Where's Wally leads the field at 2011 Great Spitalfields Pancake Race

Flippin’ ada! Its nearly time again to break out the frying pan and batter. This year, Shrove Tuesday arrives on 21 February and, whatever your crêpe expectations, there are plenty of options for kitchen-shy Londoners to snaffle some pancakes or watch the traditional pancake races. Let us know how you like your pancakes and what you’ll be doing in the comments.

If you’re after some free pancakes, make a beeline to ONE08 on Marylebone Lane where guests enjoying a coffee or tea will receive free lemon-and-sugar pancakes. Lunch and dinner guests can look forward to a pancake dessert. Yo! Sushi, meanwhile, will be treating any diner who spends over £5 with a Limited Edition lemon-custard filled dorayaki.

Confident tossers should head down to the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race to try their hand (and feet) while raising money for the London Air Ambulance. Hosted by Alternative Arts, the winning team walks away with an engraved frying pan while a prize will also go to the best dressed entrants. If you want an idea of what to expect, check out our pictures from 2009, 2010 and 2011.

The Parliamentary Pancake Race in Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster will see Lords, MPs and journalists battling it out in aid of ReHab UK. The Lords will be hoping to win again this year as all parties adhere to rules banning the use of frying pans as weapons and forcing contestants to toss their pancake at least three times to a minimum height of three feet. Dropped pancakes mean a return to the starting line. Rumours that there will be a three-legged entry from Nick Clegg and David Cameron are, as yet, unconfirmed.

If you work near Borough Market, consider signing up for or watching their annual charity lunchtime Pancake Race. Teams of four will hope to “batter” the competition while raising funds for Paintings in Hospitals.

Central London alternatives include the Poulters Company Pancake Race in Guildhall Yard (near Mansion House) and the Leadenhall Market Pancake Race with races also being held in Bexleyheath (in aid of the Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice) and Twickenham.

If you want to show off your pancake skills and stay indoors, the Westfield Stratford branch of Crepeaffaire will be holding a pancake-flipping contest to sort the (buck)wheat from the chaff.

 The Water Poet in Spitalfields has a special pancake menu with six options evenly split amongst sweet and savoury. The recipes have a Southern European flavour with ingredients including Iberian ham, ricotta and perennial classic Nutella.

If you have cash to splash, there are some gourmet pancakes at Sloane Square’s The Botanist or the Square Mile’s Chiswell Street Dining Rooms. Diners can tuck into a refined selection of crêpes including American-style blueberry-and-bacon, the posh decadence of foie gras-and-cauliflower puree or the rather English  Champagne and Crêpe Afternoon Tea.

Kensington’s Cremerie Crêperie is where to go for some French-style indulgence with their tartiflettes made with 100% buckwheat Sarazzin flour which can be enjoyed with some French cider.

Photo (c)  olliepix.

Berry Bros & Rudd has reported its best ever year for internet sales. London’s 300 year old wine retailer and vintner to the Queen sold over £25 million of wine through www.bbr.com and Berrys’ Broking Exchange (BBX) during 2011. The 2011 figure was 72% up on 2010 and was the company’s best ever online performance. The retail site now lists over 3,000 wines and saw sales of £12.0 million in 2011, up 7% on 2010.

“Gourmet takeaway pioneer” Housebites.com is launching “Brunch on Wheels” weekend breakfast and brunch menus from 11 and 12 February. Menus will be available on weekends only from 9am to 1pm and will feature dishes such as bacon and egg empanadas, white chocolate and raspberry muffins and Nutella and mascarpone crepes. Housebites chefs are located across London “from Dulwich to Dalston, from Clapham to Clerkenwell and from Fulham to Finchley”. See our review of Housebites’ delivery service here.

On 15 February, the Draft House Tower Bridge and Budvar will host The Great Czech South Pour – a
dinner and beer-tasting to celebrate Budvar’s brewing heritage. Budvar’s experts – Adam Broz, Budvar’s Master Brewer, and Josef Tolar, who stepped down two years ago after holding the post for 24 years – will talk guests through the history of the Budvar brewery. Roger Protz, the UK’s leading beer writer, will also be guiding guests through the beers and dishes on offer. Hosting the evening will be Charlie McVeigh, founder of The Draft House. Tickets are priced at £25 for four courses with matched Budvar beers and can be purchased online. The event will run from 6.30pm-9.30pm.

Newbie Brazilian barbecue restaurant Cabana (Westfield Stratford City and St Giles Piazza) is hosting its own “Carnaval” in honour of the Rio Carnival from 15 to 21 February with free shots of Sagatiba Cachaca, new dishes on the menu and a search for the ‘King or Queen of Carnaval’ with prizes such as free t-shirts and meals.

Hyper Japan is an event dedicated to the love of all things contemporary and Japanese. The third Hyper Japan will be held in West London at Earls Court Convention Centre from 24 to 26 of February. A key component of Hyper Japan is Eat-Japan giving attendees an opportunity to “eat, drink and discover the tastes of Japan”. Eat-Japan will hold three events exploring the “flavours, textures and diversity of Japanese cuisine.” The three events will be the Sushi Awards, the Sake Awards and a Taste Discovery Zone. They will also be hosting a spin-off “Original Sushi Competition” event. For a full list of Hyper Japan events, more details on how to book and lots more information about Eat-Japan have a look at www.hyperjapan.co.uk.

Vivek Singh is to open a third restaurant, Cinnamon Soho, this March. Together with head chef Ramachandran Raju, the executive chef of Cinnamon Club and Cinnamon Kitchen has created an all day menu that combines modern Indian cuisine with British classic cooking. Dishes will include sticky desi pork back ribs; seared sea bass with aubergine-potato crush; and vindaloo of ox cheek as well as a range of Indian-inspired “balls” such as crab cake and Bangla-Scotch egg and exotic pies such as Keralan seafood and rogan josh. Curious? There’s already a Facebook page: facebook.com/cinnamonsoho.

