Restaurant review - The Yellow House, Canada Water

Like Cafe Amisha, The Yellow House is one of the restaurants that we frequent when we are tired and don't want to cook. Which means that I always forget how nice it is.

We went the other day and had fondue to start which was interesting - I am more used to fondue as a main meal.  For my tastes, the fondue was a little too boozy,the booze slightly overwhelmed the cheese which was a shame because the texture was perfect.

The pizzas that we had to follow were perfect, though - crust nice and thin and flavoursome.  One of the things that I particularly like about The Yellow House is its selection of small sweet things.  As regular readers will have noticed, I don't have that much of a sweet tooth but every now and then I fancy something sweet at the end of a meal.  Restaurant puddings are usually too much for me but a couple of chocolate truffles or pieces of fudge are perfect.  The handmade chocolate truffles at The Yellow House are absolutely amazing, some of the best chocolate that I've ever had, I think mostly because of how freshly made they are.

Restaurant review - Prix Fixe, Soho

Looking for a nice but inexpensive place to grab a pre-show meal in Soho, we chanced upon Prix Fixe where the two-course set menu before 7pm is a bargain at £13.90 (no, I don't know how they came up with that figure, either.)

The set menu has six vegetarian main courses (counting the main course salads and omelette), all of which sound lovely - no tame mushroom risotto here.  I went for the grilled aubergine, roast pepper and goats cheese roulade to start - which was perfectly cooked, lovely blend of flavours and just the right amount of food for a starter, enough to whet your appetite but not so much that you don't want your main.  Because I'm a sucker for savoury pancakes, I went for the zucchini & dill pancakes as a main which were really good.  I pretty much always love pancakes but these were particularly well done - it's easy for savoury pancakes to be dry or overwhelmed by sauce but these were perfect, lovely crispy on top, and an interesting texture to the lentil and salsify sauce.

All in all, it was great.  I will definitely be back next time I am in search of a pre or post theatre meal in Soho.

Restaurant review - Avenue, St James, London

Recently, my lovely husband and I took advantage of the Evening Standard's Dine offer (now closed) and visited Avenue.  I picked it mostly because it is close to where I work (Victoria) and I have yet to really find a restaurant that I love near work which I feel is a bit of a shame.

As regular readers will know,  I am (greedily) mostly all about the food in a restaurant.  If a restaurant serves food that I love, as long as there aren't rodents visible and and the staff don't spit in my face, I will pretty much be happy to go back there.

That said, the service at Avenue was so good that even I noticed!  The waitstaff had it pitched absolutely perfectly - they were always prompt, they anticipated when you'd want more water, when you'd want to order dessert, etc, etc.  And they had ridiculously good attention to detail - e.g. we were sat at a long row of tables for two that were fairly close together and they seated groups as far as possible spaced out along the row, to avoid you having to be unnecessarily close to another party.  The waiter also won my heart by filling my hankering for ginger tea after the meal by getting the bar staff to add some chopped fresh ginger to some green tea.

The attention to detail carried through to the food too - for example, my pumpkin risotto was elevated from standard vegetarian risotto fare by the toasted hazelnuts on top that gave it a much more interesting texture.

The only complaint from me was that the puddings (very nice - banana sticky toffee puddings) weren't really anywhere near hot when they appeared, which was a bit of a pity.

I think it may be just a touch too expensive (£15-£20 for a main course) for me to want to go there regularly for the a la carte menu but I think I could definitely be tempted back for the set menu or the pre/post theatre deals that they have.

Restaurant review - Androuet, Shoreditch

I felt a bit disloyal to L'Art Du Fromage going to Androuet.  I could make excuses like, Androuet is closer and cheaper but, really, I'd still feel guilty so what's the point?

Androuet was great, though, very similar to L'Art Du Fromage in many ways - the cheesy aroma of the place, the fondue, etc, etc.  Lovely atmosphere and service, especially.  We all had the fondue so I can only comment on that - it was really good but (in my view) not quite as nice as the fondue at L'Art Du Fromage, I think what it was lacking was the brandy that L'Art Du Fromage uses.  Though, on the other hand, it was a) considerably cheaper b) came with crudites and charcuterie as well as bread and c) you could order it individually if you wanted which, I think, is a big bonus.  There are a few main courses on the menu that I'd like to try too, like the poached duck eggs & cheese rosti, wild mushrooms, truffle sauce.

Definitely one I'll be coming back to.  Though, of course, just to be fair, I'll also be going to L'Art Du Fromage again too.  Nothing to do with All.The.Cheese.

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.

