Restaurant review: DISHOOM (Shoreditch)

Dishoom’s reputation precedes itself. Due to great word of mouth, the Shoreditch venue, as with the Covent Garden venue, which I have also been to, doesn’t allow bookings unless the party is of six people or more. If you’re in a party of five people or less, you have to queue on the door, with the length of the queues ranging from half an hour to an indefinite period of time.

The menu claims these prawns are 'succulent'. They tasted dry to me.

Bar review: THE REDCHURCH BAR (Shoreditch)

The last time I had cocktails using a Groupon deal with my friend Rebecca was The Escapologist in Covent Garden, which, despite a customer who rudely pushed in in front of me, was a thoroughly enjoyably evening. Rebecca and I had had our boozy night back in September of 2016. Almost nine months later, here I was, taking advantage of another Groupon deal, again with the same babe.

However, the original plan had to been to visit The Redchurch Bar with a friend on May 20th. We arrived in Shoreditch at 4pm (where both the Groupon deal and Google say the bar is open from), but the doors weren’t open. We assumed the bar staff were just running a little late, so settled up shop in The Verge across the road, where, graciously, there was also a Happy Hour (review of The Verge coming soon).

We sat in The Verge until 7pm, occasionally popping over to see if it had opened yet. It never did, although at some points, a man (presumably the manager) was standing behind the locked door, furrowing his brows whilst on his phone. Eventually we gave up hope on our Redchurch cocktails, and went for dinner in Brick Lane. But that was really, really annoying. Of all the problems I’ve had with Groupon, up until then, I’d never experienced a place not actually being open.

So, of course, it was with trepidation that I approached the place with Rebecca some 10 days later. Amazingly, it was open! Admittedly, we got there a bit later, 8:30pm, but the lack of staff was telling immediately; it was a fairly spacious bar, yet I only spotted two couples in The Redchurch bar.

Something inconvenient that this place did with their deal which both The Escapologist and Adventure Bar eschewed (by allowing the deal-holder to open up a tab) was that we had to order all our cocktails at once. This wasn’t ideal because it meant some drinks lost some of their chill towards the end, and as we all know, if there’s anything I need more of, it’s chill.

Even more annoyingly, was the fact that they didn’t have ingredients for a bunch of the drinks. As I’ve stipulated in past reviews of Groupon cocktail deals, if I’ve shelled out £24 for six cocktails, I want to maximise my returns by ordering the most expensive drinks. There were several which were £11.50 here, and the one which caught my attention was the ‘Chinese Cosmopolitan’. I’m Chinese, and I love Sex and the City, so that drink sang to me straight away.

Even more worryingly, they didn’t have lychee to make that drink, and they also conspicuously lacked the ingredients for several of the other drinks which cost £11.50. To not have the ingredients for one cocktail is bad enough, but for the waitress to continually tell me I couldn't have what I desired because they didn't have the components? Poor af.

In the end, Rebecca and I were able to find three drinks apiece that we liked, and here they are:

Outfit of the Day: Reminds of a John Hughes movie

What I wore to drink Groupon cocktails with my girl Rebecca at The Redchurch Bar in Shoreditch:

Floral top: Forever 21

Skirt: Dorothy Perkins

Earrings: Miss Selfridge

Bar review: McQUEEN (Old Street)

Named after an actor who is generally perceived to be one of the coolest screen presences of all time, McQueen the bar is somewhat of a misnomer. It strives to be stylish, alright, but isn’t swagger something you just effortlessly have? It’s not really je ne sais quoi if you’re trying desperately to procure the quoi in question.

I went to McQueen last night on an "Asians in London" meet-up, and the entire ground floor was rented out to us, which was a nice gesture of hospitality. I thought such a busy event was a little under-staffed, considering Asians and non-Asians came pouring in in their droves, and at one point, I asked if I could have a drink to a boy at the til and he told me ‘I don’t serve’. Why do you stand behind the bar then mate?