Photo/Stephskimo

No really. New independent coffee shop, Salt, is offering a “free Greek yoghurt with exotic fruit and home made granola or a rum-laced almond croissant” when you purchase a tea or coffee to go this week between 8am and 10am tomorrow and Friday, and 10am to 11am on Saturday and Sunday.

The folks behind this new cafe use coffee blends from Square Mile and organic milk in all their coffee drinks. They serve Waterloo teas along with soups, sandwiches and more. All bread, cakes and pastries are baked fresh on site.

Salt is located at 34 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AA. You’ll need to say “This Week Only” to get the freebie.

Can you recommend a good pub near Angel station?

We’d like to try a simple but intoxicating experiment of the boozy kind. Here’s how it works.

1. Let us know (in the comments or on Facebook) your favourite pub(s) in the Angel area.
2. After a few days, we’ll tally up the votes.
3. We’ll then arrange a pub crawl around the three or four most popular choices. You’re welcome to join us.
4. If it’s a success, we’ll do monthly sequels in other parts of town, moving through the alphabet each time. So March could be in Borough or Bermondsey or Bloomsbury, for example.

But we’re starting with A for ‘Angel’. You can nominate anywhere in reasonable walking distance of the Tube station. So a pub in Barnsbury, for example, would still be OK, so long as Angel would be a sensible Tube station to use. Oh, and by ‘pubs’, we’re using a shorthand — you can also vote for bars. And you can nominate more than one place.

So, where shall we go?

The Angel, Islington by Gaz-zee-boh in the Londonist Flickr pool.

No matter the time of day, there seems always to be a queue at this takeaway – something that can’t really be said about the other Caribbean eateries nearby nor of Peppers & Spice’s closest lunchtime competitors. Not ones to miss out on a good queue, Londonist decided to investigate and see if Peppers & Spice is worth the wait.

For our lunch, we went with the charcoal jerk chicken meal (all dark meat including “rice and peas” and a choice of salad, £5.50 for a small, £6.50 for a large) and were right well pleased with its sticky sweet and mildly fiery flavour and its massive proportion. We’d be pleased to have it again – but that ‘again’ would need to be an especially hungry occasion.

However, overhearing order after order made for the mutton soup during our midday dine had us wondering if we’d chosen the best dish for that particular day. A piled high range of home made patties and cakes (also popular with the continuous line of customers) made us second guess the wisdom of going for the large meal. A small order would perhaps saved us some money and tummy space for a callaloo patty or piece of carrot cake. All patties and cakes are priced under £1.50.

Seating is limited to just a few barstools here. And as said, it’s a happening little joint. So, when you go, it’s probably best to plan not to eat in. They pack and wrap your food up securely whatever the case.

Peppers & Spice is located at 40 Balls Pond Road, N1 4AU (there’s another in Tottenham as well).

Photo/Chris Osburn 

Given that the likelihood of getting a decent cup of coffee decreases exponentially the further one gets away from Charing Cross, it is always a delight to source the stuff out in the burbs. Not that Nunhead is really that far out: most of it carries 0207 phone numbers, so that’s still pretty central, right? And it is only 15 minutes or so out of Victoria. Anyway. Thanks to Bambuni, Nunhead’s shiny (really shiny) new deli, there is indeed nice coffee to be had in that part of SE15.

Bambuni opened a few months ago, and quickly captured the attention of South East London’s twitterati. Since then it has backed up its on-line presence with a remarkable range of products. And a very nice brew. The coffee is Volcano‘s Winter Blend, and frankly it produced one of the best Americanos we’ve had in a while (best way to test a coffee, no? black, but stretched out just enough to taste it as it goes down).

There are cakes and sandwiches, and an astonishing number of tables and chairs. Bambuni may primarily be a shop, but it’s a jolly welcoming one, with a heated patio and loads of room just to chat and chill. Owner Huey seems to be a sociable chappy (that’s him on the left), and actively encourages people to pop in and have a drink (yes, the place is licensed).

Other products include an impressive range of ales, all sorts of pantry stuff (that means flour and the like) you can buy loose, some very posh pasta, and plenty of cheese.

If you take neighbouring shops Ayres the Bakers and Sopers fishmongers into consideration, Nunhead is becoming quite the gourmet enclave.

Bambuni is open 6 days a week. You can follow them on Twitter, or call on 020 7732 4150 to find out more.

And you can discover more London Blends over here.

With its new Roast + Conch shop at Seven Dials, British luxury chocolate brand Hotel Chocolat brings small batch chocolate making to London. Cocoa beans from the company’s Rabot Estate plantation on Saint Lucia are delivered fresh to the shop and converted daily into a range of “rare” chocolate batches in an open basement kitchen where customers are free to view. The upstairs retail space has been in operation since a soft launch back before Christmas but the downstairs yum factory has only opening over the past week. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, eh?

In addition to gawking at the manufacture of fine chocolate, the new venue presents punters with a chance to sample Hotel Chocolat’s “cacao cuisine” menu developed at the company’s own restaurant on Saint Lucia. Wraps and open sandwiches cost about a fiver and include savoury sounding numbers such as duck confit with roasted cocoa nibs and goat’s cheese with walnuts and dark chocolate. Hmmm … Londonist might need to head back there soon to review the lunch menu.

Roast + Conch is located at 4 Monmouth Street (or 180 Shaftesbury Avenue depending on which door you enter), WC2H 8JB.

Photos/Chris Osburn 

London’s ‘most-talked-about-new-shopping-mall-built-from-shipping-containers’, Boxpark Shoreditch is offering a cool 20% off food and drink for the whole of February.

Use your month-long 20% discount to try burgers at Bukowski, salads at Chop’d, juices from Crussh, cake ‘n’ coffee in Foxcroft and Ginger, frozen yoghurt from Frae, Vietnamese at Hop Namo, Burritos by Mexway or pies by Pieminister throughout February.

Claim your 20% off voucher through Boxpark’s Facebook page now.

