Here’s 9 of my most memorable meals in 2009.

St John

Let’s kick things off with something British. I like restaurants which push the boundaries, and Fergus Henderson’s ‘nose to tail’ concept was certainly something that appealed to me. For such a well liked restaurant, I was delightfully surprised to find an easy going feel about the place: no ponciness on the menu, what you see is what you get, and just brilliantly cooked offal slapped on a plate. I tried their legendary roast bone marrow, sipped some of the most tremendously hearty veal broth (ever), and witnessed the bloodiest pigeon ever to be presented. I don’t think St John applies to everyone and one has to be pretty brave (or have ordered a strong shiraz) to wash down all the gaminess some of the dishes will throw at you. However, if you’re up for a totally alternative experience, I can think of no better restaurant in London to try than this one. You’ll certainly remember it, as I did.

Goodman

I love steak, and I know many of you do too. I tried Hawksmoor – the blogger’s choice, yeah not bad, very good actually but I prefer Goodman just because they can grill a steak just as well (One of few in town equipped with a Josper grill), and they have a multitude of choice when it comes to type of meats, chief among them : Prime American beef. On my first visit, they overcooked my rib eye but it was still very good. On my second visit, they served Irish Jack O’Sheas along side the American stuff, perfectly bloody and it was orgasmic. On my third visit, they presented us with stuff from all over the place, including cuts from Lake District and I was literally blown away. Last I heard, the Russian owners were now importing Wagyu from New Zealand. It’s expensive, but you get to choose what you pay for and the sheer number of quality choices is – in my opinion – Goodman’s greatest attraction. Steaks are all about the meat afterall, my favourite steakhouse in town, go try the massive porterhouse cuts and make sure you ask for medium rare.

Sushi Hiro

As much as I love steaks, I can’t eat it everyday. On the other hand, sushi is like the perfect food : it’s healthy and it melts in your mouth. I frequently return to this modest sushi bar out in Ealing (once every 60 days or when I have a sushi craving or whichever comes first) and it has never, ever failed me. Not only do they serve the silkiest raw fish in town, they are also one of the most affordable sushi bars that I know. Forget sNobu, if you want to try the best sushi in London, this is it.

Ledbury

I went to the Ledbury in March, and so far, no dish has surpassed my experience of the “Celeriac baked in ash with hazelnuts, wood sorrel and a kromeski of middle white pork”. It’s the best dish I have had this year. I’m simply going to cut and paste my original notes on this:

It didn’t take them very long to plate up and what a glorious looking dish. The little mayonic dashes dotted around the dish is actually a black truffle mayo I’m told, and it also comes with some shaved hen eggs. The celeriac was simply amazing. It had a rich salt flavour, but also had a warming smokiness associated with it as well. The inherent natural sweetness of the celeriac added dimension, and the slices of celeriac seemed to retain alot of moisture. The texture was almost like a gently silky steamed turbot, or even a cod. If I was blind tasting this, I wouldn’t have guessed it to be a vegetable. The hazelnut really added alot colour to the flavour, it gave it that regal and fragrant aftertaste. The breaded pork – in comparison – was smooth and mild, but the celeriac didnt need it at all. Of course, when you try to put abit of everything together, the dish becomes a whole new rollercoaster ride altogether, though the celeriac really dominates.

In other words, effing awesome. Only £13 a pop – go before Brett gets his 2nd star in January and hikes his prices.

Eastside Inn Restaurant

I was reluctant to include this in my end of year round-up because I have niggling issues with this restaurant. First of all, this weekday only establishment is too expensive. The ala carte is £70, a glass of burgundy is £13 – my wallet was visibly thinner after paying for one of the priciest lunches, not to mention servings comparable to Calista Flockhart’s diminishing frame. But, I did have very, very good food. The lobster, sweetbread and cepes – oh my god, the best lobster soup/sauce/veloute I have come across thus far. And to top it off, a flaming whisky meringue with pop rocks – gimmicky but it was fantastic. I predict great things for Bjorn in 2010, great things and I will be returning to the more affordable Bistro come the new year.

Franco Manca

I was discussing the need for a point of reference with fellow food fanatic Mark of Food. By Mark. He brought this to my attention and he highlighted how it was important for a readership to be able to gauge what the author is talking about when he compares experiences. And so going forward in 2010, this is an area I would want to pay more attention. For one, to give people the chance to relate, and secondly for my own discovery in terms of trying different things. Which brings me to the pizzas at Franco Manca. Many say that this is the real deal. I’ve had FM three times now (at their original Brixton location), the base is indeed incredible: doughey, chewy, toasty, just fantastic. But is it the real deal? Who knows, I’ve never been to Italy. What I do know is that if you want pizzas that are unusually amazing, you need to give Franco Manca a try. Alternatively, the Donna Magherita recipe is pretty stunning as well.

La Trompette

I was gob smacked to find such good food at such low prices – the three course a la carte is under £30, dinner is under £40 and it’s got a michelin star. The grilled bavette of beef was – and I quote:

was a bovine sponge that soaked up the syrupy sauce that carried deep balsamic and saltiness..

