Restaurant review - Ottolenghi, Islington and Nopi

I have been to both Ottolenghi restaurants in Islington and NOPI in Soho. I really wanted to love them as much as I love the cookbooks but, sadly, that was not to be. My view on both restaurants was pretty similar so I'll review them in the same post.

Both restaurants had much more limited vegetarian options than you would expect from Ottolenghi's Guardian column and cookbooks – it's not so much that there weren't quite a number of options as that they were almost uniformly “lighter” options, more accents to the meat dishes in the mezze than substantial in and of themselves and, often, with ingredients repeated throughout the vegetarian options so it was hard to get dishes that were genuinely different from one another.

Essentially, I got the impression that no-one had actually looked at the whole of the menu from a vegetarian's perspective – each individual dish was nice but it was hard to put together a complete meal from the vegetarian dishes on the table without a) repeating ingredients a lot and b) eating a lot of vegetables and not much protein/carbohydrate. I don't want to sound like a barbarian but, really, I do expect to be full after spending £30+ on food in a restaurant. Even by the standards of nice London restaurants, I thought both were overpriced – it's not that the food wasn't good but it just wasn't quite priced right for me, for the prices they charge, I expect (literally) more.

I had one Islington restaurant specific gripe, too: we'd booked in advance but were sat on the long communal table without being warned of this on the phone – if we had been told, we would have changed the booking for a time when we could get a table to ourselves – the staff's attitude seemed to be very much “if you're in the know, then you'll get your own table, otherwise, we won't tell you”. I don't like that attitude much.

Overall, I'd rather stay at home with my cookbooks. Where I can get a table to myself.

Restaurant review - The Gate, Islington

For many years, my favourite vegetarian restaurant in London has been The Gate in Hammersmith because of its wonderfully creative and inventive food.  Far too many vegetarian restaurants are of the lentils and wheatgrass shots variety and so it's fantastic when one isn't.  I've never had a bad meal at The Gate, the only two bad things that I have to say about it are:  it's in Hammersmith (which isn't very convenient for me); and it's not got the best atmosphere, the tables are all crammed in and it looks a bit like a cafeteria.  One time that my lovely husband and I went, we were so close to another couple that it was deeply uncomfortable - they sat in silence glaring at one another for the whole meal except, at one point, one of them said to the other "I didn't think this was how we'd be spending our anniversary."  Ow.  Offputting.  Hard to carry on a cheery conversation about three inches from them. 

Anyway.  I was, therefore, thrilled when I heard that they were opening a new restaurant in Islington - Islington is much more convenient for me and, also, I figured that they might fix the problem of the tables being too crammed in together.  While, obviously, Islington is indeed more convenient for me, unfortunately seemingly they couldn't resist the temptation of cramming a few more tables in so you are still quite close to other diners when you eat, much more so than in most restaurants.  The atmosphere is a bit nicer though, less opressively white and cafeteria like.

We went during their first week of being open so perhaps this is just teething problems but the service was somewhat erratic - the first waiter we had showed us to our table and then left us without menus for about ten minutes before I caught the eye of a different waiter who seemed rather confused that we had no menus.  After that, the service was lightning fast, to be honest, a bit too fast.  I realise I'm sounding a bit like Goldilocks here but I promise you, I'm not really particularly picky about service.  I just quite like there to be a break of some sort between courses - our mains arrived literally just as I was finishing the last mouthful of the starter which was fine this time as we were both quite hungry anyway but I do, in general, prefer my meals out to last longer than an hour.  I think, next time, I might be inclined to wait until we've eaten starters before ordering mains.

Still, the main reason why I went was the food, which was - as per the Hammersmith restaurant - lovely.  As well as the usual things, they have mezze so we went for 3 mezze for £10 as a shared starter - I loved the artichoke tempura and the couscous fritters (particularly the sauce they came with), but the mushroom pate wasn't that exciting.  The portion sizes were a little on the small size - worked fine as a shared starter for two people who wanted to leave room for their mains but I'd avoid ordering some as a meal in themselves, unless you have a very small appetite.  The main courses were terrific - I had the corn cake which was beautifully put together, lots of different flavours, just the way I like my flavours, my lovely husband had the couscous encrusted aubergine which was also very nice.  Next time, I want to try the risotto cake with lots of mushrooms.  We were too full for pudding, another one for next time.

Korean restaurants in London: Busan & The Old Justice

Korean restaurants in London that I have been to recently:

The newly reopened Busan, in Islington.  This was my introduction to Korean food - courtesy of a friend of mine.  Service was ok - not particularly attentive but fine, atmosphere was ok (a little cafeteria like), but the food was really good. They have various tasting plates so that you can try different types of kimchi, which was excllent, and we also split their aubergine and sesame starter which was delicious. They had a few vegetarian main course options but I was the only vegetarian in the group so can only comment on the one I had - bimbimbap.  Mmmmm, lovely vegetables and little bits of crispy rice and creamy eggness and West Indian hot sauce-like sauce.

The Old Justice - Bermondsey boozer that does authentic Korean food.  Yes, really.  It is bizarre.  It is literally half Bermondsey boozer, half Korean ex-pat hang out.  We were the only non-Koreans eating food in there.  It's kind of worth going to just to experience the oddness of it.  I love London.

Based on another review, which warned that the vegetarian bimbimbap often comes with meat that hasn't been mentioned, I specifically asked about its vegetarian-ness when ordering and was told that that was fine.  It then turned up with meat in. The waitress realised immediately and was reasonably cheerful about me sending it back.  Based on the length of time that it took to come back and the way it tasted, they definitely remade it rather than just picking the meat out, which is always good!  So, er, I would say that you should make extra sure it's vegetarian when you order it but I tried that and it still came with meat.  I guess,  maybe you could try harder but, probably, it's simplest just to prepare yourself for potentially having to send it back. 

The bimbimbap was, when it eventually appeared in its meat-free form, pretty tasty - though I think perhaps not quite as nice as Busan's.  The pan fried vegetable dumplings that we ordered as a starter to share didn't arrive until after we'd finished our mains which was a little weird but they were very nice so I didn't find myself minding too much.  They have a wide selection of Korean drinks which I wasn't feeling brave enough to try.  Maybe next time.  It's only a short walk from our house so, even though I think the food was nice rather than extraordinary, I can see us coming back.