Sunday Roast @ The Charles Lamb

I’d wanted to eat at the Charles Lamb for years and I mean years, probably 3 or 4 at least, but with most things in my life things get changed always at the last minute.

New Culture Revolution

After many years of abusing my body with very little exercise and a lot of food, my good wife has finally persuaded me to join a gym to try and get healthy and also to shed a few pounds of midriff that has developed around my belly.

Delhi Grill - A Revisit

We haven’t eaten at the Delhi Grill for a long time now, it seem to reach such a high status with some bloggers that when I ate there, well I was kinda let down, but then I realized all those who praised it actually ate there on a freebie. I learnt my lesson.

But I also ate there after an extensities trip through India and to be honest the food at Delhi Grill was pretty below par after sampling great food for several weeks.

Yipin China

I first heard about Yipin China here, and then I kept noticing it as I walked from Angel Station up Liverpool Road to my fave Pizza Pub, which is where we were going to when a last second change of plan saw us opening the door to this wonderful Chinese restaurant.

Delhi Grill or Delhi Let Down

I have to say with all the hype surrounding Delhi Grill, I was expecting more, much more. I was hoping for something that I had been eating in India those past months. Alas all I got was better than average typical Indian restaurant fare. Very disappointing.

I had eaten their kebab wraps before on Sundays, as once in a while I do a bit of shopping at the weekly Farmers market on Chapel Market. Those I found to be ok, but way to much rabbit food for my liking. Plus I wasn’t overly keen on them squirting sauce on the kebabs. Surely any flavour should come form the lamb itself. Shouldn’t it.

They have being doing some good PR recently, as the place was pretty packed, and I think it’s the first time I have been asked if we had a reservation in an Indian restaurant. Damn good PR work.

Thankfully there were a few seats available at the far end of the narrow restaurant, as only a sandwich had somehow sustained me all day. Shame we were so far away from the good vibe of the place, but we were content to sit next to a couple who were talking about what great business deals they had done recently. Boring.

I like the décor it does look quite funky in there, lot’s of pre-made newspaper clippings on the wall. This wouldn’t look out of place in a trendy Delhi or Mumbai cafe. They call themselves a dhaba, which I’d love to see one as clean and tidy as this on any Indian highway. Plus there were no fat Punjabi truckers loitering around sipping cups of chai, talking to all and sundry and trying to put the world to rights. A shame.

Thankfully I find a restaurant that knows its limitations and have done the sensible thing and kept the menu pretty short and sweet. I only wish a lot of other places would learn from them and do the same.

What we had was a pretty mixed bag really. The chutneys were pretty much the highlight of the show. A shout goes out to the beetroot chutney, and also the carrot chutney deserves a special mention. The papadums were pretty good also. Straight from the oven. Well an Indian meal isn’t complete without papadums is it.

After a brief scanning of the menu, we ordered the lamb chops as a starter, and prayed they were as good as the ones in the New Tayyabs. Sadly they were just above average. Nicely cooked but lacking any real flavour, and no hint that they had been cooked in a tandoor. Boo Hoo.

As we seem to be eating a lot less these days, we only ordered some naan, the chicken karahi and the tarka dhal. The dhal tasted as good as I make it, but it was too much like a soup rather than a dhal. It had that raw spice flavour I like so much in Indian food. The Karahi was nicely flavoured but far too watery. It doesn’t take much to cook the sauce down a bit more. The Karahi was far too reliant on chilli to give it life. Shame.

I have to say that some silly schoolboy errors let this place down. The naan was pretty nice, but I don’t think it had seen the inside of a tandoor oven.

I will return, as I could see there was room for improvement here, and hopefully next time all will be better. But based on this visit, I’d rate the Delhi Grill as an above average modern Indian restaurant. 

Tube Strike Wednesday @ Ossie's Jerk Chicken

These tube strikes are becoming a little annoying now. Well only because I now have an extra days work to do and one day less to do it in. What a pain.

So with no way of getting to work as that damn Piccadilly line was suspended all the way out West, I was left with a free day. What to do, what to do.

After some house cleaning and a little washing, I was feeling a little peckish, actually I was bloody hungry. So I found myself in Chapel market buying some veggies for the next few days, and lo and behold I was standing outside Ossie’s Jerk Chicken. Lunch sorted.

I’d eaten in there a few times now. It’s a small shop with a few tables if you decide to eat in. There are no plates, everything is served in plastic containers with plastic cutlery. It may sound pretty crap but the service is friendly, the lunch specials are very well priced, and the food is great. What more do you need.

I’m not much of an expert on Caribbean food, but I’ve eaten enough Costeña food from Colombia to know how things should be.

My sister in law cooks the best coconut rice on the planet, although they don’t put beans in their rice along that coastline. That is left to the mountain folk of Medellin to mix rice and beans.

Ossie’s rice has some great coconut flavour and with the beans are sublime. It goes particularly well with the yummy brown chicken stew, the unxious oxtail stew and the thick mutton curry. I’m pretty sure it does, although I haven’t tried it yet, but the jerk chicken must go well with it as well. Kind of criminal really, that I haven’t eaten their star dish. But it does mean I always have a reason to go back. Although with what I have eaten there already I will always be a good customer.

Tube Strike Tuesday at The Banana Tree Canteen

Was I the only person in London gutted not to be able to go to work on that fateful Tuesday? The sense of disappointment I had upon waking up and seeing that the entire Piccadilly line was suspended. I really cannot say how I felt. STOP. My boss isn’t going to read this. So was I like everyone else who could not goto work that day. Very bloody happy. I am fully beginf tis strike, as long as it continues to give me days off.

Both of us were pretty happy to go back to sleep and snooze for another couple of hours. It makes all the difference to wake up around 11 o’clock mid week. A magical feeling.

Islington is always busy, except when there are no tubes. I never realised how many people come to Angel for work, mainly because I live the other end and only come down this way at certain times. Plus as I work in west London, I am rarely here during the week.

A day off, the sun was out, and I was hungry. I was in no particular mood for anything special, but felt like somewhere new. Somewhere we’d never eaten at before.

As we were wandering down an empty Upper Street nothing we saw grabbed us. Then as if a sign from up above, the Banana Tree Canteen came into mind. Well not really, I could just see it in the distance.

We had pondered about eating at The Banana Tree for quite a while now. Well it is on the route of the number 19, so I’ve passed it on countless occasions, but never ever got round to eating there. Maybe there was a reason for that. Even as we were crossing the road, I was thinking about going to Song Que for some Pho. Now that was a sign.

The Banana Tree reminds me a lot of a chain called Wok in Bogotá, Colombia. It promises so much with its large menu, but really delivers a watered down version of what it promises as good Asian food.

The menu is to large for a single kitchen to make, so a lot of stuff is either made off site either by themselves or by a catering company, and there are a lot of them around these days.

I ordered a Malaysian lamb curry, which was nicely cooked and quite tender, but pretty flavourless, and no heat at all, as you would expect from a Malay curry. The portion of rice was a good size and came with a small salad that was actually the nicest thing on my plate. Do love peanuts.

Lina’s Mee Goreng with a slab of char gilled pork was an interesting plate of food. The pork had been smothered in a honey dressing that I thought meant it had been charred to death, but it was quite moist. It was just plopped on the side of the plate and there was no room for anything else, so a simple salad was on top of the noodles. Not a good way.

Somehow I wish we had gone to Song Que. The Banana Tree serves the local office lunchtime crowd very well, and those folks that congregate around this end of Upper Street at night.

After this visit, I now know why we never went in there, damn those striking tube drivers. Well not really, I am looking forward to the next one. But that time I will goto Song Que instead.