…or something like that. Equally good were the giant ravioli of crab, salads were enticingly fresh and everything about this Chiswick outfit was a breathe of fresh air. If I had to choose one restaurant to take someone out to which served great food, had comfortable atmosphere, is well priced, nothing too adventurous, something French, maybe abit posh – this would be it.

Sheen Suppers

I will remember 2009 as the year of the home restaurant, underground supper clubs and the rage against the man. Eating in someone’s front room is abit strange but when it’s done right, it can be quite enthralling. The most memorable one to date has to be Sheen Suppers. We started with an amazing prawn and pancetta pate, followed by a hearty gnocchi with a ragu of beef shin, before finally finishing off with a proper orange sponge cake. To top it all off, each course was paired with a wine. I donated £25 toward the meal, since you know, it was a dinner party and there is no such thing as a home restaurant.

Uncle Lim’s Kitchen…

..should open a branch in central London, because this is the best Hainanese chicken rice money can buy within the M25. It’s near enough perfect and almost as good as anything you can find in South East Asia, almost. I can’t afford to eat £50 dinners everyday and I wouldn’t really want to do either (well..) . Most of the time, I am happy to settle for something tasty, something cheap and something comforting. I could have this for lunch everyday, just like it is originally intended and I just might if I lived in Croydon.

And that’s a wrap. I hope you’ve enjoyed all the 2009 restaurant write-ups. I have unloaded more adjectives and more vivid images than ever before, I promise to continue the trend into the new year and I hope you continue to read my work. Thank you for being such a wonderful audience, folks.

That’s all he ate in 2009, here’s to a bigger belly in 2010.

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London does not always have bad weather. Sometimes, it really is awesome. Like this weekend for example. Spring came early and yes, while it’s a breezy 13C , the sunshine is just awesome. Just the colours… the vibrance… I had to do it, the internet deserves to know what a truly awesome place London morphs into … when the sun comes out.

Eating and reading in the park

The flowers in and around the Kensington Palace, with the Orangery (packed to the brim and looking like a two hour queue..) in the background. I was suppose to pop in for a spot of high tea but the queue was just ridiculous and perhaps it’s better to just roll around on the grass.

It’s been a while since I last did a proper edition of eat&read and I think I may just change it to a fortnightly one instead. Believe it or not, a eat&read post takes a really long time to produce. All the linking up, the rounding up, alot of ideas to organise and compose. I’m finally back from holiday and back to my tuesday/friday review schedule once again. If you havent read them yet, I posted a review of the new Italian crowd favourite Bocca di Lupo and also published a write-up of my visit to the Butcher’s block.

Brand new ideas.

I like this photo – it makes for a pretty kewl desktop wallpaper. This was shot with a nifty 50 mm at f/2.5 for you glass heads, processed with Capture NX2 (vivid option) and then exported with Lighroom 2.1.

I’m trialing my photos as desktop wallpapers and starting with this one as ‘beta’. You can download a large 1600 px version here. When the picture has finished loading, right-click on it and select ‘make as your background’ option, and make sure you tell me if you like it, or not.

I’ve upgraded to a brand new camera by the way, so picture quality should be even more sumptuous. It’s a little bittersweet to say goodbye to my trusty D40, but man the D90 is simply an awesome camera. Until I get the D300 that is. Ah yes, I don’t always think about food all the time, I also fantasize about sexy cameras, and also sexy site design.

For the benefit of my subscribers, I’ve streamlined the site design a little bit. It should be sleeker now, but it’s still abit of work in progress as there are a few more tiny features I would like to add to it, pop your browser to http://londoneater.com to have a quick look see. I’ll speak more about site design in another post some other time.

And before I go back to the park again..

Righto, it’s another glorious sunday morning as I write this and one more picture I’d like to make available for you to download as a wallpaper is this one of the wind blowing through a park chair, taken through a park chair.

I’m going to turn my little quickie wine guide into a free ebook for your to download sometime soon and would love to know if you’d like any of my foodie photos turned into full blown desktop wallpapers for you to peruse (ethically and for private use only, of course):

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My port of call is usually the Gloucester road bus stop, though we start our little photo tour just outside Hyde Park Corner for the number 9. The sky was doing amazing things on that particular Friday and it allowed me to grab this shot of the golden lights seemingly opening it’s arms to the Mandarin Oriental. What a lovely sight.

Riding on the No.9, one of the last remaining routes to still be using the old routemasters (that’s what they are called, right?), I lay witness to a beautiful day and all the vibrance of Green Park’s lush greens, colours so rich I might have mistaken it for one of the paintings for sale just outside the fences.

Final destination was the National Gallery in Piccaddily for a spot of Debussy. On that friday evening, a recital was organised in room 18 and put together by the Royal college of music … no Claire de Lune though. I realised how I’ve never really photographed the London landmarks before. Well, all in good time I suppose, and with this trip, Nelson’s column at Trafalgar Square.

Of course, how can I go sightseeing and not include a photograph of the weekend’s sins…

On the way back westward, I was in Whiteleys for some glorious Belgian waffles.

