a4tun8gypsy's Qype profile

Wahaca - a Mexican place so funky that they don’t take bookings - prides itself on being Mexican Market style-eating but yet being cool and stylish. It was clear that this has been a winning formula for the venue with lines often nearly out the door and the restaurant, tonight at least, very buzzy. Located in Covent Garden the restaurant, once you get downstairs, was surprisingly gigantic.

As with Wagamama the food arrives as it is cooked (which is nice to know that you’re getting it fresh) so you’re not guaranteed that it will come in any order but when it does arrive, and if you order enough of it, expect it to fill your table. You can go for the Wahaca selection which, for £19.50 gets you a selection of Wahaca’s favourites (about 10 various quesadillas/tacos and taquitos plus slaw and salsas) which I reckon would be enough to fill you. We decided to go a la carte as we also wanted to get some other non-standard dishes such as the main-sized Pork Pibil. We ordered what I thought was reasonable for two people but ended up being way more than I could finish. The chorizo, thyme & potato quesadillas were my favourite dish followed by steak taco. I’m sure I would have appreciated the melt-in-your-mouth pork pibil but was too busy recovering from mistakenly eating the hottest chilli I’ve eaten to date to really get into it.

Service, although very friendly and helpful, was a bit rubbish on the night we went. It was slow and often it was difficult to find where our waiter had gone. More often than not he had disappeared to the other side of the room. We didn’t mind too much but I think if we’d been in a rush we might have been a bit p’d off.

Overall Wahaca is a fun place to come to try Mexican food in quite a lively atmosphere. The offerings are tasty and with fresh ingredients. Price are also fairly reasonable. If someone has hated Mexican food in the past I would definitely take them to Wahaca to see if you can change their mind. Oh - and another thing that differentiates Wahaca is the offering of chilli seeds in match like books. Nice.

I had a pre-theatre meal at The Forge in Covent Garden. Like the other restaurants in this chain (the other two being Le Café de Jardin and Le Deuxième) the restaurant serves French food with a slight Anglo bias. We opted for the 3-course set meal which was simple but had options that we all liked and was also significantly cheaper than doing three dishes a la carte.

The food we all received was quite high quality and delicious but portion sizes could have been a bit bigger. My disappointment for the night was my mango parfait - what was served was like a slice of cake 1cm wide. It was melting when I received it and practically disappeared after two spoonfuls.

Overall The Forge was okay. Quality of food was let down by portion sizes. Some of the other tables had a la carte options and portions seemed a little more generous. Burgers looked great. Service was excellent and attentive though they seemed to have a lot of management floating about making sure the waiters and waitresses were doing their jobs.

As Timeout so rightly points out Gordon Ramsay may never step foot inside this gastropub in Chiswick but its enough that his name is on the pub sign to bring in all-comers. The gastropub is located a shortish stroll from Chiswick High Road. You walk past quite a few tempting restaurants on the way but the Ramsay name is a draw that can’t be denied.

The pub is rather large and L-shaped. The front room has two giant comfy (single) chairs and today it was cold enough to justify having a lit fireplace. By the side there are two Scrabble board games (complete with a dictionary) and some dominoes. Walking around the corner you see that down the long length of the pub is a bar and the restaurant. Not much of a comely feeling if you know what I mean but couldn’t tell if that was because the place was very quiet or the decor of the room.

We took advantage of a set menu deal of 2 courses for £13.50 or 3 for £16.50. The offering on the set menu is limited - two starters, two mains and two desserts - the trade-off I guess for the offer (starters on the a la carte seem to be about £5-£6 and mains £14-£17.)

The food seemed to come out relatively quickly though there was a bit of a lag between the collection of our starters and delivery of our mains. Food was very tasty and clearly top quality ingredients and great care in preparing the dish.

Portion was reasonable without being too generous though I guess some might think that pub food (gastro or not) should err on the side of large so might have something to say about the portion. All I know is that after the two courses I was quite stuffed.

The service was very friendly. Almost too friendly as our waitress must have checked up on us about ten times throughout the meal - sometimes mere seconds after we’d started into our food. Its not like the place was heaving so if we’d really wanted her attention we could have easily flagged her down.

The gastropub is a long way to hike from Central London to sample another one of Gordon’s holdings so was happy to get the chance to do it today. What would have made our experience memorable today, though, would have been an appearance by the big man himself … am I asking too much? LOL

The Church at Kentish Town seems to be an institution here in London, well since 1979 anyway, for antipodeans. Having moved venues at least five times in the last nearly 30 or so years the flock has nevertheless followed until today the congregation numbers in the hundreds.

To make the bar more efficient, and its in the interest of The Church to get as many drinks out there as possible seeing as how there is only a 3.5 hour window for it, you purchase drink tickets which entitle you to three drinks at a time. And if you can’t hold three drinks at once handy plastic bags, which look oh so elegant when attached to your jeans, are supplied. Of course singles can be bought but why go through the hassle of getting only one drink when you can get three!

The Church is very serious about making sure everyone has fun and that no one is hurt or that nothing wrong happens therefore all around the room there are Church Wardens standing guard. Today there didn’t seem to be too much need for them though perhaps that was the point of their presence.

So, what exactly makes The Church different from all the other pubs in London? Well, it’s the whole package I guess there is entertainment, games, dancing, anthems .. very difficult to describe but definitely something to be experienced!

Thai Origin is deceptively small and cosy when you first walk in with only a few long sharing tables upstairs. Throughout the course of our meal tonight more and more people kept coming in and we kept wondering where they were going as they certainly weren’t sitting upstairs with us. A visit to the loo solved our curiosity when we discovered a much larger dining room downstairs.