As an added bonus, you could be tucking into a #freelunch from Bukowski and Frae on Saturday or Hop Namo on Sunday if you follow @Boxpark on Twitter. And by #freelunch they mean proper meals for two people with booze or soft drinks included.

Check @Boxpark for #freelunch between 8am and 1pm each day to see how you can enter!

To find out more visit Boxpark online, like Boxpark on Facebook and follow @Boxpark on Twitter.

Radical Dining Society, an online members club for “food and culture lovers to extend their social network” and “explore the nexus between art and food”, has launched in London. The first public event was held at 33 Portland Place (yes where much of The King’s Speech was shot) and featured inspired cookery from chefs visiting from Toulouse, innovative wineglasses not yet on the UK market and edgy art and foodie photography to round out an evening of convivial yum.

Chefs Daniel Morgan (the Ritz, Maze, The Square, Heston Blumenthal) and Magnus Reid (The Bathhouse, Hackney Pearl, Dalston Superstore, A Little of What You Fancy) are having a pop up, Nine French Place, in Shoreditch from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 February. The tickets are £50, and with that you get a cocktail, and a six course meal. More details at www.ninefrenchplace.tumblr.com.

Just in time for Valentine’s, the folks at the Cadogan hotel in Knightsbridge want guests to think of Champagne as not just something to sip but something to drench oneself in. The hotel will soon offer to guests the “ultimate indulgence” of a Champagne bath. Available to guests from Valentine’s Day, 120 bottle “Champagne Bath Menu” starts at £4,000 for Louis de Custine Brut and ranges up to £25,000 for a Dom Perignon Vintage wash. While your bubbly bath is drawn, a personal butler will be on hand to place some chocolate covered strawberries and a complimentary bottle of vintage Champagne within easy reach of the tub.

The Bavarian Beerhouse will host a traditional “Carnival Fancy Dress Party” on Saturday 18 February from 7pm to 1am at its Old Street location, promising an evening full of “imaginative and outrageous outfits” and a DJ playing the “latest cheesy Euro trash that will get you up on the dancefloor”.

Hackney based Niko B Organic Chocolates will host a Love Chocolate dessert club on 12 and 14 February as well as open a pop up Love Chocolate shop where “we will be selling our Breaking Chocolate Hearts and our Bleeding Raspberry Chocolate Hearts, alongside our range of fresh truffles, chocolate creations and confections”. Both will take place at Dalston’s boutique Avo Hotel, where Niko B will be making fresh chocolates on site Price for the dessert club is £26 for 4 courses, champagne, private shopping at the chocolate shop and a chocolate making demo.

Photo/Chris Osburn

1893: Bruxelles. 1989: Paris. 2012: Londres.

Moules frites mega chain with humble Brussels roots and a massive presence in France (not quite to the extent of, say, Pizza Express here in the UK but that’s a pretty good analogy), Léon de Bruxelles takes a leap across La Manche to have a go at British (and presumably Euro tourist and expat) punters with a new Soho restaurant.

Adding to the nine Chez Léon eateries in Belgium and close to 70 Léon de Bruxelles sites in France,
Léon takes over the old Med Kitchen location at the nexus of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. Set in the bustling heart of London with a cavernous space to fill, the restaurant seemed to be doing a pretty good job of placing bottoms in seats during our Friday evening visit with a steady stream of customers flowing in and for the most part appearing especially pleased when leaving. And if those customers were fans of moules frites and Belgian beer, it’s easy to see why they enjoyed Léon so much.

The restaurant does breakfast, lunch and dinner and features a ‘something for everyone’ kind of menu. But the best (only?) reason to visit this place is for the mussels … which are excellent. Served in large cocottes with perfectly crisp frites on the side along with a basket of bread for sopping up all the savoury sauce, Léon’s moules frites are available in a range of ten different styles – from classic Marinière to Ardennaise (with white wine, crème fraiche, smoked bacon and mushrooms) to mussels in a light Madras curry sauce – and priced between £11 and £16. Londonist can vouch for the Ardennaise and the Madras options (we’ll be back!).

What better to accompany the famed Belgian duo than a Belgian beer? Léon’s own micro brewed house draft (6% ABV, £3.50 for a half pint) is commendably cloudy choice and goes well with a number of selections. Spirits, cocktails, wine, soft drinks and a Belgian-centric but international (you can get a Guinness or a Corona for example) beer list round out the drinks menu.

Room for dessert? Yep you guessed it, Léon’s got waffles from £3 (covered in icing sugar) to £8 (for a banana split extravaganza) along with an assortment of other sweet treats.

Service is especially friendly and keen to accommodate (if still getting the hang of things after a soft launch a week or so ago). The setting is comfortable and attractive. The location is about as convenient and central as they come.

Léon de Bruxelles is located at 24 Cambridge Circus, WC2H 8AA.

Photo/Chris Osburn 

At first glance, Seoul Bakery might not stand out from the other similarly downtrodden Korean eateries lined up in the shadow of Centre Point “behind” Tottenham Court Road Station. Maybe a little, for its more more colourful signage and window displays, but that’s about it. Once inside, however, the bakery’s cosy vibe, simple menu and tasty dishes should win you over to the realisation that this sweet little place is a bit of a one-off wonder.

And if you happen to discover that you’re as much of a fan as many of Seoul Bakery’s customers, find some empty wall or table space…or more likely somewhere to stick a post-it note…to scrawl out a happy message like so many of the regulars have already done. Cutesy scribblings and doodles adorn much of the surface space here – adding to the K-pop piped-through atmosphere and the super friendly smiles of the staff while complementing Seoul Bakery’s otherwise minimalist trappings.

