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South Bank Centre Festival Terrace, Belvedere Road, Waterloo, London SE1 8XX
siriluck
last updated on 02-11-2008:
The staff at this place were very friendly and, as you can’t book a table unless there are more than 8 in your party, quite adept at telling people that they might have to wait a bit. Handily, there is a bar upstairs where you can wait (and buy expensive cocktails, obviously) and a fair ticketing system so there’s little chance that you’ll have enough material to write a half hour sitcom here.
In the end we only had to wait about 15 minutes as we didn’t mind sharing a table with other people. The seating in the restaurant was nice to look at but, because you’re sharing a semicircular bench with someone else you do have to co-ordinate yourselves to get it in the right position. The table we sat at was for 8 and it would have been great if we’d all been together but with all that dim sum on the table it felt a little cramped trying to keep our stuff on our little quarter.
It’s a great idea to have dim sum as the entire menu as in a proper Chinese restaurant you can only get it at a certain time of day. In comparison to dim sum I’ve had before the menu is quite small and eclectic. But the food that we ordered was good. They asked us if we had ever been to a Harvester, I mean Ping Pong, before we ordered so it’s clearly aimed at people who have never savoured the delights of dim sum before and my friend (who never has) loved it. Because the portions are smaller you feel that you can be a bit more adventurous with the menu. The waitress advised us to get 5 dishes each!! but I assured my friend that 3 each should be enough and it was.
It was great fun in here - less brash than dim sum at a Chinese restaurant but less speedy and less menu but fun all the same. If you want authentic dim sum, though, I would recommend any Chinese restaurant instead.
2 people thought this review was helpful
Unit 53 St.Pancras International Station, Pancras Road, London NW1 2QP
siriluck
last updated on 10-09-2008:
Completely the reverse of Filimbouk I’ve eaten here but not drunk the beer (he took me here so probably needs to update his review). Outside the pub, which is on the upper floor inside St Pancras station, there are lots of tables with huge umbrellas. I’m pretty sure you can’t get wet inside a building but maybe they’re there to provide shade from the searing London sun, I don’t know.
Inside, the dining area consists of two rooms at the rear of the pub. The first room is quite workaday - little round tables and simple furniture. It looks like a cafe. However, walk through this room and you’ll find a second dining area. Here there are plush sofas, scatter cushions, hefty dark wood tables and a fireplace (not functional, though). There is even an upright piano. It’s nice. Inexplicably, there were a few people eating in the boring room but the nice room was completely empty so we had the place to ourselves. It’s quite light and open generally in the pub and seemed even more so when we went because it wasn’t at full capacity.
We had a very friendly waiter who was good at making sure we were happy and the service was quite quick. I had the shepherds pie which came with a salad and was good, but not exceptional. Filimbouk had fish and chips which looked okay. I had a taste of his “mushy peas” but they turned out to be mushed-up garden peas rather than the more traditional marrowfat peas.
It was a very nice experience eating here because of the decor and the good service but the food is really just glorified pub grub. The best thing about it is that the windows are very high up so you get lots of natural light but you can’t see the busy main road outside and are able to forget that you’re inside a pub within a busy train station.
1 person thought this review was helpful
Golf von Neapel, 80049 Somma Vesuviana
Der Vesuv, Mount Vesuvius, Vésuve
siriluck
last updated on 04-09-2008:
I put this under entertainment and parks because there was no option to select “bloody great big volcano”.
We stayed for a week in Sorrento so flew into Naples and then took a coach from there. Every time I looked out of the window for the first half hour or so of our coach journey all I could see was Vesuvius looming over us.
We decided take a guided coach tour of Pompeii in the morning and Vesuvius in the afternoon. In retrospect we should have taken the public services which are quite simple to work out and fairly regular these being the biggest tourist attractions in Southern Italy. The Circemvesuviana trainline runs between Naples and Sorrento and you can take it to Ercolano Scavi. From here there are regular scheduled buses which will take you as far as you can go by vehicle up the ancient volcano. I can’t remember the name of the tour operator but we bought the tickets through Fiorentino Travel Organization which was in the Piazza S. Antonio. The Pompeii/Vesuvius tour cost €44pp and there was a half day tour of Vesuvius for €29pp. Be warned: these prices did not include any entrace fees and we were herded in to a restaurant of the guide’s choosing for a light lunch for €13pp. There was a very basic choice of a soft drink, a beer or a glass of wine; cheese and tomato topped pizza, tomato sauced pasta or tuna salad for the main course and ice cream for dessert. For medical reasons I need to avoid sugary things, I’m not terribly good at digesting wine and I’m not a great beer lover (unless it’s Stiegl Weissbier) so I missed out on the drinks and the dessert (that means I paid €13 for a pizza!!)
