Restaurant review: TRULLO (Islington)

Situated very close to Highbury and Islington overground station is Trullo, a rustic, understated, yet very welcoming Italian restaurant.

Trullo has a reputation for its friendly staff, and indeed, the people who waited on us were absolutely lovely, helpfully giving tips whilst making sure we were fully stocked with regards to water. After completing one of our dishes (the pasta one), I asked to keep the plate on the table to polish off the sauce using bread, which they seemed perfectly cool with. I dig that; at a poncier place such plebbish behaviour might have earnt me and eye roll from the waiters.

For starter, we shared the mozzarella dish, pictured below:

Pub review: THE PIG AND BUTCHER (Angel)

To get a table on a Sunday at The Pig and Butcher, you have to make your reservation some days in advance. It's quite rare for a gastropub to be fully booked up, but when I visited this venue, that's exactly how it was.

The Sunday menu offers several roasts, some available for the single diner, and others only available as part of a two-person package. On our visit, my friend and I had the beef roast to share. The roasts came with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, creamed leeks and vegetables.

Restaurant review: TIERRA PERU (Angel)

I booked a Groupon deal to try out the seven-course tasting menu at Tierra Peru. By my count, that makes it the first Peruvian restaurant I’ve ever been to. In terms of ease of using the Groupon deal:

• I called up in advance to book a session a few weeks before the time we actually went, and the only permissible time windows were 6pm and 8pm, which was inconvenient for me given it was a Friday and we wouldn’t have gotten to the venue from work in time.
• The time slots available on the weekend fitted my schedule better, so the second time I tried to arrange a session, was more successful.
• About 50% of the Groupon/LivingSocial deals I try out stick a tip on at the end of the meal, so I wasn’t surprised when they tacked one on here. However, the value of the tip was 12.5%; more than the service merited.

As for the deal, there were some non-entities (starters were a tasteless mound of rice), but overall, they were a culinary delight. 

My favourites were the cheese balls, the potatoes and the prawns (the latter of which there was lamentably little of). My least favourite plate was the pork, and I would have liked less of the chickpeas for some more meat instead.

Another shortcoming over dining at Tierra Peru was a bottle of Inca Kola was £5 for a big bottle, when it didn’t come with ice and tasted far too warm for my liking. 

Overall, I enjoyed the dining experience there, but for the price of Groupon, the tip and the drink, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of "discount".

Grade: B

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