So what winning-over menu items persuade Londoners to deface Seoul Bakery’s walls and furniture? A fresh and healthy order of bibimbab is worthy of repeat visits and making a graffito note of. Options include vegetable, beef, tuna, chicken and tuna kimchi and range in price from £3.50 to £5. For a particularly filling meal add £1.49 to the price and get the “bibimbab set” which includes a cup of miso soup and kimchi or barley tea. Zanchi gooksoo, “Korean festival thin noodles with vegetables” for £4.99 is another ample and homey choice, particularly when it’s dreary out. Add beef, tunam kimchi or chicken to your gooksoo for just a quid more. Another noteworthy mentionable is the moreish and fiery kimchi fried rice, which costs about a fiver.

Thirsty? The “best seller” iced green tea latte (£2.50 out/£2.65 in) is a yummy chilled out slupper. Warm honey plum tea soothes for about £1.50. And, yes, as the name implies, there are baked goods available. Cheap and pretty good, green tea cakes or choco-pies are a nice way to round out a lunch if you still have some room.

A bit of a hidden gem and a brilliant spot for spur-of-the-moment budget bites of impressive size, Seoul Bakery is located at 55 St Giles High Street, WC2H 8LH. There doesn’t seem to be any official web presence for Seoul Bakery, but all the review sites and blog posts are vastly positive. Reach Seoul Bakery by phone at 07763 278681.

Photo/Chris Osburn 

You build your own furniture because it makes it cheaper. Before you head to the airport, you check in online because it’s faster. When you go to the supermarket you scan your own shopping because you like arguing with electronic women who think you’ve bagged double the weight you ought to

We are in a D-I-Y era.

With the opening yesterday evening of The Thirsty Bear at Waterloo, self-service has come to the service industry, with London’s first pull-your-own-pint pub.

The venue, which replaces the old man friendly Stamford Arms, is the first venture by the appropriately named Robot Pub Group, and though we’ve been made aware of this place in Manchester which uses a similar concept, it’s a brand new one to us.

Each table is fitted with a mounted iPad and several beer taps. On entering the pub, you start a tab and are given a swipe-card to activate the iPad and taps. Your bill is automatically collated depending on what you drink, measured to the 0.1 of a pint.

It’s understandably not feasible to have a tap of each beer on every table, so most have just two. However, by logging out of the system and relocating table, you’re able to take your pick of everything on offer. So long as whoever’s sitting on the other table doesn’t mind, of course.

There’s no escaping the fact that it’s a novelty, but it’s a fun one. And anyone who’s ever queued up for 25 minutes to buy a round of drinks on a Friday night will understand the potential usefulness of having your beer already at the table. The iPads also allow you to order bottled beers, wine, cocktails and food without leaving your seat. And should you need some entertainment, you can play a track from the online jukebox for 20p. Games are apparently on the horizon, too.

Now, for all the reasons listed above, we really, really want to love this place. But we do have a problem – the drinks on offer. The fact there’s no ales on tap is understandable, given the skill involved in pouring a decent pint, and the difficulty of hooking a pump system up to the iPad electronics. However, we do think they could go a bit better than Amstel, Magners and Aspall. Belgian lagers, for example, or a quality product like Meantime, and some less usual ciders. Even the bottled beers at the bar are run-of-the-mill.

We’d like to see The Thirsty Bear attract a discerning, beer-loving crowd who are as inexplicably excited about pouring their own beer as we were, but if the juice on offer doesn’t meet expectations then it’s likely to be a one-off visit. Still, it’s early days and there’s glitches to overcome, so perhaps it’s wise to start small. We’ll certainly be back to check on the progress soon. We’d just love a bit more variety on tap, please Thirsty Bear folk. Then you could become one of our favourite pubs in London…

The Thirsty Bear is at 62 Stamford Street, SE1 9LX, ‘behind’ the Southbank close to Waterloo station. Petition them for more drinks on Twitter @TheThirstyBear.

1 February

The Bull, Highgate. The North London brew-pub hosts a dinner to match a variety of dishes with seven beers from popular Chicago brewery Goose Island. Tickets are £30 and available here.

2-5 February

The Snooty Fox, Canonbury. The Fox gets its groove on with the ‘Ale House Rock‘ festival, which features 25 craft ales (including the new ‘Unknown Pleasures’ which has been brewed as a tribute to Joy Division) with a focus on unusual flavours such as Milk Stout and Plum Porter. The festival kicks off at 3pm on Thursday and there will be 50′s and 60′s Rock ‘n’ Roll played on Friday and Saturday nights, with the decks,  appropriately, manned by London beer writer Des De Moor on Friday.

6 February

Cask, Pimlico. The next instalment of their ‘meet the brewer’ series brings a representative from Bristol’s craft ale brewery Arbor Ales to Cask for the evening.

8-10 February

Battersea Arts Centre, Battersea. The 22nd Battersea beer festival brings you the chance to sample 160 ales on draft – check out the provisional list here. Ciders, perries, bottled ales, foreign beers and food will also be available. Entry is £4 (or £3 before 5pm on Wednesday) with a £1 discount for CAMRA members at all times.

15 February

The Draft House, Tower Bridge.  Czech food and folk music accompany a historical overview and tasting of Budvar beers, led by their master brewer. Tickets are £25 and available here.

22-26 February

The Bricklayer’s Arms, Putney. Real ale and English wine champions the Bricklayers Arms will offer 100 Yorkshire ales, plus ciders and perries, as part of their ‘legendary’ Yorkshire beer festival. There’s no admission fee, but a returnable £2 deposit will be taken for your glass. There will be live music on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and you can check here for updates on the festival beer list.

Prepare for the ICEBAR experience with a special offer on dinner in their cosy restaurant.

Choose two or three courses from the ICEHOTEL’s full modern European menu and dine in the warm before a visit to the sub-zero cool of ICEBAR. This special offer includes your very own cocktail in a crafted ice glass, sourced from the river Torne in Sweden.

Guests will, of course, be given a designer thermal cape — something for which the venue is famed — before venturing into the Northern Most Attitude themed bar, kept at a constant -5 degrees year round.

Combine the cold with the warm and book now to take advantage of this great ICEBAR offer while it lasts.