Ahh… that’s another great weekend’s worth of me and the Smoke. I got a nod from Charz at Timeout (Thanks Charmaine!), sitemeter shows you still care enough to read my stuff and I’m still stinting at Qype.

Hope your weekend was awesome, folks.

I take it everyone had a smashing time getting all loved up yesterday? As for myself, I’ve been a busy bee planning content for London Eater over the next couple of weeks. Yes there are a few announcements I need to make in this edition of Eat&Read and the first one is that your resident London Eater (me) is going on holiday for two weeks (Hurray!) , but fear not, I’m still going to be blogging and I’d like to tell you abit about the coming content so do keep reading (please, please, pretty please.)

Eating. happenings here on london eater

The past week has been abit of a blur and the workload is due mainly to email. First of all, my apologies to those of you who sent me an email and are still waiting for a reply – I’m still working through my inbox and I promise I will get round to you eventually, if I don’t – do email me again and bash me abit and I am sure to reply

On this topic of emails, I’ve started to receive emails from readers about places to eat/things they wanna eat in London and I just want to say it’s a really rewarding feeling hearing from you. Apart from writing foodporn, this website is set up to help people find things to eat in London and I’m glad that you’ve put your trust in me to help you with recommendations. I’ll keep up the work here and believe me, I’m always thinking about new ways to bring exciting, entertaining and useful content to my readership, so here’s to you my dear reader!

Announcements. special seasonal stuff on london eater

I’m going to skip the usual round-up of the last week’s blogging activities and go straight into some stuff I wanna get off my chest:

1. Write for me and win £50 competition I would like to thank all of you who sent in your reviews, everything is great and I’ll put together a schedule for release and email you once I figure out when your review is going online. The first one should go out around the 21st of Feb, in the meantime, if you still want to join, then do write in, I’m still accepting submissions, deets here.

2. London Eater is going on Holiday which is why I organised a little competition on this blog, I will be going away in a couple of weeks time. I’ll still be eating and blogging of course and there will be four more London reviews between now and the end of February. There will not be any London Eating in the 1st week of March. Eating resumes on the 2nd week of march. As for content in between, here is what I plan to write about….

3. Write about the good stuff I eat back home I wonder if escapade still does that £15 lobster and scallop dish back home, if they do, it’s going on LE. I’ll also be doing abit of travelling and I will be giving away my travel eating posts to Delightful Eggtarts and the Food site. I think I can probably squeeze out about eight posts on while traveling and if you’d like me to give one of these guest post to your blog, I’d be more than happy to do so just email me.

4. The London Eater Wallpaper Pack giveaway While I am away, I will be looking into my photo archive and I will be turning some of the photos into desktop wallpapers. Everything will be free to download and I hope you’ll like some of the stuff I have planned. Look out for the Wallpaper pack sometime in the end of February.

5. London Eater All Week Quirkers I will be blogging more quirkers as I receive brainbolts while boring myself on the airplane ride and there are a few ‘editorials’ I’d like to write about, I say editorials but really it’s more like ‘rants’, oh no no, let’s use glossier words, polarising opinion in the world of food blogging.

Reading into London. stuff really worth reading about

Tipped is an ultracool online community in which local people share ‘tips’ about things to do in London. I’ve been using for the past week or so and I love the simple clean interface. You’ll find me as ‘Kang.L’ on tipped and you can go befriend me if you like.

Wee Birdy London is one of the finalists for the 2009 bloggie awards for best kept secret. It’s a fashion blog by a fashionista for fashionistas. The blog design is super clean and the pictures are really slick. I mean, I’m a dude and even I’m impressed by this, it’s a really cool site, go check it out girls.

EatMakeRead is the blog of Kelly the Graphic Designer who loves to eat, make fun things and read interesting stuff. Yet another superiorly slick foodblog with great photographs and a superclean design. It’s all about the white space, I love this one alot.

Drinking chocolate Maybe cos its Sunday I am really craving a damn good cuppa hot chocolate. So I googled it and stumbled upon this gem of a recipe at Recipes2Share. Oh look at all those bubbles….

Next Week on London Eater

On Monday, I will unleash the foodie tube map on the chew on that blog, on tuesday I will write the delayed cafe rouge breakfast trip and on friday you will witness the sophie lobster roll. In between will be the usual London Eater quirkers and on Saturday I will be leaving on a jetplane. Have a great sunday folks and see you back here tomorrow!

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It has been abit of a winter wonderhell this past week, yeah the snow has been alot of fun but it completely destroyed my shoes ( I bought new clarks for work yesterday ) and forced me to take a day off ( mixed feelings as I enjoyed the lie in but loathed 9 hours less vacation time..) work. By saturday – I’d managed to catch up on most of my mandatory spreadsheet staring, met a couple of beautiful and lovely bloggie lasses and somehow managed to find myself on a food tv show, ah the precarious life a humble food blogga.

Welcome to the first sunday eat&read of february ladies (and gents).

