Before we start, I urge you to pick up the phone or go online and make a reservation for this restaurant. There’s no point in delaying your experience any further than the already long wait that’s usually necessary to get a table at this place.

Dinner by Heston, lunchtime service

The bar space and dining room is tucked away in the Mandarin Oriental opposite Harvey Nics. They have typical swish modern hotel restaurant decor, but is complemented by a magnificent view of Hyde Park through huge window panes. It looked fantastic at lunchtime. You can also look into the kitchen where there’s the steampunk pineapple spit roasting machine that looks like it’s got lots of cogs. It’s got a relaxed atmosphere so you can dress up or down as much as you like.

The set lunch menu’s priced at £28, which is pretty reasonable, but you’ve got to go a la carte to try the signature dishes of the meat fruit and tipsy cake, which are outstanding. Everything we ordered got finished and service was perfect (the water glasses were never empty for longer than a couple of minutes). The only disappointing thing was the stale bread.

Ragoo of pigs ears, anchovy, onions and parsley

The pigs ears starter of the lunch set menu was a generic posh restaurant reduction containing gelatinous shreds of pigs ears on top of the toast. To be honest, it wasn’t my favourite dish of the meal, especially due to the heavy-handed salting of the dish, but it was flavourful and tasty nevertheless.

"Meat fruit" chicken liver parfait and toast

The meat fruit is a must-have. It’s a smooth, creamy, rich incredibly delicious ball of chicken liver parfait inside a thin layer of orange compote jelly. It’s served with generously buttered toast. Style, check. Substance, check.

Roast quail, smoked parsnips and thyme

The quail was the main for the set menu, the flesh was incredibly tender. I can’t remember the taste very well though.

Sirloin of Black Angus and red wine juice

triple cooked chips with mushroom ketchup

The meat was flavourful, topped with bone marrow seasoning. The mushroom ketchup for the ultra-crisp triple-cooked chips was tangy and really umami-rich. Heinz needs to send in a spy to steal the recipe.

Millionaire tart (comes with chocolate wine)

chocolate wine

The millionaire tart was like a luxury version of an already luxury Gu dessert. The chocolate wine was a warm mixture of sweet wine and hot chocolate, which works!

The tipsy cake was the highlight of the meal. It consists of a soft, light yeasty brioche doughball pudding in an alcoholic, buttery, sugary brandy syrup (with crunchy bits of sugar in it) served with caramelized spit-roasted pineapple. This made me decide to go back again.

white chocolate and tea creme with a caraway seed biscuit

It’s always good when you get unexpected free stuff. The tea creme is complementary, and for that matter, the biscuit. The food isn’t as experimental as you might expect from Heston, but it’s absolutely delicious, exciting and filling. I think a good figure of merit for the quality of the rest of my life can be the number of times I feel like felt after my meal here. Loved it.

Princi’s interior food and waiting staff all look beautiful. Who cares about substance when we have looks? What is a bit of a problem is how busy this place is. It’s impossible to sit down straight away and even after you’ve resorted to the un-British act of barging in front of someone to grab a seat (because if you don’t they’ll do the same to you).

The food is okay. When the food is showcased in such an elaborate way, maybe it’s inevitable that you’re disappointed when you taste it.

The Princi cream puff. Plain pastry packed with cream.

Princi chocolate cream slice. A wad of cream with a bit of chocolate on top.

The Princi mille-feuilles. A massive pile of cream with bits of fruit and puff-pastry inbetween.

The cakes had a lot of cream in them. They’re more accurately described as cake creams rather than cream cakes, and it turns out cake creams are quite bland. At Princi, pay for the privilege to hang in a hip Soho eatery with trendy, fashion-conscious young Sohoites in a cool modern-rustic café.

Beigel Bake - my preferred Brick Lane bagel.

Beigel Bake (159 Brick Lane), plain bagel 25p salt beef bagel £3.50, 4/5

Beigel Shop (155 Brick Lane), plain bagel 25p salt beef bagel £3.40, 3/5

The first Jewish area in London wasn’t Golders Green, Stoke Newington or Hendon but Brick Lane. As a self-confessed bagel addict with an average bagel consumption rate of 15/week, I had to make the pilgrimage to the two oldest bagel bakeries in London: Beigel Bake and Britain’s First and Best Beigel Shop. I love the way the word is spelt. It has a similar confidence and authenticity to the spelling “yoghourt”.

Beigel Bake's fresh bagels. You can go get some now!

Both of these venues operate 24/7, which means it’s perfect to satisfy any bagel craving.  Yes that’s post-clubbing salt beef bagels, sleepless night cinnamon raisin bagels, weekend lunch smoked salmon bagels and weekday breakfast buttered bagels.  Being a purist, I take my bagels plain, with expensive continental butter but this time I tried the famous salt beef sandwiches too so I can compare the two shops.

As indicated by the longer queue, Beigel Bake is the superior venue. The bagels themselves are more moist, dense and sweet. However, the texture was quite doughy and didn’t quite match the quality of the Golders Green stalwarts. The prices on Brick Lane are a lot cheaper though. Plain bagels are 25p rather than the North London pricing of about 35-40p. Salt beef, like Doner meat, isn’t really that nice when you’re sober. If I had to choose, though, I’d choose Beigel Bake’s. It’s greasier but more moist and not too salty.  When you have a good authentic bagel, it absorbs the juices of whatever filling you put in it and makes it really delicious anyway.