Choose a 2 course plus ICEBAR deal for £27.50 or 3 courses plus ICEBAR for £32.50. Includes ICEBAR thermal cape and cocktail. To find out more, call the ICEBAR reservations team on 0207 478 8910 or head to www.icebarlondon.com.

ICEBAR by ICEHOTEL London is at 31-33 Heddon Street, London, W1B 4BN.

Bob Dylan's "Two Sisters"

Locally owned Japanese restaurant chain, Tsuru, has launched a loyality card scheme. Cards can be picked up at any of the three branches (Canvey Street, Bishopsgate and Mansion House) to start collecting points and to take advantage of “buy nine get one free” offers on all large sushi boxes, free range kara-age, potato korokke and more.

Plateau restaurant in Canary Wharf has teamed up with its neighbors, Artisan Fine Art gallery, to host the launch of an exclusive portfolio of signed, limited edition graphics by Bob Dylan. Taken from his Drawn Blank series, each print is hand signed by the artist himself and presented in an individual presentation wallet or deluxe boxed set. The event takes place tonight, Thursday 26 January, from 5pm – 8pm. Places can be booked by calling 020 7715 7100.

The Dock Kitchen at Portobello Docks in Ladbroke Grove and Sipsmith distillery will host an evening of cocktail tasting to look for help coming up with the cocktail list for The Dock’s new Kitchenette bar. There will be six cocktails to taste, three vodka-based and three gin-based, some long and some short. Attendees will be expected to comment on the drinks, and the most popular cocktails will be put on the bar’s list. The tasting will be Tuesday 31 January with two sessions: one at 7pm and another at 9.30pm. Tickets cost £10 each and will be strictly limited to 35 per session. Call The Dock Kitchen on 020 8962 1610 to book your place.

Kedem Europe, the biggest importer and distributor of kosher wine in the UK, will host its annual Kosher Wine Festival on Monday 6 February from 6pm at the Park Lane Hotel. The event will showcase new and established premium kosher wines from around the world paired with gourmet canapés. Guests will have the chance to sample wines and liquors from a range of countries and brands and to purchase wines at wholesale prices. Tickets cost £30 or £50 for two and can be book by emailing kedem@theproffice.com or visiting www.kedemeurope.com.

Hawksmoor Spitalfields will get a brand new 60 cover bar, to open in late February with interiors by regular Hawksmoor collaborators, interior architects Macaulay Sinclair. The new bar will have a regularly changing list of five exclusive drinks in addition to the full cocktail list. The food menu will include short-rib French dip, fried oyster roll, chilli cheese and other Hawksmoor hot dogs along with onion rings, chicken wings and other heart stopping morsels.

The Telegraph recently railed against them as “a tired trite London trend to remain in 2011.” (Which is odd, because we’re pretty sure being annoyed about them was fairly boring by at least 2008.)

Whatever your stance, cupcakes aren’t going away. Tomorrow, London welcomes its fifth Hummingbird Bakery to the city; the second to open in the last 12 months.

From tomorrow, you’ll be able to get your hit of sugary American baked goods in Islington. The new Hummingbird Bakery is setting up shop in the Stirling Prize-nominated Angel Building on St John Street, close to Angel Tube and Upper Street. Like the other branches (in Notting Hill, South Ken, Soho and Spitalfields), the Angel shop will continue The Hummingbird practice of baking all products on site the same day as they’re sold, “to ensure freshness and quality.”

The shop opens at 11am on 27 January, when they’ll be giving away free cupcakes to the first 1,000 visitors. If you’re a fan, make sure you get there early.

The new Hummingbird Bakery is in the Angel Building, 403-411 St John Street, London, EC1 4LD, and opens at 11am tomorrow. Visit www.hummingbirdbakery.com to find out more.

Welcome to our Dining Beyond Zone 1 series of restaurant reviews, dedicated to seeking out quality local places to dine beyond the frenzy of Central London.

Think of Canary Wharf and the words that come to mind. We’ll take a conservative guess that “vast” and “bankers” are amongst them. Incorporate this into a restaurant, add a little Scottishness and you have yourself the newly refurbished Boisdale Canary Wharf. And what better time than Burn’s Night to tell you all about it…

A few superlatives to get you going. Not only is the impressive art deco Boisdale building which overlooks Cabot Square Canary Wharf’s largest restaurant, it also boasts London’s widest selection of whisky, the city’s biggest cigar club and is one of the leading jazz, soul and blues venues in the UK.

Add to this a fully stocked crustacean bar, a spot of haggis and a trademark tartan carpet, and what you have is a deliriously different kind of restaurant that you’re unlikely to find elsewhere. Even the smaller, more subdued Boisdale restaurants in Belgravia and Bishopsgate can’t compare.

With all this said, there’s a real danger of the food at Boisdale taking a back seat. The likes of potted rabbit, Aberdeen Angus steaks and fish & chips are somewhat ubiquitous options which have a price point a couple of quid higher than they deserve, with the latter coming in at £15.50. Though perhaps this is not any higher than is standard for the location.

That in mind, a main of fish pie is as creamy, rich and comforting as it should be, stuffed full of smoked haddock, mussels and cod with a crunchy cheesy crust that’s worth every penny of the £14 asked for it, and when you get onto classics like roasted haggis with neeps and tatties, or some home-cured Scottish salmon gravlax, it’s clear that Boisdale are in their element. Their stunning oyster range is also worth a look, being the result of a collaboration with bivalve bigshot Wright Brothers, which saw industry experts pick the best of the bunch for their very 2012-ly titled Oyster Olympics selection.

We couldn’t fault a bread and butter pudding soused with Glenfiddich 15 year old either, proving that if you stick to Scottish you’re going to get the best out of Boisdale.  That’s Scottish with a bit of blues in the background of course, they wouldn’t want to be too traditional…

Check out their website for details of the musical entertainment, plus a range of tasting events if you’re into that sort of thing, otherwise we’d certainly advocate the dropping in for a wee dram.  Just for Rabbie, of course…

Boisdale is unmissable at Cabot Place, E14 4QT. www.boisdale.co.uk.

