Monday 12 December 2011

Made in Camden

Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH

 

This year, as part of an annual festive Christmas dinner with friends we decided to go for Made in Camden which serves modern European/mediterranean cuisine. The ambience of the restaurant was pretty nice - warm, modern, candle lit and a buskling atmosphere.

 As a group we went for set menu B, £24 per person (including drinks/service approximately £32 per person). The set menu consists of 5 small savoury dishes to share between two, and a dessert each (of which there was a choice of 2).

The fennel/feta/pistachio was tasty and perfectly seasoned. The pistachio was probably the most dominant flavour in this dish.

Pan-fried fennel, feta, pistachio, dill, salted caramel


The broccoli dish looked very simple. But actually the taste and texture of the dish was in fact surprisingly nice. The onions and broccoli were perfectly cooked, not too hard not too soft. The broccoli had a fresh taste to it and the tomato sauce complimented it very well. The onions themselves were perfectly sweet. Overall this dish was definately palatable.


Grilled purple sprouting broccoli, chilli jam, flaked almond, radiccio, anchovy

The pan fried seabass was cooked very well. The skin was crisp and well seasoned. The flesh of the fish itself was slightly bland and possibly slightly over-cooked, but the sumac labneh (the cream/youghurt) was divine and complimented the fish well. Alternatively, there is an exceptionally delicous tomato on the side of the dish that also goes brillantly with the fish. The tomato was like eating a fresh sundried tomato - I've never raved enough about a tomato before! it was sooo yummy!


Crisp sea bass, Jerusalem artichoke puree, slow-roasted tomatoes, sumac labneh

My dad makes an exceptional belly pork, and is now my gold standard. This belly pork was comparable, very nice, not too fatty and the crackling was yummy (crispy and well seasoned). Instead of the usual combination of pork and apples, this dish had a poached pear (quince) instead. The quince itself was ok, I liked the idea. The red cabbage/maple puree was nice and went well with the pork.


Slow-roast pork belly, garlic and maple puree, braised red cabbage, poached quince

The beef skirt (or 'onglet') was exceptional. Perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked (medium) and the steak itself was tender. The tomato and onion compot was a match made in heaven with the beef steak! The dauphinoise potatoes were delicous!! I'm not entirely sure what the side greens were, but complimented every aspect of this dish. This was probably my favourite dish of the night.

Grilled onglet steak, tomato and onion compote, gorgonzola dauphinoise

The mains/tapas were nice so far. However, the desserts were a bit of a disappointment. The
walnut and pear tiramisu was, in essence, a cup of mascarpone cheese containing walnuts and pears, sprinkled with a bit too much coco powder (enough to make my friends have a coughing fit every time they took a bite). There was no trace of coffee, liquor or sponge. This dessert was okay, but I felt needed more dimension.

Walnut & caramelised pears tiramisu

The hotcakes were nicer than the tiramisu. However, it was slightly floury. The sorbet was ok, nice, although the sweetness of the hotcake was overpowering so you couldn't really taste the coconut flavour of the sorbet or the blackberry sauce.

Dulce de leche hotcake, blackberry sauce, coconut sorbet


Hotcake open
Overall, I would say that I had a very good time here. The food itself was delicious. The only let downs were the desserts and it would have been much more satisfying if they were more generous with the portion sizes of the mains. The waiter was very nice, the food arrived promtly and the price wasn't too bad.


Food = 8.5/10
Service = 7/10
Atmosphere = 7/10
Recommend? yes

Made in Camden on Urbanspoon

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Belgo

50 Earlham Street, Convent Garden, London WC2H 9LJ

Belgo is a Belgium restaurant famous for its mussels, chips and vast array of Belgium fruit beer. My friend decided to have his celebratory Birthday lunch here on a Saturday afternoon. Everyday Belgo's does an 'express lunch menu' which includes a main with chips and a drink, all for £7.95. This is what most of us ordered. Unfortunately, the drinks in this express lunch menu doesn't include the Belgium fruit beer (but it does include an original Belgium beer).

My friends ordered the traditional bowl of mussels from the lunch menu. As I had previously been here before, I wanted to try something other than the mussels. The mussels were nice with a hint of garlic. The mussels themselves weren't large but not small either. So can't really complain for £8.