Service at Thai Origin was like any Thai restaurant I’ve ever been to - spot on. Friendly, polite and helpful at all times we couldn’t really ask for more. The food at Thai Origin won’t stun but it is quite good quality and especially with our 50% off toptable deal was great value.

The only disappointment - no Thai ice tea on the menu.

We had booked for about 11 of us to eat at a restaurant called Tayyab. We were, unfortunately, about 45 minutes late for our booking for were were still offered a table within 10 minutes - one of the pluses to the “service” in this restaurant. No doubt about it the food here is pretty good and great value for money however you will feel like you’re on a production line as you are seemingly rushed to place your order, eat your food and then presented with the bill. The service isn’t super friendly but it is I guess quite courteous and extremely efficient hence us finishing our meal within 45 minutes - not a bad feat for a group of 11 of us! Be warned the restaurant is noisy and crowded - and that was at 10pm!

Sherlock Bar and Grill is actually not themed on anything other than taking advantage of its Baker Street location to capitalise on the good name of one Sherlock Holmes.

The restaurant is located to the rear of the lobby of the Park Plaza Hotel and behind the lounge bar so the contrast as we walked in at 6.30 tonight was quite astounding as we made our way through a loud and buzzing bar to an absolutely empty restaurant devoid of any atmosphere whatsoever. By the time we left the small restaurant was quite full - maybe something to do with hotel restaurants not getting busy until late.

The menu is Modern Europen with a decent, if not particularly innovative, selection on their a la carte menu covering game, meat, fish and something for the vegetarian.

Service was pretty decent tonight though at the beginning when there were not many diners one of the waitresses was strangely more pre-occupied with folding serviettes than seeing if anyone in the room needed her attention. We were taking advantage of 50% off food top table offer so the food was extremely good value for what we got. Though I wouldn’t say the Sherlock Bar and Grill was anything spectacular and special I would say with the 50% off offer its not a bad option if you want some decent grub (just choose a bit more wisely than me and don’t choose the poached salmon!)

Satay House is an established Malaysian restaurant (having been around for at least 30 years) and was all buzzy when we arrived at 8.30 this evening. Whether its urban myth or not even the Malaysian Prime Minister used to frequent this restaurant when he was in town.

The Satay House has a decent selection of Malaysian food though quite a bit pricier than other restaurants I’ve been to. It was pretty late so we didn’t eat too much sticking with chicken satay skewers, Mee Goreng (our test dish for all things Malaysian) and Nasi Ayam (which is a fairly simple steamed chicken with rice cooked in chicken broth.)

Strangely what was lacking tonight was the service. It was friendly when we finally got some attention but the waiter seemed more interested in making conversation with diners who had finished their meals and clearing tables than in taking our order. It was almost condescending how he would nod at us as if to say “yes I acknowledge you are there but I will not actually serve you anyway.”

I don’t want to let one waiter turn me off from the Satay House because to be honest good Malaysian restaurants in London are few and far in between. Prices for the services you get are a bit higher than average but I guess that’s to cover the recent update that the restaurant has gone (apparently by the designers behind GBK and Wagamama.) Good atmosphere but be warned that tables are very close to each other so be prepared to hear the conversation on both sides of you and for them to hear yours!

Good Malaysian … at a price.

I’ve had a craving for a few months now for some really good Katsudon (and some sneaky unagi ngiri) and Sakura is the place to go - at £6.50 this dish is a bargain and soo tasty too. I’ve actually tried to come here a few times for lunch but it is always heaving with lines nearly out the door.

Today I headed to the restaurant just after the lunch rush and was immediately seated at the sushi bar. I’ve read recent reviews on this restaurant and the majority of them seemed to be quite disappointed in the service but I had no such issue with it - the wait staff were pleasant to me, even laughing and joking around with me, and the food was served immediately - piping hot and delicous to boot.

Craving satisfied!

When we arrived at Rodizio Rico we were directed to a table by the window and seemingly crammed into the corner. At first I didn’t think the six of us would fit but in the end I think it ended up being one of the better tables in the restaurant - there wasn’t a lot of room to move at all between the tables and with the servers running around with their sticks of meat and people moving to and from the hot buffet I think we were quite well placed to avoid the traffic.

Rodizio Rico (‘churrascaria de rodizio’) is basically a rotating barbecue. Passadors (meat carvers) move from table to table with their sticks of various cuts of meat direct to your plates. I’ve actually been to something similar before but it was in Manhattan and Rodizio Rico claims to be the only one of its kind in London.

In addition to the sticks of meat there is also on offer a hot buffet and an impressive, and original, salad bar. I was quite impressed with the buffet and could have happily satisfied myself with the selections at the buffet alone!

But back to the meat selections. We got a whole range of meats including leg of lamb, pork, ham, chicken (wings and thighs), sausages (chicken and pork) a large variety of cuts of meat (apparently the one to go for is the picanha but to be honest I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between one and another!) and finally the Rodizio Rico special: chicken hearts which caused quite a bit of laughter at our table.

The concept of the restaurant is sound and makes for a fun night out with a group of friends. Unfortunately it was kind of let down by a couple of things - namely quality and to some extent service. Food quality-wise I think that the meats were quite over-cooked (even the meat towards the centre of the skewer where they are supposed to be rare) and very salty. In contrast the hot buffet was actually very good. From a service perspective - what we got was a bit hit and miss. On the whole it was quite friendly but there was one particularly grumpy waitress who we seemed to keep on getting and they were sometimes a little slow with our requests.