If your thoughts on Japanese cuisine are ‘ewww, floppy raw fish. Sweet and sour chicken is quite good though’, you need a few pointers. No, really. You really do. In Japan, the vast majority of hang outs for the hungry are either izakaya (pubs that do a little of everything) or specialist places that focus on just one thing and do it well. This isn’t Tokyo. But, luckily for you, this is London, and there are many places authentic enough to rival the homeland.

The following is intended as a newbies’ guide to eating Japanese. These are some of our favourites, but this is by no means a definitive list. Feel free to suggest your own favourite places for any of these categories below, and we’ll add them to the appropriate section as ‘reader suggestions’.

Sushi Cooked, vinegared rice most famously topped with raw fish, but also cucumber, egg or sweet tofu. Nigiri sushi are the rectangular blocks and makizushi are the rolled variety. In its western incarnation, nigiri sushi is huge — traditionally there should be a little morsel of rice underneath, to be devoured in one mouthful.Where: Atariya have some reasonable sushi bars in north-west London. Their dependable supermarkets are also the best place to get fish if you’re brave enough to home-make sushi.

Reader suggestions:

• Atari-Ya in Swiss Cottage is a noted supplier to big restaurants, as well as having a wonderful restaurant of its own, notes Jonathan.
• Dinings in Marylebone, suggests Claire.
• Edo in Crystal Palace is Michael Keefe’s suggestion.
• Hana on Seven Sisters Road do traditional sushi as well as ‘crazy Westernized types’, says Vix Proctor.
• Kulu Kulu in Covent Garden is a conveyor-belt style place, ‘an easy place to eat alone, or in a couple,’ says Sian Gwilliam.
• Nizuni on Charlotte Street is a good sushi stop for Claire.
• Sake No Hana in St James is good but pricey, says Claire.
• Song Sushi on Blackstock Road is amazing for takeaway sushi, opines Rebecca June.
• Sushi Say on Walm Lane, Willesden is fantastic and always packed, says Bethany Childs (via Facebook).
• Yashin in High Street Kensington is good for Claire, if a little pricey.
• Yoshino on Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly offer huge take away portions of sushi, with an assorted tray for under £4. “The restaurant is quite a bit pricier but a great experience,” says Chris.

Yakitori

Yakitori A simple snack of vegetables or bite-sized pieces of chicken (almost any part, in fact, from thigh to wing to its tiny heart) skewered, seasoned with salt (shio) or coated with an addictively yummy sugary-soy sauce (tare) and grilled to perfection. Where: Any Japanese place in London with a grill can knock up a good yakitori, but Bincho (Clerkenwell and Soho) is the place to go to enjoy the yakitori joint experience in London. TasteCard holders can get 50% off in Clerkenwell.

Okonomiyaki A big-ass savoury pancake originating from Osaka made with cabbage and seafood or red meat, finished off with lashings of mayonnaise, okonomiyaki sauce, dried fish flakes (katsuobushi) and a dusting of dried seaweed (aonori). Usually the raw ingredients, in a bowl, are delivered to your hot-plate-fitted table, where you and your friends proceed to get drunk and cook it while totally not burning yourselves. Where: Abeno and Abeno too (Holborn and Leicester Square) specialise in real okonomiyaki dining. Much like in Japan, guests are seated around a hotplate. Unlike Japan, the staff do all the hard work for you. They might let you try it for yourself if you ask.

Reader suggestion:
The more upscale Matsuri in St James also sells okonomiyaki (Hiroshima style, not Osaka), says ‘Shogun of Shoganai’.

Takoyaki Tako is octopus. That’s the first thing you need to know. The second is that they sound gross but taste amazing. Another dish from Osaka, it’s basically fried or grilled balls of pancakey awesome, jammed with chunks of octopus, pickled ginger and the odd tentacle, all served with takoyaki sauce and the mayo/fish flake/dusty seaweed super combo. Where: Juzu, a stall situated on Brick Lane on Sundays, is where we go when we need our fix. Which is quite often.

Tempura

Tempura The ‘tem’ in ‘tempura’ is also the Japanese symbol for heaven. If you’ve a penchant for battered, deep-fried food, it’s not hard to see why. Crispy, light and fluffy vegetables and seafood are served with either salt or a dipping sauce (tentsuyu) or on a bowl of rice (tendon). Where: Tempura is the house speciality at Toku (Regent Street), and one of the most expensive things on the otherwise reasonable menu (but it’s damn good). Visit the website for weekly offers, and students can claim a 10% discount.

Katsu curry A heap of rice, mild curry sauce with onion, potato, carrots, beef chucks and a whole-breaded, deep-fried, sliced-pork cutlet dumped on the side for good measure. Where: It’s very hard to actually screw up a katsu curry. Very hard. Most places have it lurking somewhere on the menu. However Tokyo Diner (near Leicester Square) is worthy of a mention as they not only do a decent katsu curry, but for the truly ravenous they offer ’Omori’, an extra large helping of rice, for free. All you have to do is ask. Just make sure you eat it, greedy.

Reader suggestions:

• Curry Ono in Brixton village offers ‘a great katsu curry’, says Amy.
• Misato in Chinatown floats Nick’s boat, while Careicles notes that it’s famous for its katsu.
• Soho Japan on Wells Street ‘does the best katsu curry ever’, according to minty_fresh_uk.

Udon Thick, wheat noodles plonked into a mild broth with tempura, scallions, or various other fun foodstuffs thrown in on top. Where: Queues are out the door for bowls of wormy fat Sanuki noodles, a speciality from south-western Japan, at Koya in Soho since it opened to rave reviews in 2010. Pioneered by people who really know their stuff — it’s about as authentic as you’re going to get in this hemisphere.

Omurice Chicken fried rice wrapped in a thin sheet of omelette and squirted with ketchup. The ultimate in fusion comfort food. Where: Surprisingly, not many places do Omurice. The Crane and Tortoise on Gray’s Inn Road does, though. And it’s delightful when there’s an empty spot inside that only rice pretending to be breakfast can fill.