Eating. happenings here on london eater

This has been one of the better eating weeks as site traffic began to pick up and food bloggers have re-started communicating with likeminds again. I produced four posts this week.

1. Life is good and food is still good when I paid a visit to Arbutus last Friday with my pals over at metrotwin.
2. I also wrote up a review about the mozzarella bar in Selfridges ( eat cheese while you watch women pick their next overpriced handbag ) Obika; yes they fly the white blobs in at least three times a week which means that it’s expensive.
3. The little bay in Farringdon is letting you eat anything you want and letting you pay anything you want. No joke, article here. So, what do you think your meal is worth…..
4. ….and abit of blurb about mah plans for London Eater in the next quarter plus stats.

London. happenings around the Smoke

Yes. That’s been the big news all week: England was hit by the worse snowstorm in two decades and here in London we had a good 3 inches of snow that wrecked havoc on all public transport. Like all things in this country, disruption equals impromptu public holiday. Oh how I wish my fake fireplace burnt real wood. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to snap pictures of snowy London (believe me, the blogger part of me is in tears right now…) but it really was beautiful outside. I made huge snowballs from the snow covering the cars parked outside my street and selectively threw it at pretty ladies walking by hoping that could lead into an opening pick up line. Unsurprisingly, that random act of hopeful(less)ness failed – but with no catastrophic consequence. I must re-read my little blue book regarding ‘The fine art of small talk’.

I received a rather cryptic email from a man from ITV asking me if I’d like to participate in a new cooking show on tv called Taste The Nation. I was close to putting this in my junk mail folder until I googled it and it turned out to be the real deal. So I said yes and a couple of days later I receive a phone call from the production crew:

“Is this… KANG?” says woman with the estuary accent.

“YES” says me.

“Do you know the….LOCATION.”

“Um..no.”

“It is in…. FULHAM FOOTBALL CLUB. Do you ….. know it.”

“YES.” …. and 24 hours later I’m in the presence of too many cameras and am sat on a table with a japanese food writer, a novelist and a couple of lads who help organise lavish partays for fallen investment banks (that’s where the bailout money really goes) but the most interesting person I met on the shoot was a retired and very worldly Hotelier just back from a trip to Indo-China. He spoke of his lack of confidence in Mark Hughes and how he thought Sven was a real charmer: The man used to be a shareholder in Man City, get it? Thanks for the invite Ben and great to have finally met ya Lizzie.

The TV show is abit like a cooking version of X-factor and I saw Nick Nairn (woo.) and Rosemary ‘Lady to Ladette’ (in that order). Didn’t manage to snag their Hancocks but I did get a taster of food cooked for ‘TV’ and refrained from turning into the next Simon Cowell when the camera swung my way for comments about the stuff I tasted. I wasn’t too keen about screen time and I’m hoping the edit room will be kind and not turn my vox-pop into a mangled foodie from hell sort of thing , thankfully I was sat on a table with a couple of folks who seemed desperate to prove they are TV material by summoning all kinds of adjectives to describe how food tasted ‘awful’. I hoping their ‘performances’ are going to outshine my own. Like I said – being ‘the entertaining one’ on reality tv is not quite that funny.

And on that note..

Expect a write up on Abeno too and the Cafe Rouge on Friday and Tuesday (yes, in that order) respectively in the week that will be upon us. Until then, happy eating folks, the sun is out in London and I’m going to Wesfield – have a great end to the week.

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In the month of January, I ate at ten places in London, discovered a one man bossa nova jukebox, garnered 15000 page views and finally tasted ‘that’ Great British pudding that was served to the Queen. I think it’s been a good start to the grand new year of 2009 and without further ado – let’s get the eating started.

The best Eats

1. The Square
“Fillet and Croustillant of Aged Ayrshire Beef with Cepes, Shallots, Bone Marrow and Red Wine”
This review was post 100 and I went for the jugular with the £75 ala carte. The beef fillet was really good, served with three different kinds of toppings for the beef marrow. Amazing stuff. Full review here.

2. Marcus Wareing
“Baked egg custard pudding with th strawberry jelly and strawberry swirl ice cream”
This was that amazing pudding that was served at the Queen’s B’day bash a couple of years ago to which Marcus cooked it on the Great British Menu show. It was really tasty stuff and almost worth the price of the set lunch all by itself. Full review here.

3. Tartine
“Crab meat with courchamps sauce, £11.50″
The tartine is the French version of Bruschetta. Rock hard sourdough toasts with toppings. This little gem in Sloane Square is a great place to grab a quick lunch. Great skinny chips too. Full review here.

4. Barraco
“Man with Spanish Guitar”
This Brazilian cafe in Kilburn has modest home cooked grilled meats, modestly priced and tastes pretty good. It’s small, it’s honest and it’s got a really passionate man singing great bossa nova hits which I can’t understand.. but that’s why it’s great. Full review here.

The best Reads

1. Mostly Eating
This is a beautiful food blog maintained by Sophie – who is a nutritionist – and writes about fitting together healthy and sustainable food choices. Her foodtography is sumptuous and recipes are very cool. I’m looking at the (raw) Parsnip and goats cheese salad and I’d like to be healthy for tonight’s dinner. Check her out here.