Bowl of traditionalle mussels


Fries or 'frites'

Instead of mussels I decided to go for the chilli split roasted chicken. It sounds more exotic than it actually is, but it was filling (I mean, half a chicken.. with chips on the side!). The chicken wasn't actually spicy, at all! Which was the most disappointing part. The sauce reminded me somewhat of a chinese sweet chilli sauce.The chicken itself was roasted well, the meat was easy to tear off. The sauce wasn't exactly as I expected, as I'm not particularly keen on sweet sauces all over my savoury food, so overall I was disappointed but overall it was ok.

Split roasted chicken with chilli and ginger sauce
The restaurant was quite busy, and the service was quite quick. This is quite a good place to go for large groups as they have long interconnected tables (kinda like Wagamama's). I wouldn't say this restaurant is particularly special, but its satisfactory. They have a large collection of fruit beers which is something to look forward to.

Food: 6/10
Atmosphere: 6.5/10
Service: 7/10
Recommend? yep, I suppose why not, if you've never been

Belgo Centraal on Urbanspoon

Friday 2 December 2011

Hi Sushi

628 Finchley Road, Golders Green, London NW11

We first arrived in High Sushi, Golders Green, just after 6pm on a Friday night and we were surprised to note that we were the first guests to arrive for dinner. Because it was just the two of us, they said that we were only allowed to have the sushi buffet, £15 per person, rather than order from a la carte. To be honest, it would have been nice to have a choice of the a la carte menu! There were a few things I would have liked to try that wasn't on the buffet.. but none the less we didn't decline.. (not that you can't order from the menu.. just that its not worth the value to pay for the buffet and not eat entirely from the buffet).

For the buffet menu and (unlimited) green tea, would cost just under £20 per person (including 10% service charge), which isn't too bad, particularly if you can eat a lot of food in 1.5 hours time.

The restaurant decor itself is not bad. Its bright and I like that you essentially sit on the floor without having to cross your legs! But this can be inconvenient if you're with someone thats more elderly.


Inside: Hi Sushi


For the sushi buffet, there were two mini menus, one of which you can only order once (max 7 items and includes dishes such as: miso soup, tempura, teriyaki, spring rolls, rice, tofu steak, curry, salad) and the other menu is one which you can order as much as you like (up to the time limit, and is the sushi menu which includes salmon sashami, clam sashami, salmon/avocado roll, california roll, spicy tuna roll and a few others).

We ordered the clam (x4) and salmon (x4) sashami , the one off soft-shell crab roll (x4), salmon/avocardo roll (x6) and salmon skin roll (x6). Everything was nice, just what I expected from most sushi places. The salmon was creamy, the clam was fresh, the salmon skin was crispy, the soft shell crab was yummy (too bad you can only order once!), and the salmon/avocardo the usual - nice.


From left: clam sashami, salmon sashami, soft-shell crab roll, salmon skin roll and salmon and avocardo roll.


From the limited menu, we ordered miso soup. To be honest, I have tried better miso soup. It tasted slightly* on the diluted side, otherwise ok.

Miso soup containing seaweed and tofu

We mainly ordered tempura from the limited hot food menu: prawn (x4), tofu (x4), shitake mushroom (x4 whole mushrooms), fish (x6, a white fish, possibly seabass??). I loved the sauce on the fried tofu - slight sweet and was v.yummy. I've never had shitake tempura before, it was quite nice and its nice to have something different to the usual. The fish tempura, was not bad. The prawn tempura, was well, OK - I have tried better - I prefer when the prawns are fresh enough so you can eat them very slightly raw on the inside. I think the let down was the tempura dipping sauce - I don't know it didn't particularly have that much taste or enough of a kick to bring the tempura itself to life. The sauce didn't even have grated radish inside it which is also something I quite like.

Tempura (anticlockwise): tofu tempura, prawn tempura, fish tempura and shitake tempura

Overall, the service was quite good (although, it wasn't too busy at the time). They topped our teas up without asking and the food arrived promptly. I like that the tea is unlimited. The food itself was not bad, but nothing 'stood out'. I would say that this is a nice place, the atmopshere is friendly in general. Most of the tables, it seemed, were mainly suited for groups of 2-4, with possibly one table for maybe 8? but then again I didn't particularly observe.

Food = 6.5/10
Atmosphere = 6.5/10
Service = 7/10
Recommend? yep for a nice informal evening with friends


Hi Sushi on Urbanspoon