Restaurant review: 10 GREEK STREET (Soho)

Just on the fringes of Soho, a thriving hub of nightlife on all evenings on the week but in particular Fridays, is 10 Greek Street. It’s one of these curious restaurants that seems to be making a renaissance in London which neither has a fixed menu (instead, the food itinerary changes on a day-to-day basis depending on the whim of the chefs), nor takes bookings. 

Whilst I’m fine with the former – it’s good to keep things fresh and allow cooks their free rein, I’m much less fond of the latter. I can understand why not taking reservations works from a point of view of revenue for the restaurant, as it avoids annoying punters who flake out, I like to plan my evenings in advance and am genuinely a bit thrown when you have to go away for an unforeseeable amount of time until a table becomes free, especially as, in order to stay within proximity of the restaurant, you choices of drinking holes are basically restricted to a bunch of over-priced Soho places which charge for the pleasure of being in the location rather than the quality of the drinks they’re serving.

As for the food, the menu that day (chalked up on the wall in handwriting that could stand to be more legible) featured a dainty seafood thing which I ordered. It was well-presented and appetising to eat, but for £9, there really wasn’t anywhere near enough of it and I consumed the whole dish within three bites (admittedly, I was hungry from the enforced trip to a nearby bar that this restaurant’s no booking policy forced me to endure… see how it works? Don’t allow us to take bookings, suffer the brunt of this critic’s foul mood). 

The meagre quantity of the starter filled me with trepidation for the main course…

…And perhaps this had been a calculated move on the part of the chefs, in a wacky ‘expectation management’ move, because the main met my expectation of what a good restaurant should offer and then some. We ordered the duck dish to share, and I think you’ll agree from the photo, that the quantity was very generous.

As for the taste, wowzers. The sauce was a brilliant type of gravy that I haven’t tasted before, and the potatos were delicious (and there was a perfect amount of them, not too much, not too little). Even the greens tasted good, and you could tell they had been cooked, as opposed to just stuck on the side as a way of token healthiness. 

Overall, it was a treat and one of the best mains I’ve had in a restaurant in 2015. Which I was not expecting at all given the lah-dee-dah nature of the place when I first walked in.

So, the restaurant began in a deficit with me for its unhelpful ‘no booking’ rule, but by the time I had finished their delicious duck meal, I realised it was worth the wait. The starters are extremely overpriced but the main was damn near culinary perfection, so I’ll be kind with my score.

Grade: B+

Bar/restaurant review: HARRY'S BAR (Moorgate)

A classy venue with some superb cocktails, Harry's Bar is the kind of place I'd go when celebrating a happy occasion.

My main meal, steak, was succulent and meaty, without reaching the realms of the excellence offered at Hawksmoor. However, they were aided by the thick ridge cut chips which were rendered even more delicious with the generous portion of Hollandaise sauce they came with.

The cocktail menu featured all of the classics (Negroni, Pornstar, etc) as well as a few individual creations, all made with pretty generic ingredients. As the first picture illustrates, they were presented with style and professionalism, without quite reaching the je ne sais quoi that Reverend JW Simpson's cocktails boasted.

Still, the fact they they were drank greedily exposes the folly of places like others and their fixation with trying to dazzle the client with wacky ingredients such as dust, when the end product doesn't do anything for the drinker other than make a considerable dent in their bank balance.  

The decor at Harry's Bar was low-key but elegant and the waiters were attentive, obliging to any request you gave them.

The bill came to a sum more than I could make a habit of spending on a regular basis, but I left the place with a smile on my face, meaning I didn't think the money I parted with was poorly spent.

Grade: B+

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For more restaurant and bar reviews I've written, click here.

Bar review: REVEREND J W SIMPSON (Goodge Street)

Tucked away behind one solitary door, Reverend J W Simpson juggles clandestine positioning yet popular location to give the visitor of the bar a distinctly 1920s, Prohibition-era vibe. Such an enterprising display means that you can find somewhere to go drinking on a weekend evening in central London, and still benefit from an intimate, unobtrusive ambiance.

The service in Reverent J W Simpson is impeccable, with waiters and waitresses topping up your water level without needing to be prompted. Booking in advance means they'll find a decent amount of space for you to sit (on comfortable sofa-type lounging), rather than shove you on a bar stool, which was very much appreciated. Evening badinage is always so much more fun when your bum's well-placed on plush seating!

There were an abundance of interesting-looking cocktails; particularly loved the Aphrodite (pictured above), which was a must for people who like fruity drinks! The decor was quirky yet elegant.

The only downside of Reverent J W Simpson is that the toilets, which consisted of a door in the wall, would have been very easy to miss after you've had a few drinks. The gents and ladies were all in one room as well, which I didn't love.

But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at this drinking hole. An ideal spot for a date!

Grade: A-

Review: AMORINO (Islington, Camden Town)

Over the past few months, I've visited Amorino ice cream parlour twice, so thought I'd share some photos, and my thoughts on the experiences.

Trip 1: Islington

£3.50 for three scoops, including mango sorbet, raspberry sorbet and the dulce de leche. All delicious, albeit a bit too fruity for my tasting. Hence, I learnt my lesson and stockpiled my cup with sweeter tastes on...

Trip 2: Camden Town

Four £4.50, you get four scoops! This was much more sweet in flavour, with only lime sorbet acting as the fruit component, and every scoop was absolutely wonderful. If you're going to go here, what I recommend that you know in advance whether you want sweet or fruity, then make sure one scoop in your cup is something else, just to counterbalance the rest of the sweetness, for example.

There were many other enticing flavours which I look forward to trying out. The place was clean and the staff polite. My only foible, and it's a small one, is that for £3.50 and £4.50, respectively, I expected a fraction more, for example, what you get for that amount at Cream's.

Grade: A-

On point quotes in Manhattan.

It's no surprise that I was so taken with Woody Allen's Manhattan: it tells the story of a neurotic, unlucky in love bloke in a gorgeous city and is peppered with film references. You could basically take the film, set it in London and bung me in Allen's role, and that would pretty accurately capture my many romance-related failures. I adored it, and the writing was faultless.

Here are some lines in it that I thought were particularly relevant.

Restaurant review: ARBINA (Warren Street)

During the summer, one may be more inclined to eat lunch outside. Arbina has the facilities for this,  with its outdoor seating in snug little tables.

The paella was a little phoned in. It really didn’t taste that different from the oven-bake ones you get from Tesco. It could definitely have done with having more seafood.

Below are the croquettes and potatoes:

If you compare these to the way the food was enticingly presented in Barrafina, there’s absolutely no comparison. The preparation and presentation of Arbina’s meals were utterly perfunctory.

Portion sizes are a bit on the meagre side, too. Given the croquettes cost £5 for a plate, one would hope for a bit more than what was given. Four paltry meatballs is also a bit of a cheap excuse for a dish, in my opinion.

Arbina is a prime example of one of those restaurants which coast by one its central London location. I daresay those who don’t have much dining experience may be reasonably satisfied dining here. But as someone who has experience the highs of Barrafina, which actually does authentic Spanish tapas dishes, as opposed to dumbed-down dishes that I daresay have been cynically designed to swindled as much money from British punters as possible, Arbina really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Overall, for good Spanish tapas, I’d recommend Iberica or Barrafina. They make authentic Spanish dishes. The food here was edible, certainly, but lacked invention and thus, wasn’t very inspiring. 

Grade: C-