Restaurant review - Cafe Amisha, Bermondsey

Cafe Amisha is just down the road from us and our default place to go when we're feeling too tired to cook.  Every time I go there, I forget how nice it is.  In my head, I always think of it as a "standard Italian" but it's much more than that.  It's like a standard Italian restaurant in Italy.  There are no surprises on the menu, everything you would expect to find at a trattoria in Italy is there.  But everything is lovely.  The food is freshly prepared with attention to detail.  The service is friendly but not obtrusive.  The wine list is good.  The atmosphere is nice, tables not to close together, etc.  It's great value - no more expensive than the chain Italians but much nicer. It always cheers me up after a hard day. 

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.

Prague restaurant reviews - Knotra and Maitrea

In a departure from the usual London restaurant reviews, a couple of restaurant reviews from Prague where we spent a couple of days as part of a holiday.

First up, Pizzeria Kmotra which I'd been to before - quite a few years before.  It was lovely then and it's still lovely now.  There's an English menu and the staff are cheerful and willing even if you don't speak any Czech.  The pizzas are lovely traditional pizzas but with some innovative options - e.g. I had one with blue cheese and potatoes which is definitely a combination that I'm going to experiment with at home.  It's also incredibly good value - we had four main courses and soft drinks for about £20.  Very highly recommended.

Second, Maitrea, a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant.  A lovely atmosphere - lots of Buddhist decoration and a water feature (!) in the downstairs bit.  A slightly insane variety of food on the menu - there were some Mexican options, some Chinese-style food, some standard European fare, some traditional Czech options.  The three of us went for things from all corners of the menu but all were good - I enjoyed having the chance to have something in the traditional Czech style as that's not easy when you're vegetarian.  Again, very good value - the three of us had main courses and soft drinks for around £20.  Recommended.

Restaurant review - El Sabio, Winchester

Recently, my lovely husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a day and nice meal in Winchester.  Winchester is great - much recommended.  We chose El Sabio for our anniversary meal because it's unusual to see a Spanish restaurant with a good selection of vegetarian dishes and so it's good to take advantage of that when you can.

We had a jug of nice sangria, some olives to start, and then the vegetarian paella, mushrooms in sherry and blue cheese sauce, mushroom and manchego croquettes, the "catalan-style" bread (bread toasted with garlic and crushed cherry tomatoes) and my husband had the fish stew as well.  It was all good - but the bread and the croquettes particularly so.  We also had dessert - they offer you "tapas desserts", i.e. the chance to have three small desserts rather than just one, which worked really well for us, the raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake was particularly well executed.  Plus, anywhere that serves Pedro Ximenez sherry is always a winner with us. 

The only thing I'd criticise is the service which wasn't great - e.g. we had to ask four times for water before it was brought to us.  But, as I've said before, the food is the most important thing for me so I wasn't devastated by this. 

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 Warehouse Cafe, Birmingham

Yes, I know I said I was going to post about places I love in London but there are places I love outside London too..  and probably #1 on that list is The Warehouse Cafe in Birmingham.  I have friends in Birmingham who I visit regularly and, every time I go, we pay a visit to the delightful Warehouse Cafe

It's not much to look at on the outside, down a slightly dodgy looking alleyway, housed within Birmingham's Friends of the Earth building, and you have to press a buzzer to be let in, go up some slightly pokey stairs but, when you get there, delicious vegetarian food is your reward.  The service can be a little wayward but the food is just great. 

I've had a lot of meals there and never had a bad one.  The menu covers all the bases - some really interesting, innovative options (I had a delicious pease pudding with fried chappati and onion bhajis today and the savoury cheesecakes are always winners) to more traditional British style food (e.g. vegetarian sausages and mash or burger and wedges), so there's something for everyone.  The puddings are a highlight, even for me as someone who much prefers savoury food - they are interesting and different but not in a gimmicky way, for instance, a while ago I had a lovely Eton Mess with balsamic vinegar there.

I think the food is right up there with The Gate's and yet priced for Birmingham so great value if you're a Londoner passing through. 

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.

Restaurant reviews, Newcastle upon Tyne: Blackfriars and El Coto

Was in Newcastle this week and sampled a couple of the city's many restaurants.

Newcastle is pretty

The first was Blackfriars, set in a medieval former Dominican friary, the place has a lot of atmosphere.  This always makes me a little nervous, I tend to assume that restaurants in lovely settings won't always bother going the extra mile with the food but, in this case, that fear was unjustified.  The restaurant makes a genuine effort with its vegetarian options and both of the main course options looked very tempting - one involving mushrooms and truffles and the other involving smoked fried goats cheese.*  Perhaps inevitably given my fondness for cheese, I went for the latter and it was extremely good - I've never had smoked goats cheese before and I really liked the flavours.  