Our guide was in his very late 60s and had clearly been doing his job for a very (too?) long time. He had some interesting facts about the area around Vesuvius, the different lava and rock formations as we passed them on the way up and, interestingly, was able to recall the last time that Vesuvius had been active in 1944. Once we got off the coach, however, we were on our own. We were directed to the ticket office and told that there would be an official Vesuvius National Park guide to take us to the very top of the crater.
The tickets cost €6.50 each and this allows you to climb the one mile/1700 meter trail (walking stick provided and very useful!) to the crater. The guide told us it would take about 20 minutes to get to the top. I don’t think he really got a good look at us because at my best it would have taken me at least half an hour. As my friend was not so used to walking up inclines (I live on top of a hill) and I was stopping to take photos (if anyone has a Loreo 3-D viewer send me a message and I’ll post some 3-D pictures - I find it works quite well on the computer) it took us about 45 minutes to reach the crater. I managed to graze my right knee going up and my left knee going down but the volcanic rubble gives you a really soft landing so I hardly felt a thing even though there was a fair amount of blood.
In all honesty the trail is not too steep and there are plenty of places where you can stop and lean on your stick for a bit. A wooden rail stops you tumbling down the side of the mountain but the trail is quite generous in width and allowed for the upward and downward traffic easily when we were there. It is a little colder than at the base of Vesuvius so it’s probably wise to bring a jumper or light jacket. They advise you to wear closed shoes and I would agree with them as I wore Crocs and ended up having to empty them of rubble every 5 minutes.
About two thirds of the way up is a sitting area and shop where you can buy drinks, snacks and souvenirs but we didn’t stop there too long as we had been walking for well over the 20 minutes it was supposed to take to get to the top. When we reached the crater we couldn’t find a guide so just continued on our own. There are several fenced viewpoints that look over the crater and it is well worth the hike to see this and the views over the Bay of Naples as well. We didn’t go right to the end of the trail because our guide had given us a stict time limit and this is the main reason that I wish we had made our own way here. Apart from our guide’s interesting personal perspective of the eruption in 1944, it would have been possible to get most of the information he gave us with a little internet research and my friend and I could well have made it to the very top. Maybe next time because I would definitely like to go back.
2 people thought this review was helpful
41 Wardour Street, Soho, London W1D 6PY
siriluck
last updated on 02-09-2008:
Lots of stars because I remember the food being good. I haven’t been for a loooooong time but the fact that it’s still going strong says something for it.
The main draws used to be the cheap but good Chinese food and the utter contempt that the waiters showed every single customer. The last time I was there I caught one of them basically telling a customer to piss off in Cantonese (something I picked up from martial arts movies). It was hilarious!
Anyway, the reason I write is because my brother went in the other day and actually got service with a smile. And he said the food was still good.
Update: I put an extra star on 'cos I notice a lot of other people besides my brother say the waiters are more friendly now. It’s perfect!
2 people thought this review was helpful
Piazza Angelina Lauro 9, 80067 Sorrento
Ristorante Pizzeria May Flower
siriluck
last updated on 01-09-2008:
The May Flower is located in the Piazza Angelina Lauro which is much quieter than the main square in Sorrento, Piazza Tasso. There are a couple of restaurants which are casual and cafe-like and the May Flower is one of these.
The clientele was a mix of overseas tourists, like ourselves, and Italians - especially teenagers. This being Italy, however, they were not raucus or rowdy, they tended to be nursing a single espresso between them. The prices were much more reasonable here than almost everywhere else in Sorrento and the food was basic but cooked well so we went there a couple of times for a quick bite rather than a full blown dinner.
The menu was extensive, with the usual suspects of pasta and pizza (there was one where the toppings appeared to be cheese, sausage and French fries but we didn’t see anyone order that - see my pics if you don’t believe me and draw your own conclusions) and I even managed to order a daiquiri at lunchtime (though they had to double check that this was what I actually wanted) which turned out to be made with lemons. It was quite nice.
Most people ate outside the restaurant under the covered arcarde but there was also a huge covered area in the centre of the square (see my pics) which was mostly empty whenever we went past. They encouraged us to eat there so we did but, if you are prone to mosquito bites as I am, avoid, because I ended up having to leave my friend to pay the bill while I escaped the litle biters.
The waiters were friendly and quickly corrected any errors with a smile. All in all it was a nice place to have a quick lunch or coffee so, together with the reasonable prices and notwithstanding the mosquitoes in the central eating area, I would recommend.
1 person thought this review was helpful
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