Sketch (Gallery)

Before Christmas, me and a group of friends visited Sketch for dinner at the gallery room. This room had a changing video wall, although the whole evening we only saw the night view of London. It was like dining with a view of London 360 degree.

When we opened the menu, out popped up some forks. A simple menu can be dressed up to be special with pop-up forks.

There are a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails to choose. I ordered a nice tropical non-alcoholic cocktails, containing passionfruit and lychee.

While waiting we munched on some warm bread with butter. This was served in a Lego built box. It indeed shows us what you can do with these colourful bricks.

Starters:

Puglia 2 – burrata mozzarella, spinach velouté with Parmesan, tomato and basil, green pepper sorbet, fresh nuts (£12). This was the one cold starter we ordered to try and it was fairly nice if you like your salads.

Chantilly Lace – Lobster bisque with three colour basmati rice and horseradish cream (£11). This dish has a wooden, seafood flavour. It has a beautiful name, however this starter did not get my favour with my taste buds.

Pollock – Piquillos filled with pollock brandade, coco beans, spicy jus, olives, chorizo (£14). This has to be my favourite starter of the evening which had a mediterranean flavours.

Main Course:

We shared the starters to be able to try a bit of each, but with the portion size you can have one for yourself and still have room to go for a main and dessert. For our mains, we ordered one each.

My main was the  roast scallops served with gratin of celeriac and pear, parmesan tuile with bacon and paprika (£29). The scallops were beautifully cooked and was a good combination with the gratin of celeriac and pear.

I was tempted to order the pan-fried halibut fillet instead, that is served with grilled sweet potatoes, Thai grapefruit, green apple, green mango, lime, sesame oil (£32). But it was the combination of the fruits which made me choose the scallops over the beautiful cooked halibut fillet.

Beef fillet with Sarawak black pepper, roasted parsnip with tarragon (£35).

We ordered a few sides to share between us with our mains. Out of the selection of sides included gratin dauphinois (£6), pont-neuf (£6) and steamed vegetables (£5).

Dessert:

L’Ardechois – Chestnut and pistachio gâteau, blueberry ice cream, Genepi syrup (£11).

If you like chocolate then you will like the chocolate gateau that has Caramel fudge with Maldon salt butter, Caraïbe chocolate cream, dark chocolate (£9). It definitely get my thumbs-up for a dark chocolate fan.

I was going to choose the chocolate gateau but opted to try the Deauville 2. This is a poached Royal Gala apple in redcurrant and farmed cider, served with green apple and Calvados granité, «sablé Normand» (£10). I definitely do not regret ordering this dessert as it was a beautiful refreshing dessert. The combination with the apple and Calvadoes granité balanced out the sharp taste from the royal gala apple.

Nico’s Play – Genoese with rum, Chantilly cream, vanilla parfait, light meringue, confit orange (£9). This was a dessert that almost tempted me to order by its name. However, I am not a big fan of meringue but it was actually a nice tasteful dessert.

Not only was the name interesting, so was the presentation of the dessert. I wondered what was on the mind of this person to create an artwork like the Nico’s Play.

The whole resturant is like a gallery in not just the decoration, but the little details on the pottery such as the teapot.

We had bread served in a box made of Lego bricks. The sugar cubes for the tea came served in a Russian doll. That give me another idea what I can make use of Russian dolls on my shelf. Not only do they look pretty but they can be useful as well.

Overall the food was ok, but apart from the desserts the other course did not give  that feeling of it being exceptional. I was expecting more French cuisines but  found it being more fusion with a hint of Oriental touch in the food. However, the service was fabulous that evening.

The highlight at Sketch’s gallery for us ladies was the toilets, which was like travelling in to the future. Each cubicle was a shape of an egg or I like to think of us a space pod. When you close the door music starts to play and there is a maid to look after these toilets.

It was interesting that it was an open toilet for both male and female. There are stairs that lead to the toilets from the bar. It was rather odd as you could see people drinking outside the bar from the view of the toliets. Then those drinking outside the bar could see above the toliets.

At first it was confusing to work out which side was female or male. But it finally made sense as the lighting was different for both side, where one was blue and another pink.