Beigel Bake's salt beef bagel £3.50

I wouldn’t rule out Beigel Shop altogether. The bagels dry out fast, but are fine when eaten fresh. They’re still miles better than supermarket bagels, and the shorter queue means a quicker fix.

Britain's Oldest and Best Beigel Shop's salt beef bagel £3.40

Flour Station Stall at Borough Market. Beautiful doughy heaven.

These Chelsea Buns are simply amazing. They’re incredibly dense but soft, packed full of currants and really buttery – the best pastry to grace Borough Market. I make a beeline for these every time I go.

The BBC recipe for Chelsea buns calls for 40g of butter per 500g of flour, but Flour Station Chelsea Buns are definitely laden with much more Lescure butter than that. A must buy!

Checking out their website, I discovered that they also have award-winning Eccles cakes. I can’t believe I haven’t tried them. I keep meaning to try their bread too, but it’s so easy to get distracted.

William Curley's ironic retro chocs. The biggest irony is that the originals are better.

William A Curley is an overrated, posh chocolatier in overrated, posh Belgravia supplying overrated, posh restaurants. Most of my feeds on Google Reader are from food blogs and chocolate blogs, so I’d read a lot about Curley’s new products – posh versions of classic chocolate confections. I couldn’t help making a trip to try theire Jaffa Cake and Bounty Bar.

I was disappointed with Curley, and impressed with Mars and McVitie’s. Years of product development and refinement of manufacturing methods, resulting in achievement of cult classic status triumphed over expensive ingredients and a famous london chocolate chef. To me, the corner shop (via cash & carry) Bounty Bar and Jaffa Cake tasted nicer.

Even from the luxury chocolates perspective, William Curley chocolates were no match for my favourite Belgian chocolatier Neuhaus.

I was always intending to visit to try them to try their tasting menu of just desserts in the case of an unfortunate event, but I think I’ll just go to Sainsbury’s confectionery aisle and fill up a basket there next time my heart is broken. At least it won’t break the bank.

Whole roast suckling pig. 25kg, cooked for 8 hours.

The Bavarian Beerhouse have an amazing feasting menu for parties of specifically 20-25 people, where you can share an entire roasted suckling pig and heaps of Bavarian dishes for around £10 a head. It’s a complete bargain for the wow factor of the Lord of the Flies-esque ceremony where an entire roasted pig is unveiled from behind a curtain and carved in front of the crowd.

Homemade pretzels

The accompaniments were cold meats, pickles and salads, potato salad, homemade pretzels, sweet braised red cabbage, dumplings and rolls. Everything was consistently good and stodgy, though nothing stands out as a dish that makes you keep wanting to come back. Though to be fair, it’s probably the presence of the entire pig with the apple in its mouth that prevents anything else from being memorable.

Cold meats, salads and rolls

The food was extremely good value for money, but that was cancelled out by my glass of coke costing £3.50 in a pub setting. In fact, it was a beer hall setting with long benches and waitresses dressed in Bavarian outfits. I should have just stuck to the extensive selection of German beers served in halves, pints or German-style double pints. The novelty, good food and cheer makes the Bavarian Beerhouse worth a visit, especially in groups. There’s a branch in Tower Hill too.

eat me.

Crispy fried sea bream with shredded mango and fish sauce

A very good local Vietnamese restaurant, which offers great value for money and some standout dishes. Admittedly, I wouldn’t go more than a couple of stops on the tube out of the way to eat here, but it’s now my first choice restaurant in Finchley (closely followed by Casa Brazil and Izgara).

Fresh summer rolls

They made no mistakes with the Summer rolls. The skin and the rice vermicelli were soft and moist and the flavours clean and fresh, if not on the bland side. More fish sauce would have been good.

Fresh Papaya salad

The crunchy Papaya salad with a sweet dressing was refreshing and pleasant enough, though again I would have liked a tiny bit more complexity and zing with the flavours.
The Pho was the best I’ve tried in London so far. A clear, flavourful broth with tender morsels of beef and plenty of bouncy, translucent rice noodles. I like the way it’s comforting without being guilt-inducingly unhealthy.
The crispy fried sea bream with shredded mango and fish sauce they recommended was incredibly delicious. I absolutely adored the salty-sweet-sour seasoned fresh mango on top of the fried fish with a crunchy, aromatic exterior and tender flesh. It works like a dream and is exciting for the palate. At £11 for a whole fish big enough for two to share, it’s a real bargain. This dish shows the kitchen’s true potential, and has made me decide to go back to try out their other recommendations. As the service is friendly and lightning fast, and the interior clean and bright, there’s no reason not to.

20% off at lunch, 10% off takeaways and free delivery over £15 within a three mile radius is also a nice touch.

Lobster and white asparagus with Osetra Caviar in a miso sauce.

