will notice on the place of birth the somewhat small portion of scrambled egg. Scrambled egg is notoriously difficult to find any decent state on any buffet. I guessed right at this particular type of scrambled egg was both overcooked and cold. No meal in the Windjammer restaurant scored a CHOF of greater than seven. We got to the point was waiting for the servers to put fresh tureens of food in place. Even that didn't help and food was not hot even at the point of service. The unlikely solution was to come at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon when tea was starting and find that there was a full meal in place which had been so long in the serving bays that it had heated up. The Windjammer restaurant was clearly the refuge of those who felt uncomfortable in the mainstream restaurants. From all appearances it was difficult to work out how some of these people had gathered together the money to pay for the cruise (based on their appearance). Fine dining it wasn't.

Another weird mix once we had worked out that the Jade side of the restaurant served Asian specialities. The curries were actually very hot but not in temperature.

So the question was whether the quality, variety and quantity of meals outweighed the downside of food that was not hot enough. Despite trying to raise the issue with staff, we failed to make any noticeable impression. However overall the eating was a good experience given the shortcomings.

B-B-Q Grill, Whetstone: Just friendly fresh food at realistic prices

13th May 2014
Over the years, the local restaurants come and go. We still mourn the passing of the Oregano in Oakleigh Road North, and have been looking for a local eatery that you can go into and not be concerned about having to pay out an arm and a leg, and get some decent food. It used to also be the Lantern in the High Road in Whetstone, but that became a Greek that only lasted a few weeks, and now is a somewhat upmarket Indian.
For some time we had ignored the BBQ grill, but ended up there one evening some time ago when we could not get into the bar at the Haven, and this was the only place that did not suck teeth when we just wanted to drink and not have a meal. As the food looked good, and it turned out that the restaurant part was being run by a favoured old hand from the old Lantern, we were up for giving it a go. This occasion is now the second time, and the place has now become a friends meeting place for an inexpensive meal
There is a web page on http://www.bbqgrillwhetstone.co.uk/and also information on  http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/restaurants/restaurant-12913.php and most of the comments there are pretty enthusiastic. It is a small place that has also had a few incarnations, and the top level functions as a takeaway kebab shop and restaurant and there are facilities downstairs that we have not explored yet. Unlike some similar layout kebab shops, the restaurant actually can get pretty full, and there seems to be a loyal local clientele of families and workers. It looks like a family run affair, and the lady of the house is often seen stressing about trying to make customers happy. It is very friendly and you cannot help but think that they appreciate the custom. Despite what the banners say the venue is traditionally Cypriot and the menu is short and also traditional. The restaurant is utilitarian rather than decorous and it could probably benefit from a few pictures or other relevant decorations.
For starter, I had the fried Calamari:

The serving was actually bigger than this but I only thought about taking a picture part of the way through eating it. It was hot, fresh and to me tasted like fried calamari should. It was also quite hot scoring a nine on the CHOF scale.

For main course I ordered shish kofte with chips. It could have come with either salad or rice as alternative.

This photograph taken with my Samsung mobile phone does not do the dish true justice. I know that a lot of people would not agree with me but the cameras on mobile phones are simply not as good as purpose-built cameras. Yes they may have lots of pixels, the same as a proper camera, but they don't have optics that are good. You cannot beat a protected purpose built multielement zoom lens from a decent maker. Mobile phone cameras make a lot of guesses, and in my experience suffer with quite a bit of flare around the edges especially in bright scenarios such as taking a picture of white plate. They can also not be so great in dim light, and the inbuilt flash devices are a bit of a joke for emergency assistance only. Nevertheless, that is what I have with me on the occasion and I upload my pictures via dropbox service and I can edit them on my computer.

Now to the meal. As the restaurant functions as a kebab house you can see the food is freshly cooked. Quantities are very generous and it scores and nine plus on the CHOF scale. My only reservation about these kofte is that I am more accustomed to the version that one might get in a Turkish kebab house, and this Cypriot version is not quite as spicy, which is my natural preference. I am not criticising what was served here, as it was excellent. I have had their mixed grill before, and the plate was so huge that I had to have a doggy bag to go home with.

In the six months we have been going there, they have not had their coffee machine repaired, if it ever worked in the first place, and the best they could come up with was a cup of instant. However, regular diners are often rewarded with a drink on the house. Basically these people come over as not trying to make the last buck from every diner. The bill was extremely reasonable, and one can expect to have a two course meal with a drink for about £15.

We will definitely be going back there again.