It was one expensive meal, where we spent about £60 per person (including drinks and service). This is cost without alcohol, so could not guess how much it would have been if we had alcohol. So far it is the most expensive I have spent for my meal, even more than at Hakkasan and Nobu.

Sketch (Gallery)

9 Conduit Street

London

W1S 2XG

http://www.sketch.uk.com

Pearl Liang (漂亮)

These days there are many places in London to have dim sum, and you do not even have to travel all the way to London Chinatown. The quality of the dim sum is just as good as London Chinatown, and Pearl Liang (漂亮）is no exception. The restaurant is situated in Paddington and for someone like me who was not familiar with the area took some time to find the restaurant.

Pearl Liang has been on my list to try for ages but just never got that opportunity. However, I could not have guess that the opportunity was open up from a friend who we had planned to meet up for lunch at Pearl Liang that I finally got to tick it off my list.

To my surprise, that when we arrived it was busy with tables already filled with people. Lucky my friend made a booking and just a short wait we got a table. The restaurant is beautifully decorated with pink chairs. It’s modernly decorated but still has that Oriental touch.

The dim sum menu has a range of dim sum to choose from steamed to fried, and the price is reasonable, with many under £3. We ordered various dim sum to try and here are a highlight of what we ate.

Pan fried turnip cake (香煎蘿蔔糕)

Shanghai dumpling with pork (上海小籠飽), which was a delight to enjoy. The pastry was thin and inside was filled with lots of soup. London quality of Shanghai dumpling has become better over the year, and this one at Pearl Liang tick that box of good London quality standard.

King’s crabmeat with egg white dumpling (帝皇蚧餃), is the first time I have seen in London. But it’s the less often seen dim sum that make a place special and unique that make a customer want to visit again.

Chrysanthemum custard bun (菊花炸奶皇飽), might have a beautiful name but it is actually a normal deep fried custard bun. The name is to represent that it is shaped to look like chrysanthemum flower. Each custard bun was beautifully deep fried to golden brown.

Steamed sponge cake roll with custard yolk (奶皇馬拉卷), was one of my favourite dim sum on the table that day. This was a nice sweet dim sum which was like having an Oriental version of a mini jam Swiss roll.

As well as dim sum, we ordered a plate of fried ho fun with beef (乾炒牛河). It was OK but still it is not as good as the ones I have had in Hong Kong.

I do like Pearl Liang’s dim sum and it has got my current tick of places I would recommend to have dim sum. The only down point is the location and the difficulty of finding free car parking spaces for car users.

Prices are correct at the time of dining.

Pearl Liang (漂亮)
8 Sheldon Square
Paddington Central
London
W2 6EZ
UK

www.pearlliang.co.uk

Old Justice Pub

If you think this must be a pub review then you will be surprise. I am actually reviewing Korean food that is served at the Old Justice. From the name and the look outside or inside, many of us will only have thought this is a normal pub. Little could we have guess that thiswould be a Korean restaurant serving the well known Korean BBQ.

Sitting in the Old Justice the atmosphere was like being in Korea. Majority of the customers was young Koreans, which many looked like students. But you cannot be surprise when you can get Korean BBQ buffet for £16.99 per person, that provides you with unlimited serving of BBQ meat.

The meat includes various beef and pork. Unfortunately, the evening we went there was no marinated meat, so we had to have the same second plate of non-marinated meat.

The cooked BBQ meat could be eaten in various way to everyones own taste. The simplest is to dip each cooked meat with any of the accompany sauces. Although, each meat does have it designated sauces.

My favourite option is something refreshing which is to is to wrap the meat in lettuce and add some bean sauce.

The Korean BBQ buffet comes with two starters of the day. We got cooked mussels and sliced tofu served with warm Kimchee. The mussels was bland and needed some flavouring. The tofu have to be enjoyed with the warm Kimchee, otherwise it would be too plain. But it shows how Kimchee is an ingredient that can be used in many ways.

Along with the starters the buffet came with a Korean soup of the day and some rice. The rice was nice to have with the soup or to accompany the cooked BBQ meats, especially ifit was marinated meat.

There was also some small appetisers of marinated beansprouts and cold Kimchee. They were both provided to us at the start of the meal. I’m not too sure if these were part of the buffet, but the menu did list that it comes with Kimchee.