2. Building a Smarter Planet
There is a thoughtful article ( and a funny vid) about food travel and how it is linked to creating a larger carbon footprint. Apparently, in the US, there is so much food being transported around the country that as much as 50% of it rots before it reaches it’s destination. There is a better way to build a better system and to deliver safer foods and go greener. Go check it out there.

3. The Top 10 Unusual Food Combinations
This quirky list from listverse.com has gotten some 274 comments. There’s carrots and sugar (not so weird, like carrot juice no?) , Chocolate and coffee ( isnt that just mocha?) , meat and aniseed (isn’t this just Indian cooking?) , Apples & vanilla ( hello… apple pie?). I don’t know – this list just didn’t excite me. Nothing I havent really heard of, or that bizarre. What about you guys? Read it here.

4. The McPizza
It’s literally a pizza topped with a couple of cheese burgers of McD’s and fries and then baked in the oven. Now, this is pretty cool ( or disgusting depending on who you speak to ) … ah, the glory of the internet. I gotta say, I was slightly intrigued by how this thing actually tastes like. The author says it ‘tastes exactly like you’d expect’. Hmm. What do you think?

5. Deep Fried Ravioli at The Hungry Mouse
I will be guest posting at Jessie’s next week, but first, you must go check out her deep fried ravioli recipe, it makes so much sense to fry ravioli that I don’t understand why not more people have done it. I suppose it’s abit like Jap style Gyozas but I will have to try this for myself, seriously London faux italian restaurants – fry some raviolis please, I will gladly pay money to eat it. Read the recipe here.

The best London

1. FT lunch with a friend for £5
The offer is real, I used it for Le Cafe Anglais and Incanto. I still have another three and was thinking about using them at L’Anima and Quo Vadis… oh actually maybe I should use it for Zilli Fish, lobster spaghetti is ace there. We’ll see, offer runs to Valentines I think. Ignore the front page bad news and cut out the tokens on page 2. Read it here.

2. Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park.. is gone.
This was so very cool and I went there at the start of the new year ( or was it new year’s eve? ) . There were all kinds of grilled meats ( German style ) , candied and chocolate smothered fruits ( German style too ) , all sorts of theme park style rides ( German style again ) and a great big slide. Can’t believe it was just a short month ago – it feels like we’ve been in 2009 for years now (pun intentionally intended). Read here.

3. Chinese Nu Year, Londres.
Gong Xi Fatt Chai, my dear readers. It’s the Year of the Ox ( that means my brother is 24 this year ) and I could not be happier to usher in this grand new year and leave the Year of the wiley Rat behind. While the recession has ruined lots of moods, I still believe in London and Great Britain and I believe that the pound will bounce back stronger than ever and this country will emerge once again as the Princess of the Seas.Ok maybe not, but hey, every cloud has a silver lining, just so happens that this current one is pretty big. Till then ….

Happy New Year, I hope you had a great January and that you ate lots of delictable things and that you will continue to eat great things. Have a great end to the week and come back here tomorrow for more eating news in the Big Smoke that is London.

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Nian Nian Yuo Yu, Mom and Dad.

Happy Chinese New Year to you folks. I’m not doing much this year and I’m not going out to China Town - at least not on the first couple of days, I’m sure it will be packed to the brim with people. I haven’t been home for CNY in gosh, seven years now; I could remember mom’s abalone and broccoli – her CNY eve special.

Personally, I would advise against eating chinese on CNY simply because restaurants will be completely packed out. Although, if you don’t mind the queues and you want to feel the CNY buzz, then there is not better time to go eat chinese than now. I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of London chinese food, I think it has dipped in quality in the last couple of years. Royal dragon used to be quite good, the har kao was spot on and their mandarin style steak was really great ( alot of wok heat ) , but ever since they refurbished in ’05, it has been converted into a karaoke spot serving bland food.

Yuck.

Heck, even Hakkasan has dropped it’s standards. I know it’s still got a stellar reputation but the Hakkasan of today is NOT the Hakkasan that was owned by Alan Yau. They used to serve these great big scallops the size of my fists in a claypot … now it’s turned into some sort of mangled fish ball. And I will not for the life of me understand why they took the lobster tail wrapped in cucumber slices and served in a clear lobster broth off the menu. Now it’s just stuffy, overpriced and horrendous. They’ve even replaced the melon creme brulee with some azuki bean filling. Sigh. Yes the decor is still very chic and cool but the food is pretentious, expensive and their sweet and sour pork (£15.00) tastes worse than wong kei’s ( £4.00 ). If they keep cooking the way they are, they will soon go the way of Lee Ho Fook.