Gyoza

Gyoza Derived from Chinese dumplings, these beauties are made with minced pork, cabbage and garlic then pan-fried on the bottom and steamed. Consumed with a soy-chilli oil dip. Where: Yoisho (Goodge Street) is an izakaya that does everything, but the gyoza here is particularly morish – said by many Japanese foodies to be ‘some of the best gyoza in London’. Do some chompworthy yakitori too.

Other noteworthy izakaya and restaurants

The aforementioned Japanese ‘pub’ works a lot like Spanish tapas; order a round of food and drinks, then repeat until you’re stuffed and/or pleasently wasted. Below are some of our other favourite Izakaya to check out:

• Asakusa, Mornington Crescent: Booking is essential, so people tend to keep this one quiet. We’re probably already in trouble for telling you.
• ICN Gallery, Shoreditch: Simple, to the point, tasty and cheap stop-off for lunch, with an associated gallery of new Asian art. Read our review.
• Kiraku, Ealing Common: High-standard of food and some very tasty Sashimi (raw sliced fish). Be sure to book at peak eating times.
• Nozomi, Knightsbridge: Celebrity hangout with classy bento boxes. Read our review.
• Suzu, Hammersmith: Do fantastic deals every Monday with discounted food and drink.
• Tomoe, Bond Street: Another good ‘all-rounder’ on the food front. Downstairs is good for big groups.

By Janan Jedrzejewski

Welcome to our Dining Beyond Zone 1 series of restaurant reviews, dedicated to seeking out quality local places to dine beyond the frenzy of Central London.

Following in the footsteps of older sister Terroirs, Brawn opened on Columbia Road just over a year ago to critical acclaim and a giddy amount of cool credentials. We certainly loved it.

We were therefore excited for the birth of offspring number three from this group, which has added ‘natural wines’ to the vocabulary of London’s restaurant goers, and done more for nose-to-tail eating than anywhere since St. John.

Adding to Terroirs’ touristy West End location, and Brawn’s trendy East End spot on Columbia Road, the brand is working towards a complete compass with the arrival of new southern outpost, Soif in Battersea.

The locals have clearly adopted their new neighbour, with a weekday visit last week showing off a classy clientele of adventurous meat eaters which many more central restaurants would slaughter for in January. They’d probably also put a fair bit of effort into poaching their staff, who are adept at stirring up hungry anticipation for what’s to come with explanations of some more unusual dishes (there’s a slightly tedious tendency to French titles), and providing a mini tableside masterclass in the available wines, which is helpful given the options head into the hundreds.

We start with a selection of small plates which includes the renowned rillette. It’s not as if we haven’t had it numerous times before at both Terroirs and Brawn, but we felt that in the name of giving you accurate information we ought to check it tastes the same in new surrounds. And we bloody love its fat drenched, melt-in-the-mouth sinfulness, which we can confirm is just as racy sud de la Thames.

Some constantly replenished sourdough, a platter of hams including the unctuously oozy cured fat that is Lardo di Colonnata (no, you’re right – Londonist certainly isn’t on a diet) and an oyster or three again repeat highlights from the other two restaurants, but a selection of bigger dishes are entirely their own thing.

A dish of veal head is less scary than it sounds, consisting of a chunky slice of meat in a rich, herby broth showing off the tender cheek along with more gelatinous but full-flavoured parts which we very scientifically call the tendon-y face bits. A simple dish of clams in a butter and garlic sauce is equally well-executed, demonstrating Soif’s clear intentions to show off great produce rather than play around with it too much. With small dishes from £6 and mains from £13, it’s undoubtedly good value too – perhaps even slightly better than at the other two restaurants – especially when you take into account the fact that the small plates really aren’t that stingy at all.

Plates of cheese; a dense, moist Italian cake made with chestnut flour; and a more British ginger pudding with rhubarb and custard provide a pudding choice fitting of the eclectic dishes on the rest of the menu. And perhaps thinking we’d been quite greedy with our mains, our waiter brings us a couple of complimentary glasses of dessert wine that have been matched to our selections – now that’s the kind of service you want from your local. Let’s hope those who reside nearby know just how lucky they are!

Soif is at 27 Battersea Rise, SW11 1HG. If you’re not sure what the name’s all about, you obviously didn’t pay much attention during French GCSE…

And then, just a week or so back, the Skint Foodie blog appeared. Not a nervous, faltering embryonic affair, but a fully developed wonder with over 200 handy skint recipes. Along with a lot of handy hints on skint shopping. This is a blog that everyone should read. For an awful lot of reasons. Not least because it proves that you really can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. And also that you don’t need a great deal to eat well. A book deal is surely just round the corner.

We persuaded the penniless gourmet to answer a few questions…

You make no secret of the fact that you suffered from depression. Is food part of the cure?

It’s fundamental. And I don’t mean just for me. The vital importance a good diet plays in improving or maintaining a person’s psychological as well as physical well-being hasn’t ever really been a factor in the treatment of mental illness. But I think that is slowly changing.

You make much of shopping locally. And yet some of your averred fave ingredients are pretty hard to source…
Are they? I can’t think of any offhand. The furthest I travel to buy food is to the wondrous Gazzano’s on Farringdon Road – and that, from Peckham, is an easy journey on the 63 bus. Maybe you mean when I was banging on about Mostarda di Cremona (Italian fruits in a mustard syrup) on Twitter the other week. That is not all that easy to find, true.

Do you reckon skint foodie living could be adapted to suit whole families?
I think everyone should eat food that tastes great and gives pleasure at every meal, every day. That principle applies whether you live alone, as a couple or as a family.