The river has pretty patterns in the mud

I don't usually say this as I don't have much of a sweet tooth but the best part of the meal, though, was the pudding - sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel ice-cream and honeycomb.  Just gorgeous - the sticky toffee pudding was indulgently sweet, the salted caramel ice-cream was genuinely salty enough to provide the requisite contrast, and the honeycomb added an interesting texture on top.  To add to my enjoyment of the pudding course, unlike a lot of restaurants, Blackfriars has a decent range of pudding wines, including one that I'd not seen before - a Pineau Rouge de Charentes, a blend of grape juice and Cognac, which I enjoyed.  Overall, I'd definitely come back here if I'm ever passing through Newcastle again.

*The menu on the website seems to have changed now - presumably to their spring menu but the new vegetarian options also look nice.

And there are sands nearby and seagulls

The other restaurant that we tried was a tapas place called El Coto, which we went to largely because we both quite like Spanish food but it's rare to find one that has good vegetarian options.  The service was a tad on the surly side - we got told off for not waiting in the deserted bar area to be seated, despite there being no evidence that anyone had noticed us lurking there or would notice, the waitstaff took quite a while to take our order, etc.  But the food was pretty good. The portions were huge, in retrospect going for three tapas each, plus bread to share, was a bit too much food.  I had tomatoes drizzled with garlicky, herby, olive oil, which was lovely (and which I plan to try to recreate at home sometime), chickpea and spinach stew which they'd spiced with cloves (I think) which gave it an unusual flavour that I liked, the mushrooms in white wine were slightly disappointingly soggy (I think mushrooms are sometimes hard to get quite right), unusually for me as I'm not that into bread (apparently this is a Newcastle theme..), my favourite bit was the olive bread that they brought us, lovely and fresh and just the right consistency. 

My companion reported much the same - that two of his three tapas were really good but one was slightly disappointing.  So, overall, I'd say this one's worth going to if you really fancy tapas but, if you're only in Newcastle for one evening, I'd definitely recommend Blackfriars instead.  That said, if they ever expand to London, I'd definitely go there from time to time.

Mexican restaurants in London

Unlike most British people, I've had quite a lot of exposure to Mexican food, as I have visited Arizona frequently over the years due to having family there.  Unfortunately, Britain has not generally been good for Mexican food but that's slowly been changing over the years.

I've sampled a few Mexican restaurants in London so I thought I'd do a quick round up of them. Short version:  go to Lupita.  It is awesome.

I've been to the Wahaca on Wardour Street a few times.  It has some interesting vegetarian options, I especially like their vegetarian main course salad, and the fact that they experiment with interesting combinations, such as lancashire cheese and black bean.  They put the same degree of creativity into their vegetarian options as the rest of the menu which is really nice.  They also have a really interesting drinks menu - various types of tequila are perhaps to be expected but they also have some Mexican non-alcoholic drinks that are interesting and a bit different to what you would normally get at a Mexican restaurant.

They lose points for me for other things though: atmosphere - the place is incredibly noisy and not all that comfortable);  and the fact that they bring the food to you at random intervals, which they claim is about the authentic street food experience (um, wouldn't that involve an actual street?) but seems to me to be more about laziness about co-ordinating things in the kitchen, I love tapas/mezze style eating but not when it's forced on me and I don't get any choice about what dish comes when.

Because it's geographically quite handy for me, I've also been to Tortilla on Southwark Street a few times.  It's a nice place to go if you're after a relatively cheap and cheerful meal in the area - two of you can have a burrito each and a pitcher of (very tasty) margaritas for around £20 which is pretty good value in London.

I went to Mestizo for Sunday lunch a few months ago as they do an all you can eat lunch, with as much wine and beer as you like, and that seemed like a good idea.  It wasn't.  The food was ok - though the vegetarian offerings were more minimal than the website suggested - but the main issue was that the service was pretty surly, we had the strong impression that they resented us for not being Mexican and we got significantly worse service than anyone else there.

I've been to La Perla on Charlotte Street a couple of times.  The vegetarian options aren't terribly exciting but they are well executed and it has a tequila flight which is nice for those of us who haven't had a chance to try much nice tequila.  It's a pretty nice all rounder, the only reason why I wouldn't go there more often is because it's not Lupita and Lupita is only a short walk away.