Although, it serves Korean food the Old Justice does not loose the identity of being a pub. Even the Aloe Vera drink was served with a beer glass. The drink range itself is not large and maybe because it is a pub it does not serve any type of warm tea to have with our food.

My first advise is order drinks that looks popular, so take a look around what people are drinking on the various tables.

We had a table right next to the entrance and since the waitress felt it was smokey they kept opening the door. However, some of us was feeling cold so it was like a game of closing and opening door. I was lucky to had brought my fleece with me to keep warm, otherwise I was tempting to put my big fat coat. I could picture in the cold winter season with people eating and steam coming out their mouth.

My second advise is that you have to be prepare to eat in the cold, so if you are afraid of the cold then bring your woollies with you to keep yourself warm.

Although, the buffet was £16.99 per person however once you include drinks and service charge we spent about £20 per person. Overall, it was a great experience but do not expect too much from Old Justice in both food and service. It is not a place for everyone, especially if you have high standards when you eat out.

Old Justice Pub
94 Bermondsey Wall East
Bermondsey
SE16 4TY
London
UK

http://www.facebook.com/oldjustice

Livebait (Covent Garden)

As we got a great value of money offer with my Taste Card at Cafe des Amis, we thought we try using it at Livebait (Covent Garden) which had 50% offer on food.

The restaurant serves fish and seafood, which is located very near to the heart of Covent Garden. Although the place itself looks small, it has a fairly big dining area. But I felt the decoration was a big out dated.

The menu range is not large with majority of them seafood dishes which is not a surprise, but there are steaks and pure vegetarian dishes for those who might not want to have seafood.

We ordered a starter portion of mussels in white wine and garlic sauce, that came served with pieces of bread (£7.25). Since there was not much sauce and taste, the over dish lacked flavour. I actually felt Belgo’s mussels dishes was better, although I prefer to go for a cream based sauce which was not an option at Livebait.

For main, we ordered Livebait’s fish and chips (£14.50) which is apparently their famous dish. We had the choice of haddock or cod for fish, but to me fish and chips have to be cod. The dish came served on a bed of chunky chips and tartare sauce. The feedback of this dish was that it was an average fish and chip.

I actually prefer my fish breaded, but usually this option is not available in many restaurant.  So, I ordered the pan-fried smoked haddock (£14.95), that came served with poached egg, mash and mustard sauce.

The combination was nice and the mustard sauce to my surprise was not strong at all. It was a compliment to the pan-fried smoked haddock, which already has a strong smokey taste. The only disadvantage to this dish was I actually wanted to have, and felt the fish was small.

The prices above were the original price of the dishes, which I personally felt was expensive. I would not want to pay more than £10 for a fish and chips, unless it was something special. So after the 50% off the food, the price of each our main dishes was more a value I would pay.

Including a bottle of water, service dishes and the three dishes, we saved £20 with the Taste Card. So for two people, it cost us about £12 per person with the 50% discount, otherwise we would have spent double of that. In this hard economy time, its about cutting and saving.

Livebait
21 Wellington Street,
Covent Garden,
London,
WC2E 7DN

http://www.livebaitrestaurants.co.uk

Cosmo

It is hard to find buffet like in Asia where you can find a range of cuisines around the world. So it was excitement when I got the opportunity to visit Cosmo. As it was a public holiday and we did not make a booking, we had to queue up. But lucky it was not too long before we got a table.

The place is huge that is filled with pan-Asian cuisines, althought I remember seeing European section serving roast and pizza. There is something for everyone and at a reasonable price. Although, the disadvantage is there’s a time limit of 1 hour and 45 minutesto race through all the different food.

Not all the food are left kept warm for people to pick. But there are live station, such as Teppenyaki where you can watch your chosen ingredients cooked right in your very eyes. But the queue just take up so much time that you could find yourself lose out on going around the other stations.

The choice is large that it includes seafoods - such as lobster, King Prawn, crabs, scallops etc. There is even a dim sum station which produce some beautiful looking dim sums. It felt like I was at a hotel having buffet!

It is great for desserts fans like me, as there is range of dessert which are tiny size so you can try as many of them. If you prefer something more healthy than many fruits to fill your stomach, as well many children’ favourite of the chocolate fountain.