Anyway, enough bashing, I really shouldnt be doing so since it’s CNY, if you really want to go chinese, then here’s are some places to check out:

1. Mandarin Kitchen Whole Lobster stir-fried and cooked in a sauce of your choice and served on dried noodles. I think it costs about £20 and is big enough to be shared by three or four. Go here for dinner. 
2. Four Seasons Not the one in Bayswater but the one in Leicester Square. It’s catching up in terms of quality with it’s Bayswater hq and it’s less packed out and the staff are friendlier. Go here if you are looking for Chinese BBQs. I would personally go with soya chicken (drumstick) with rice.
3. Royal China Dim Sum You can’t go wrong with the Royal China franchise when it comes to dim sum; the dinner menu ain’t great though, but dim sum is very good. 
4. Yauatcha If your pockets run deep, then I’d suggest dim sum at the Yauster’s flagship tea house ( Yauatcha is a play on Yam Cha which means drink tea or dim sum depending on who you speak to ) . I like it here, the tea is great (albeit pricy) and the congee with century egg  reminds me of…  
5. HK Diner Huge portions, The £10 sweet & sour fish fillets were great, try the yam flavoured pearl milk tea, and the seafood baked rice. I’d go with the stir fried ho fun with beef (dry) too.
6. Mayflower This one is gaining abit of a reputation. When it gets busy the staff are almost as rude as four seasons. Is it good? Yeah it’s not bad for dinner, is it the top of my list? No, but its worth a look.  

I’ll be honest, I haven’t really been trying that hard to find new places to eat chinese, I’m sure there are more ( maybe you can recommend a few for me ) and maybe I should be doing a review on one during CNY.

I still have 14 days to live up to that, till then Happy Chinese New Year!!

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Gloucester Road, London

It was an all too wet affair last night in London as I was entirely soaked by the time I exited Baracca, the most authentic Brazillian cafe in Londres, complete with a one man bossa nova jukebox. Oh it was that good. I don’t usually talk about my pictures, but I’d like to spend some time on this one. It was taken outside Gloucester Road tube station a couple of weeks ago. It is a one second exposure time and hand held for extra blurriness. You can see bus route no 74 in the centre left of frame. I quite like this shot, London’s a pretty blurry place with all the hustle & bustle, and it is partly this reason which gives the city it’s romantic qualities. They don’t call it The Big Smoke for nuthin’.

Eating. happenings here on london eater

I wrote six posts this week (more like five) and ate at five different places ( two posts only ) . First up was a visit to re-discover the romance of train stations at St Pancras Grand. Steak tartare was alright but the kedgeree was a turn-off. Next up, I finally completed a why subscribe? page to help new readers find their way around the blog and the key message is that I am commited to finding new ways to write great posts about food and also find even more yummy things to eat in my beloved city. If you keep coming back folks, I will keep writing. Read the 10 reasons to subscribe to LE here (its all free, and absolutely no strings attached, would you like to subscribe too?).

The midweeks on London Eater are dedicated to quirkers, which are short musings/debates about food. This week, I put my first polls up and asked you what your favourite cuisine was. Thanks to everyone who has voted – so far Japanese is leading the way with 19% of the votes! Im keep this poll open indefinitely and you can find on the side bar on your right (scroll down please). The next quirker is about a question Im sure every foodie has come across so far: Still or Sparkling? Have your say here. Finally, I wrote a short post about three sweet things you can eat in South Kensington, frozen yogurt, cookies & really tasty cupcakes – enjoy it all here.

I’m extra cuffed today because I managed to pick up a new Paul Smith suit for just £171 ! It was marked down from about £540 – not too shabby savings I didn’t get it at a high street shop, I got it at the sale shop hidden away in oxford circus, and that’s all Im saying…..

London. happenings around the Smoke

If you have not taken advantage of the half-price lunch with FT offers yet, you should do it now. They publish one token per weekday and two on weekends, all you need is three tokens for two people and you will get your food part of the bill cut in half with the second person paying only £5. I’m going to Le Cafe Anglais next weekend and am also thinking about Quo Vadis – half price rib of beef, rrp £48 – after discount only £24, sounds a great deal to me

Over at the city-eating blog, they’ve highlighted some notable openings in the city this year. I am eagerly anticipating Bjorn van der Horst’s new brasserie which is meant to be serving classic Gallic dishes like steak tartare and french onion soup. Hmm… classic is always good. There is no better time than now to visit Londres – with the pound still depressed ( not for long chaps, its undervalued and I think it’ll bounce back in a couple of months, come on Gordy wield your economic wand ) . I found this website, discount-london.com which have some brill deals on it. I am still all for last minute.com, even though some of the deals are rip-off disasters waiting to happen. You got to try your luck with it, proceed with caution, read the fine print and all should be dandy.

Reading. some stuff worth a look or two

Shark steak au poivre Now this is an ingredient which rarely gets written about: Shark. It is currently making it’s run over at 5 star foodie, I’ve never ever had shark before, the closest is probably swordfish, but I don’t know how close they taste. Anyway, she’s put up a picture of the shark steak topped with beautiful peppercorns – it looks so delish – you need to have a look, my friend.