Being Japanese, and a half decent cook, with a mother who’s an excellent cook, I rarely dine out at Japanese restaurants. Saki is a big exception – its food is authentic and exquisite and of a quality that’s impossible, expensive or extremely time consuming to reproduce at home. There is some experimentation with Western ingredients such as caviar and truffles, to add some luxury vocabulary in the menu, but largely adheres to tradition. It is expensive, but you’d pay just as much in Tokyo for food this good and I imagine quite a few of the ingredients are flown in from Japan. The professional service makes the brightly lit basement dining room a comfortable place to be.
They have a mailing list that tells you about their offers ( leave your business card when you visit to subscribe). I got a 50% off food voucher from a recent offer and hurried along to try their chef’s omakase 5 course menu. The traditional Japanese dishes are delicate, healthy and low in carbs. That’s why I like to order some rice to go with the dishes – it makes up for the lack of carbs, like a bread basket, in Japanese haute cuisine.
The poached lobster is one of my favourite dishes. The morsel is still translucent in the centre. I’ve tried this dish a la carte in the past. Then it didn’t have the caviar and it was still just as good.

Clay pot steamed duck and new bamboo shoot.

A clear soup and various morsels in a cute clay pot. The broth is made of amazing quality dashi. It’s the best I’ve ever had outside Japan. Unfortunately, the piece of duck was a bit tough, but there were also fragrant mushroom and a meaty prawn.

Soy beans, King prawn rice cracker coated tempura, sweet yomogi dumplings, semi-dried, grilled sardine, nanohana flower tempura.

Grilled black cod with truffle miso.

The fried dishes are exciting, and the miso-marinated cod is a brilliant, melt-in-the mouth rendition of the classic dish, made famous on Nobu’s menu. The rich miso marinade is heady with rice wine.

Sushi

The seasoning and firmness of the sushi rice at Saki is spot on – not too sweet and on the tough side.

Chef's special dessert - green tea tiramisu, coffee jelly and homemade ice cream

I love the light, retro Japanese dessert of coffee jelly in its tart raspberry sauce, but my friend wasn’t sure about it. I guess it’s difficult to please both the Western and Eastern palates, which are slightly different. I think Saki generally strikes a good balance.

They have an extensive sake rice wine list as well.

Falafel-sweetcorn-beetroot burger. Strongly recommended.

The ongoing Haché or Byron debate has continued to divide Londoners.  If you’re a vegetarian, you’d say Haché. Their falafel sweetcorn burger with beetroot is the only vegetarian dish that I’d ever order and has the power to salvage any vegetarian-carnivore relationship. (At Byron the only veggie option is an oversized mushroom wedged between buns.)

Bit too much cheese on the blue-cheese burger.

However, Haché’s crucial beef burgers are ironically spoilt by their signature ciabatta buns. I don’t think they really work. Despite this, and the gimmicky way they’re served – with the top bun removed, alongside a decorative, twee salad-  I must admit they have decent, well-seasoned patties.

The sides are pretty good.

The service was fine, but I have a low tolerance to the overuse of words such as “fresh” and “premium quality” in printed materials, so the ubiquity of printed materials (including the wall) asserting the freshness of the food got on my nerves.

It’s undeniable that Haché tries a bit too hard and fails to achieve as much as Byron, but the atmosphere is trendy and pleasant, the service and food is reliable. I’d definitely recommend it for an evening out when there’s a vegetarian around.

Part of the shared meat platter for two. Baby ribs, beef ribs, pulled pork, chicken and more.

Bodean’s serves incredible, slow-cooked, smoky meat from their “oak-burning smoke pit” – lots and lots of it too. They barbeque chicken wings, burnt ends (slow-cooked beef brisket in BBQ sauce), pulled pork, three different kinds of ribs.. the list goes on. The US diner-style restaurants are dimly lit and have most tables separated by dividers, so you can unashamedly tuck into the piles of meat and fries while getting sticky barbeque sauce everywhere. The service is friendly too, which means you go home stuffed, content and merry.

assortment of starters - crab cakes, quesadilla, wings and ribs

I personally recommend the shared platter for two. Mainly because it allows you to sample most of the barbequed meats on the menu for around £10 a head with fries and coleslaw, and partly because some cuts of meat are cooked/seasoned better than others depending on when you go and the branch. Go crazy with the selection of condiments (two types of BBQ sauce, spicy sauce etc.).

Chicken wings with an excellent blue cheese dip.

The sides and puddings are strong too. The chicken wings come in a variety of marinades that seems to roughly coincide with the Nando’s scale – hot=hot, diablo=extra hot. The pies and cakes are fabulously rich and squidgy-sweet, but only comes with a small squirt of whipped cream, so it’s a bit dry. Ordering a portion of ice-cream for every couple of desserts makes them just perfect.

Chilli cheese fries.

They have a membership card called the Q card (free of charge), which entitles you to some pretty good offers depending on branch and day of the week. e.g. free schnapps.

Pecan pie.

Chocolate macadamia cheesecake.

It’s great that they have branches dotted around London, as the most Central Soho branch is always full and only takes reservations for large groups.

And if you’re a vegetarian? I don’t know. Try the mac & cheese?

Don't miss the Bodean's sign.