I do love Cosmo for buffet and will want to go there again. The only disadvantage is the time length to eat is short. I would have prefered if it was at least a minimum of 2 hours dining time. I cannot wait to go there again!

Cafe des Amis

Cafe des Amis is a French restaurant located on a side alley street off Long Acre in Covent Garden. It is a two floored modern decorated restaurant, which to my surprise was busy for a late Friday evening.

The menu is covered by two A4 pages with a selection of starters, mains and sides. Then desserts and drinks are covered on a separate menu.

For starters, I started with a French onion soup with toasted gruyere bread which was a big portion for a starter. The soup itself was better than some UK London restaurant but not the best French onion soup I have tasted. The Cafe des Amis version had a lot of herbs which actually did not take my favour.

My food companion choice the asparagus wrapped in Parma ham served with poached egg and hollandaise sauce. This was a good starter choice, so if you prefer not having onions then this could be a good alternative.

For main, I choice the rib-eye steak served with peppercorn sauce and triple cooked chips. I’m not sure what triple cooked chips but they were chunky chips to me. My only criticism with the dish was my steak was a little bit on the over cooked side, since I did asked for it to be medium.

The chicken pasta we also ordered is a good dish to fill a hungry stomach, as it was a good decent size portion.

We finish the meal with a sweet dessert from the choices available.  There is a good selection of desserts to choose from, including the chef selection.

We ordered the divine chocolate fondant which was served with ice cream. It certainly divine with the flowing chocolate lava.

My recommended dessert would be the warm caramelised apple tart served with vanilla ice cream. A fluffy crispy pastry filled with sliced apples that went well with the vanilla ice cream. Unlike many apple tart this was sweet and not left with a sour apple taste. Delicious!

As we booked using the London taste card we got 50% off our food. So the overall bill include a bottle of still water and service charge came to about £70. But with the discount we saved about £30 on the 3 course meal for 2 people.

I would return to Cafe des Amis with the use of the London taste card or maybe try one of their special offer menu. But not sure if I would go there without taking a meal offer.

Cafe des Amis
11-14 Hanover Place
London
WC2E 9JF
UK

http://www.cafedesamis.co.uk/

Ladudu

I have been wanting to write about Ladudu since it opened its doors this year to the public, but it has not reached my list until now. I have also been wanting to give Ladudu a second visit, however that opportunity has not yet arrived.

My first visit was when it had only opened for the first week, so it was a new-born baby that had arrived in West Hampstead. Ladudu is only located a few minutes walk from West Hampstead station.

The restaurant itself feels like a cafe and has a modern relax atmosphere about the place. When I entered in to Ladudu it felt smaller than I thought it was, with upstairs being the dining area and downstairs is the kitchen. 

The menu selection is not big compared to some Vietnamese restaurants I have been. But then a smaller selection should make it easy to decide what to order.

There is a range of hot and cold drink including Vietnamese coffee. The restaurant also serves alcohol drinks such as beer and wines. If you want to stick to a Vietnamese theme then there is the option of Vietnamese beer.

I choice to try Ladudu’s iced tea since it was a fairly warm day. The drink was a very light iced tea, and I prefered mine to have more flavour.

As well as ordering our own dishes we decided to try their Banh Cuon (warm rice paper crepe) to share. It is supposed to be fresh steam rice paper wrapped with meat. However, it was the one dish that was disappointing because it had no steam and the end of the roll was dry.

The main dishes was better than our appetizer, where I ordered a beef pho. It might not be the best pho broth I have had but the whole package of the pho had Ladudu own style

.

The pho came with a separate dish of garnish – beansprouts, fresh chillies, limes, and herb leaves. Also there was a tub of sauce which included hoi sin sauce. The sauce went well with the beef to give it a different flavour, as well bringing the whole beef pho to life.

On the table was also the Com Tam which is pan-fried pork served with a fried egg, some salad and jasmine rice.

We finished off the meal with dessert and we shared the Banh Trang Ngt (pandan pancake with coconut filling and ice cream). We thought it came served with coconut ice cream but to our surprise and even better it tasted more like pandan ice cream.