Midtown Lunch Can’t remember when I first started reading this blog, I suspect close to a year ago. It’s premise is very simple, the author works somewhere in midtown NY and he writes about the stuff he eats for lunch, hence midtown lunch. I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent ‘square mile lunch’ blog in London, but I reckon there should be one. Ok there you go budding wannabe bloggers, that’s a blog idea worth a few squiddies. Anybody interested in writing a square mile lunch blog ( or know if one exists ) , let me know, I’m willing to chip in with design work / setting up the site and provide blog posts to get started.

FT Weekend Life & Arts yesterday ran a great cover article titled “Man of his words” . You can find the same article online with a different title “Obama’s Oratory“. First of all, I have to praise the writer, Mr Sam Leigh – what a great analysis and case study of not just the Man -Obama- but more so the carefully balanced dissection of the essence of Obama’s rhetoric and why it is so powerful. I particular enjoyed the little history lesson of how rhetoric has been applied and reapplied throughout the American Presidency. This also includes how Obama’s distinguished public linguistics would have pleased even the likes of Aristotle himself.

“Ethos” was the name Aristotle gave to that part of rhetoric that establishes the speaker’s bona fides. “Logos” – or the actual argument – was only one among three of the persuasive appeals; “pathos” – manipulating the audience’s emotions – was just as important. Think of it this way. Ethos: “Buy my old car because I’m Jeremy Clarkson.” Logos: “Buy my old car because yours is broken and mine is the only one on sale.” Pathos: “Buy my old car or I’ll twist the head off this kitten.”

I also thoroughly enjoyed his deconstruction of Obama’s love for the tricolon (thump, thump, thump) and his frequent use of repeating the same phrase succesively to hammer home the point.

Repetition, particularly in the form of anaphora – where a phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive lines – is another of the prime tools of political oratory and one that Obama revels in. His speech at the Iowa caucus on January 3 2008 opened: “You know, they said this time would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.”

Really well written article which had me spreading my FT onto my neightbour’s face on the tube because I was glued to every word. Of course, his source material was a great attraction in itself, Mr Obama, the prez-elect is like a magnet, every word he uses is purposeful, hair raising and just so convincing that one cannot help but be mesmerised by his speeches.

Perhaps, he can really save the world after all, but we’ll just have to wait and see if his rhetoric can indeed move mountains after Tuesday. For everyone else, read the article here. It’s the best thing I’ve read all week.

And we thrust into the new week…

Thank you to Kian, Athena and Natasha for your submissions this weekend for my ‘Write for me and win £50‘ competition, it is much appreciated and as I said I will do my utmost to ensure your article gets formatted to the highest quality! Ok peeps, I’m still looking for submissions, 250 word minimum, you can write about anything anywhere as long as you ate something and took a picture. Best one by vote gets £50, deadline is Valentine’s day. Release your inner restaurant critic now.

On Tuesday, I’ll release my post on a visit to Marcus Wareing’s – I tried THAT egg custard (ooh…so good) and on friday, I chill out at Baracca, brasilian in kilburn and grooved to the music of a one man bossa nova jukebox. Till then folks, have a great end to the week and see you back here in seven.

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saatchi galleries

Yesterday was -3 in London. Much too cold for a protest at Speaker’s corner, today on the other hand looks like a very warm 7C and the sun is out. I’m thinking about galleries today, but first a quick round-up and musings before the start of the new week.

Eating. happenings here on london eater

With the first full of week of January just gone, I’ve also managed to serve up a full week of London Eater services. This was one of the busiest week LE has ever seen in it’s short history with no less than 7 posts. Here’s what went down on LE:

The Square review at Post 100. Monday would have been the first official day of work for many of us and I duly went back to my eating habits and started the new work year with a bang of a review at 2 star The Square and also incidentally, this was my 100th post. Mad pictures and a great meal, check it out.

Write a review and win £50. I’ve been heavily marketing this competition to everyone I know, the premise is simple, send me a restaurant review (can be anywhere in the world) , include at least 1 picture, write 250 words and I will post it here on LE. The one with the most number of votes wins £50! In addition to 15 minutes of internet fame, you might have a hidden restaurant critic inside of you which may catch the eye of big publishing houses. Interested? Join now!

Midweek Quirker: The Durian. I write these midweek quirkers every midweek because there’s alot more to just reviewing restaurants that I want to write about. Basically, I’d like to provide abit of commentary for food in general. Afterall, this is a foodblog, and not just a dedicated restaurant review blog. All things food, and this one is on the elusive king of fruits in the East: the Durian.

Midweek Quirker: What does a Michelin star mean to you? With the impending release of the 09 revision of the Red Guide, I was doing abit of research on what the star actually means to restaurants and also , how many actually exist in London. So, do you have an opinion on it?

Tartine, French for Bruschetta. I went to this nice little French cafe in south kensington and ate these tartines, which are abit like oversized bruschetta and feature a whole variety of interesting toppings. Do have a quick look, I think their coffee is awesome too.

I suppose now is a good time to be announcing my current (and future) direction of articles here on LE. I’m beginning to settle into a rhythm of writing two reviews a week. I’ll eat one nice three course place for dinner and another place for a coffee or a lunch. This would be in addition to the quirkers and this weekly round-up post. We’ll see how this works out.

