Gelato in London - Black Vanilla, Greenwich

So, continuing my quest for gelato in London, we went to Black Vanilla in Greenwich yesterday.  It was very very good.

I had some apple sorbet that was basically the best apple sorbet that I have ever had and I have eaten a lot of apple sorbet.  It was just such a perfect texture, no iciness at all, just completely smooth.  The lemon meringue ice-cream that I had with it was not quite as nice - for my taste not nearly lemony enough - but perhaps it wasn't a great combination with a nicely sour apple sorbet.

My lovely husband had peanut butter and jam ice-cream which I thought was really interesting - I had kind of expected them to go for making the jam quite sweet and fruity and then have the peanut butter as the salty counterpart but, actually, they went for the peanut butter as quite sweet and the jam as the sour counterpart which was unexpectedly really nice.  I hate peanut butter and jam as a sandwich combination so it was quite impressive that I liked the ice-cream!  He also had the apple pie ice-cream which was also very nice.

Mmmmm.  Definitely going back.

Restaurant review - Perseverance - Edgware Road

We went to Perseverance for dinner because we wanted to go somewhere within very easy walking distance of the Cockpit Theatre and that, for some reason, is located in a weird no restaurant land.  A mile to the north, many lovely Lebanese places, a mile to the south, the posh places of Marylebone, but directly around the Cockpit Theatre, nothing at all.  Who knows?

Anyway.  Having not very graciously at all decided to go there on grounds that it seemed to be the only place that was remotely close enough to the theatre to make sensible, it was actually very nice.   For some reason, looking at reviews, Timeout seem to be the only people who dislike the place, as everyone else notes, it has an inventive menu that is well executed.  The atmosphere was nice, fairly quiet, good service, though I always find it weird to have table service for drinks in a pub.  Vegetarian options were fairly minimal - just the one main course option but as it was a very nicely done risotto, I was pretty ok with that.  I particularly liked that the apertif on the menu (an elderflower bellini) was actually priced quite reasonably (£4) for London and so I didn't feel like a total spendthrift for having it.

More ice-cream adventures in London - ChinChin Labs, Camden

So, as I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of nice ice-cream, particularly Italian-style ice-cream.  I went, recently (while feeling a little bad for going anywhere other than Gelupo) to the Chin Chin Labs for liquid nitrogen ice-cream.  To be completely honest, I  expected it to be a bit of a gimmick. And, it was - there were silly outfits and a sales patter about the chemical process, etc.  But it was also extremely good ice-cream, some of the best I've ever tasted.  I had ginger wine sorbet with bits of ginger biscuit in it which was amazing - somehow, it didn't just taste of ginger, it tasted of ginger wine.  Mmmmm.  My lovely husband had cinnamon french toast ice cream which they make by infusing milk with cinnamon french toast.  So good.  So so good.

Restaurant review - The Wapping Project, Wapping, London

Trend-setter that I am, I visited The Wapping Project with friends just before this Guardian review of it was published.  The Wapping Project is achingly cool.  So cool that its website doesn't even work in my edition of Firefox.  Anyway.

The space is amazing.  I'm usually - to be honest - all about the food but, sometimes, a space is so lovely that you have to notice it.  It's pretty awesome to be able to wander into an old warehouse, look at some modern art, and then have a meal with some of the art surrounding you. 

However.  The restaurant is expensive, even for London - we ended up spending around £50 a head for cocktails/two courses/post-dinner drinks.  And, to be honest, I didn't think it was quite worth that.  The food was nice enough - I had a starter involving some wild mushrooms and a main dish that made a lovely creamy sauce out of sweetcorn to go with gnocchi - but there are places I'd rather spend that sort of amount on dinner.  The service was pretty ropey too - our waitress didn't really seem to know what she was doing and was difficult to track down.  The cocktails were, I thought, the best bit - some interesting ones on the menu and they were carefully and freshly prepared and well worth it.  I had a blood orange margarita that was one of the best cocktails I think I've ever had.  Given that, I sort of regretted not just going for cocktails and somewhere else for dinner.

Restaurant review - Simplicity, Rotherhithe, London

Rather embarrassingly, since we live just down the road from it, I had never head of  Simplicity in Rotherhithe before a friend suggested it recently.  The area is not over endowed with nice restaurants so I was pleased to find that it was really good.  In particular, I thought it had a nice atmosphere, quiet and with friendly, knowledgeable staff.  There's only one vegetarian option on the menu but it involved hollandaise sauce which makes it pretty awesome in my book.  They do also say that they will be happy to cook you another vegetarian dish if the one on the menu is not to your taste which is a nice offer.  In particular, the wine list was well chosen and we enjoyed the wine that we had. 

The only slight criticism I'd make is that the portion sizes were a little odd - the crostini and olives that we ordered as a collective starter was very generous but the vegetarian mains were on the small side compared with the other mains. 

Since it is only round the corner from us, I'm pretty sure we'll be back.

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.