This dessert was a good recommendation, and make it a good choice for those who like their nuts and coconuts.

Although, it seem like a mixed review for me I would still give Ladudu another try. It was my first visit and also the first week when it was officially open, so things are never perfect. But I suppose no matter we were still a paying customers who expect satisfactory dishes and services.

Ladudu
152 West End Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 1SD

http://www.ladudu.com/

Atari-Ya (Swiss Cottage)

It has been a long wait to find an opportunity to visit Atari-Ya in Swiss Cottage. This small Japanese restaurant specialise in sushi and is definitely a recommendation that has my tick. It also seem to be a popular place for Japanese local to be eating here, so it seem to hint that Atari-Ya is good as if you were in Japan.

The menu mainly consist of various types of sushi, ranging from sashimi to nigiri. There are also the chirashi (sushi don) where you have a bowl of rice covered on top with sushi.

We ordered a few sushi to try including the tradition salmon maki and egg omelette. The egg omelette was beautiful, actually I felt like it was the best I have had so far in London.

Of all sushi my favourite has to be toro (fatty tuna), so seeing it on the menu I had to order to try if it was any good in comparison to Nobu. As I could not make my choice I ordered one piece of medium fatty tuna and one piece of the fattest tuna which is slight more expensive.

The medium fatty tuna I felt is better although it is cheaper over the fattest tuna. Both was pieces of beautiful fresh fatty tuna that melted in your mouth. The quality was definitely just as good as Nobu.

At Atari-Ya you will not find any bento boxes or cooked dons, but if you do prefer more than just sushi, you can order noodles or ochazake (boiled rice with tea poured over a choice of topping).

I tried one of their tempura udon which was average in terms of the texture of the udon. The texture was definitely not as good as udon specialise Koya, but then Atari-Ya is really about sushi. However, the tempura prawn is better than many other places in London.

One noodle that I do recommend is their cold soba, which is usually brownish in colour was instead a beautiful green colour. This is a good choice to have in the warm summer weather.

A friend had this beautiful grilled aubergine. It is the first time I have seen it served this way, and when it first arrived at the table I felt that it was an artwork.

We even got a small free appetizer while waiting for our food. It was soft but still had a slight crunch and was slightly sweet.

It is a small restaurant, so if you do decide to visit Atari-Ya then I would advise that you make a reservation to avoid disappointment.

We visited the branch in Swiss Cottage but Atrai-Ya do have various branches which can all be found on their website.

Atari-Ya (Swiss Cottage branch)
75 Fairfax Road,
London,
NW6 4EE

http://www.atariya.co.uk/shops/swiss_cottage.html

Marine Ices

London’s has had almost a week of beautiful summer weather. It might not be the best summer weather, but it is better than not getting any warm, sunny weather at all in 2011. In such warm weather it is always nice to cool down with an ice cream.

While I was in Camden Town with friends we decided to visit Marine ice cream, which offer you Italian ice cream in various flavours including Bubblegum. I choice a one scoop Ferrero Rocher in a waffle basket (£2.45).

If you prefer something more exciting, than there are various types of sundaes, or create your own with you favourite flavours, sauce and toppings.

(Price correct at the time of dining)

Marine Ices
8 Haverstock Hill
London
NW3 2BL

http://www.marineices.co.uk/

Cafe Rouge Express (Euston)

Cafe Rouge restaurants are seen all over UK but how often do you get to see an express version of Cafe Rouge. Just outside Euston station you can find one that offers French fast food to cater for the travellers going in and out of Euston station.

As it is an express Cafe Rouge the menu has been modified. Instead the menu contains various types of hot/cold baguette, grilled sandwich, salads and soup. But if you do have some time you can go for the steak which come served with frites. There are also breakfast that are served all day such as English breakfast, bacon/sausage baguette or various pastries.

I order a croques which is the grilled sandwich topped with bechamel and gruyere cheese. There are three different croques to choose – Monsieur (smoked ham), Madame (Monsieur with a fried egg) or Saumon (Smoked salmon).

It was not hard to choose as it had to be the Madame, which came served with some mixed salad in a french dressing.

Although we decided to eat at the cafe, there is also the option of takeaway. If you are in a hurry then can always give them a call to place your order and collect it just like a French takeaway.