London. happenings around the smoke

I am still waiting for the January effect to take hold of the capital, the economic woes continue to worsen and there doesnt seem to be an end to the onslaught. Even glorified names , such as Wedgewood , are beginning to go belly up. Scary stuff. Oh well, guess the saying goes ‘it’ll get worse before it gets better’ , question is how much worse? It’s a good thing that the FT is doing a half-price giveaway at some nice restaurants in London (see details here). I am definitely going to take advantage of all and any offers. Aside from that, I’m happy to see that Cirque du Soleil are in town once again; They are putting up their show at the Albert Hall till the 8th of Feb. Has anyone gone to see it yet? Let me know as I’d like to go too.

Reading. happenings around the blogosphere

The first full week back at work has really drained my batteries. Gosh, it’ only week one but it feels like week 45. Thankfully, there’s alot on the internet to keep me chirpy, here’s some of the best stuff I read of late:

No recipes’s tip to making your photos look better using adobe lightroom. Folks, these tips actually work, I know because I use it too . Photographers will say that post-processing photos is really cheating, but I have very little light to work with in a restaurant, plus I don’t really want to disrupt other guests with my flashes. I’m all for post-processing, great post Marc.

Noble Pig I stumbled upon this gem of a food recipe blog. The photos are fantastic; I’m particularly loving the heads up 7 up post, which is a 7 up cake with orange glaze recipe and she desaturated the photographs of the finished product. A very nice looking food blog, definitely worth checking out.

Herbivoracious Michael Natkin is a software engineer who loves to cook. He has some pretty awesome recipes on his blog and the photographs are excellent to ( you might have noticed, I have a literary craving for eye candy this week.)

Joy the Baker Lastly, I’m finishing this round-up with a sweet baking blog maintained by Joy (what a fitting name for a baker of sweet things )

And on that note..

Helen kindly nominated my blog for the 2009 bloggies and Howard suggested me for the well fed network city blog award. I just want to formally say thank you to both you guys, it really means alot to me that bloggers ( who run great food blogs ) give me a pat on the back, it’s a really rewarding feeling indeed.

Next week on LE

I paid a visit to Marcus Wareing to try that famous egg custard tart he cooked for the Queen on Great British Menu a couple of years ago and I also had a lazy lunch at St Pancreas Grand, right outside the Eurostar. Have a nice end to the week and see you back here again, sometime soon.

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I love reading restaurant reviews. Perhaps this comment from Heidi of Savory tv summarises it most succinctly:

“Now you know I live nowhere close to London, so why am I reading a London restaurant review? Because I love your writing! And I get to live a bit vicariously through you, living the glamorous restaurant visiting life.”

That’s exactly what I feel reading my favourite foodblog reviews ( Hi Helen ) , which is why I decided to build London Eater. And now, I’m giving you the chance to post your own restaurant review here. Everyone can enter (yes, that means you) and you have the chance of winning a prize amounting to the princely sum of £ 50 if you do.

Here’s what you do to win

1. Eat out
2. Write a review about it (no obscenities please)
3. Must be at least 250 words in length. ( can be as long as you want , my record is about 2000 words )
4. Include at least one picture of your meal
5. Make it quirky, interesting, awe-inspiring and apply all your writing skills
6. It can be a review from anywhere on the globe so long as you ate something
7. Email it to me at kang.leong [at] Londoneater [dot] com
8. Deadline is 14th Feb 2009, Valentines day
9. Are allowed to make as many submissions as you like
10. Have fun writing it !

What I am looking for

You can review any eatery you like, whether a café, restaurant, a food hall, an experience, a one off , as long as you ate something and it is an experience which you think people might find interesting reading. I’m looking for something amazing , wacky or just damn good. For inspiration go to my links page and read up on some of the wonderful food blogs there. For my stuff, head on over to my restaurant reviews page.

If you’re a blogger – this is an incentive for you to guest blog here ( that means you Gourmet chick and Burger Blurb) … and win £50.

I’m accepting submissions right now and the deadline is 14th Feb 09.

How the winner will be decided

Depending on how many I receive, I’ll pick 20 of the best ones and post it between the dates of 20th February through to the 7th of March 2009.

On the 9th of March, I will pull all the reviews into a voting poll and keep the poll open for 2 weeks until 23th March 2009 so you can log on and vote on what you think is the best of the lot, the person with the most votes, wins £50.

I know £50 aint exactly much, but it’s all I can afford at the moment. It’s coming out of my own pocket so please do make it interesting, quirky, exciting, well written, funny, witty, be yourself and above all, have a bit of fun with it.

The reason I’m doing this

I’m going away for a short while in February, instead of leaving this virtual podium vacant, I thought I’d turn the spotlight over to you. This just proves how much of a lazy bugger I really am. It’s only the second day of the new work year and I’m already planning a holiday in February. If you need more details, don’t hesistant to email me at kang.leong [at] londoneater [dot] com.

I’m looking forward to receiving riveting stuff ! So what are you waiting for? 50 easy pounds, start writing now

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