I wasn’t completely sold on the décor, which consisted of lots of weird and wacky statues and ornaments, but the individual pieces didn’t fit with each other to give a cohesive image of the bar, and certainly not very Steve McQueenish. This wall hanging below is a bit creepy, truth be told:

I also wasn’t too impressed with the close positioning of the sofas at the centre of the room, which meant that it was practically impossible not to bump into someone if you wanted to head towards the bar.

My Litmus test for whether or not I consider a London bar overpriced or not is the price of that first round (assuming the round is for two people). If it falls below £10, then I’m a fan. Hence why I adore so many Wetherspoons so. 

If that first round exceeds £10, that’s not the end of the world, but the bar has to have a certain élan to atone for their above-median prices of drinks. And that isn’t an excessively taxing imposition; I’ve had excellent impressions of several bars in London that charge a pretty penny for their drinks, ranging from The Escapologist to Reverend JW Simpson, because their cocktails were just on point.

After all, I don’t mind paying over the odds if the ambience and quality of service matches the price. McQueen sadly didn’t have that; the atmosphere was fairly stale and consisted purely of the  noise from conversations of the people at the event. Would it have killed the managers to play some pop music?

For the next round, I ordered a soft drink in order to save some money. But a lime cordial was shockingly priced at £2.50 (it's 40p in a lot of London pubs!)

In terms of riding on the laurels of its Shoreditch location and not delivering on the rest, it’s definitely not the most guilty (that would be, hands down, Worship Street Whistling Shop, one of the worst bars in London). But McQueen was nothing earth-shattering, and certainly nothing the man it was named after would hurry to write home about.

Grade: C

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The rest of my bar reviews are all listed here. If you would like me to review your's, e-mail me at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: On the Bab (Shoreditch)

Readers of my blog will be all too aware that I don't have much time for restaurants who make their punters queue up. I just feel it brazenly declares that the restaurant cares more about making money than it does about the culinary experience of the people dining there. And The Table Cafe, one such restaurant which operated on the no-booking policy, proved to be a complete disappointment. Queuing up in the rain for this restaurant, I was struck with a sense of déjà vu and feared that, for the second time, I would have stood in the cold for ages, only to be served a below-par meal like a mug.

Fortunately, things didn't work out like that; I'm happy to say that On the Bab went some way towards restoring that balance in the Universe. Korean food is one of my favourite cuisines, and some of my favourite restaurants in London are delightful Korean places which offer fantastic value for money (there is a fantastic cluster of such restaurants around Tottenham Court Road, offering a much more palatable alternative to the over-baked American diners that are littered around the capital). On the Bab, which has chains in Shoreditch, Covent Garden and Marylebone, is another such place.

I cannot recommend the 'On the Buns' enough, which are Korean-style burgers, fill to the brim with goodness (you can choose between chicken, pork or beef; we went for the latter), and on delicious steamed bread with vegetable fritters to give the concoction extra texture (and nutritional value). 

Practically everybody in On the Bab had a 'Yangyum chicken' on their table, which was, no hyperbole, the best fried chicken I've ever had. Admittedly, my bar is quite low (I would happily feast on KFC every day for the rest of my life), but this was cooked so meticulously, drenched in some of the most moreish sauce I've ever sated, that I simply had to order another portion. The crushed peanuts worked a treat in this dish as well - it's not usually an ingredient I have much time for, but, applied sparingly to the fried chicken, it managed to bring out the flavour of it more.

No Korean meal is complete without a Bibimbab, and the succulent conflation of flavours (pictured in closer detail in the Snapchat picture at the top of this entry) was a flavourful party in my mouth, to which all my favourite foods was invited. And best of all, the items we ordered didn't feel like disparate entities. You could have a bit of this and then a bit of something else, and it all tasted fantastic.

My only slight criticism of this place was that we were sat on a side-stool rather than a table, and thus, there really wasn't enough space to place all the food we'd ordered, the cocktails, our cutlery and our plates. But I'll allow On the Bab his shortcoming and not let it detract from their Perfect A grade, because, in terms of dining experiences in London, this is one of the best places I've had the good fortune of visiting.

Grade: A

OOTD: Clubbing in Shoreditch.

Boob tube: Primark

Skirt: China

Earrings: Topshop