On that note, Lupita, on Villiers Street is, hands down, my favourite Mexican restaurant in London. The food is delicious, with many and varied interesting vegetarian options.  I'm a particular fan of the "Chicharron de Queso" which is essentially a thin piece of deep fried cheese.  Nothing wrong with that!  Last time I went with a vegetarian friend and we had the vegetarian platter for two which, at £18.50, is quite expensive but gives you an extraordinary amount of very nice food.  The margaritas are also very very good.  The only real downside to Lupita is that the atmosphere isn't great - it's crammed full of tables and is quite noisy.  The downstairs is a bit quieter but still not great.  Given the food, though, I don't care!

Places I love in London: L'art Du Fromage

I was going to do some kind of list of "my favourite five restaurants in London" or some such but then I got indecisive about how to rank them and it all seemed needlessly numerical. So, as the mood strikes me, I'll write about my favourite places to eat and drink in London.


Today, L'art du Fromage.  I know I said I wasn't going to get numerical about this but this might well be my favourite restaurant in London.

I first went there during their opening week, when I spotted it on the "new restaurants" page of London Eating.  I've been back at regular intervals, so regular that the staff recognise me, I've taken various friends there and, every time I visit, I love it more.

The lovely co-owners, photo from The Guardian

It's a French restaurant focussed on cheese.  I could just stop there because, frankly, that was all it took to get me there the first time!  But that's not all it is, it's not a restaurant with a gimmick, it's fundamentally one of those lovely places that you find in France so often where they keep it simple but stylish:  the décor is all warm wood, it's comfortable but still feels special, the staff are attentive but calm and unobtrusive, the wine list is carefully chosen, and - crucially - the food is delicious.  If you like cheese, the place also smells terrific.

I often have the Bleu D'Avergne fondue (which is mysteriously not on the menu on the website but there when you go in person), like all the fondues, you can get as much as you like - including switching to a different type of fondue - and they serve it with a flourish, setting some brandy alight and pouring it in.  I've tried all the fondues (I did say that I've been there a lot!) and, while they are all delicious, the Bleu D'Avergne is the one I always come back to - it's just the most interesting of them and the one that I suspect would be hardest to re-create at home.  I have also had various of the cheeseboards - the only real difference between them is how much of the tasty cheese you want.  They are all beautifully presented and with a real attention to detail - every single cheese is clearly handpicked and is at exactly the right stage for eating.  Sometimes, you'll order a cheese board at a restaurant, even a good restaurant, and find that - say - the brie isn't quite ripe enough or the camembert is disappointingly ungooey.  That does not happen at L'Art du Fromage.  Ever.

I think the only negative thing I can find at all to say about the place is that, location-wise, it's a bit of a faff to get to - it's about as far from a tube station as you can possibly get in central London, but it is on a couple of convenient bus routes.  Also, the location stops me from spending ALL MY MONEY ON CHEESE.

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.

why review restaurants?

One of the things that I find difficult about finding good restaurants in London is that it's difficult to find reviews of omnivorous restaurants by vegetarians. It's not hard to find reviews of vegetarian restaurants but, while there are some great vegetarian restaurants in London, you can't eat at The Gate all the time. OR CAN YOU?
 
Anyway. I don't think I know of a vegetarian restaurant critic and omnivorous critics - both professional and amateur - don't usually get what I'm looking for. I can't speak for all vegetarians but what I want in a restaurant is nice food. Sounds obvious, I know. But lots of critics seem to think that, instead, what I want to know is how much choice I have. 'There are usually two vegetarian options' is the kind of thing they might say in a restaurant review.
 
I don't really care how many options there are. Obviously, I care a little bit - I'd rather have the choice between two incredibly tasty options than just one incredibly tasty option. But I'd much rather have one really tasty choice than 20 indifferently prepared choices. In a sense, this is obvious - restaurant critics never say 'there are 20 meat dishes on the menu' and then just leave it at that because the whole point of the review is to tell you what those dishes are like, not just how many of them there are on the menu.
 
I realise that this is because vegetarians are such a small minority of the population (I think the vegetarian society estimates around 10 per cent) and so, frankly, critics don't need to bother writing for them. I find it annoying (obviously) but I think it is a reasonable decision on their parts.
 
The solution, really, is for vegetarians to step up and do it for themselves - post restaurant reviews and help other vegetarians to find tasty food. Because tasty food is good. There are various excellent sites that do this but a lot of the focus on those sites is on vegetarian restaurants. It's harder for vegetarians to find reviews of nice vegetarian food at omnivorous restaurants. I tend to find those by just random googling.  It occurs to me that it's a bit selfish of me not to contribute to those resources so that's what I intend to try to do by posting reviews on here and on other review sites.