How much do you spend a week on food?
What I spend, by coincidence, happens to hover around the figure for food and non-alcoholic beverages recommended by the Minimum Income Standard Project for a single adult household – £46.31. But that is absolutely everything. A lot of people say they spend a lot less when in fact what they’re quoting is their weekly supermarket shop, ignoring restaurant meals, lunches at work, kid’s school dinner’s etc.
But I’d like to make a couple of things completely clear if I may. Firstly, because of my love of food, I’ve cut out almost any other expenditure apart from utilities to enable me to eat as well as I can. Quite rightly, a lot, probably the majority, of people would have very different priorities. Secondly, I’m almost twice as better off as someone on JSA. If you’re in that position, particularly if you live alone, you have no choice other than to simply stave off hunger by spending as little as possible on food.

Do you buy stuff being sold after its best before dates?
I certainly use a lot of stuff after the best before date, especially jars with ‘use within x days after opening’ instructions – I just keep all opened jars in the fridge.

Were you to become a wealthy foodie would you choose to live very differently?
I would eat out a lot more. I haven’t eaten out since last summer (but I am going to Pizarro in a few days!). I decided a while ago that I would never leave where I live now, and I don’t need much ‘stuff’ anymore. One thing I would do is buy all the books I’ve had to borrow from the library in the last six or so years. And I do miss travelling.

What’s your favourite indulgence?
Going to Ayres, the bakery on Evalina Road, at six in the morning and buying two plain ring doughnuts straight out of the oven and bringing them home to have with a coffee made from Square Mile beans.
Oh – and cheese. You can eat fantastic meat and even fish dishes if only you stick to the cheaper options, but there is no cheaper option for a really good cheese. So it’s an occasional treat.

What is your top tip for skint shopping?
Always plan your week’s tally of meals before you go shopping and only buy the exact quantities of ingredients you need. Planning allows you to accurately budget your weekly spend, and knowing how much and what to buy means you should have little to no wastage.

Have you ever been sick on the tube?
It’s one of the few places where I haven’t been sick.

For more skint hints follow the Skint Foodie on Twitter or Facebook.

New rice wines and fruit liquors pack a punch and go well with the food at Pho

Locally owned Vietnamese resto chain, Pho, has become the first in the UK to sell Sôn Tinh rice wines and fruit liquors. Imported directly from Hanoi, the wines and spirits pack a punch with high ABVs and are traditionally served as an accompaniment or after dinner digestif. Pho’s drinks menu now includes four Sôn Tinh® fruit varieties (plum, red sticky rice, passion fruit and apricot, £4, 27% ABV) and traditional dark and white bend rice wines (£4.50, 38% ABV).

Dim Sum restaurant group, Ping Pong is ringing in the Year of the Dragon with a range of specials, including complimentary cocktails for patrons who can prove they were born during the Year of the Dragon. The offer is on until 5 February with the Dragontini (Smirnoff Blackvodka muddled with prickly pear, fresh limes, lychee liqueur and basil seeds) available from 23 January to 29 January and the Dragon Kumquat (Pampero Especial rum, fresh kumquats,amaretto, apricot purée and basil seeds) available from the 30th until 5 February. Recent years of the Dragon include 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976 and 1988.

Harvey Nichols Knightsbridge is opening Saf Express on its Fifth Floor. Known for the exclusively raw vegan menus at its Shoreditch restaurant and cafe at Wholefoods in Kensington, Saf will provide balanced meal combinations to “provide specific health benefits, such as weight loss, detox and immune boost; there’ll be meals, juices, hot drinks and snacks on the go, as well as a comfortable area to sit down for a more leisurely lunch and some guilt free indulgence.”

Feng Sushi has introduced a new “delivered to your door” diet plan. Priced at “just” £95 for three days and containing approximately 1,500 calories per day, the ‘Feng Diet” consists of three meals and two snacks daily.  Delivered to an address of choice twice a day, the diet’s dishes have been designed to keep blood sugar levels balanced and cleanse the body with wholegrain carbohydrates such as brown rice, buckwheat noodles, which contain vitamins, minerals and fibre, plus beans and plenty of vegetables. The initiative is designed to be followed for three days consecutively and repeated either once a week or immediately. The two daily deliveries are at lunchtime and early evening with option of selecting different addresses for each. The lunch delivery will contain a salad and sashimi alongside an afternoon snack including edamame beans and a “rescue” pot which contains vegetable sticks with tofu, wakame and coriander dip (containing just 40 calories per serving). In the early evening, dinner plus the porridge pot and mid-morning snack for the following day will arrive.

Jogging up alongside the detox bandwagon, the Sanderson hotel has announced the launch of a new health initiative, Juice Bar at Sanderson. Priced around six or seven quid, the new line of juices are “tailored to assist individuals in keeping up with their 2012 health regimes” and include include the Superfood Smoothie with coconut, coconut oil, vital greens, hemp seeds and dried figs, and Beauty Juice with a “rejuvenating combination” of lettuce, cucumber, apple, flaxseed oil, avocado oil, evening primrose oil and pumpkin seed oil.

Ending this foodie news round up on a sad note, Argentine asador restaurant, A La Cruz, is to close this week. The restaurant opened two years ago and gained fans from the start with its mega-meaty and authentic menu. However, according to Director John Rattagan, “our turnover has just not been at the levels we needed.” Until new plans are made regarding the site and any potential new business from the owners, bookings are being directed to sister restaurant Buen Ayre, owned by Rattagan.  Regulars will still see him cooking there on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Photo/Chris Osburn 

Welcome to our Dining Beyond Zone 1 series of restaurant reviews, dedicated to seeking out quality local places to dine beyond the frenzy of Central London.

It’s hard to know what to expect from an Italian restaurant before visiting. They’ll have mostly similar menus and near-identically described dishes, but while some are the real deal serving patriotically authentic, regional food cooked with Italy’s trademark passion, others are a catch-all option taking advantage of the cuisine’s almost ubiquitous appeal.

A look at the outside of Caparossa situated at the foot of one of the stark new builds at Putney Wharf in Wandsworth, and you really wouldn’t know which of these restaurant types to expect. The moment you swing open the doors, though, it’s clear that passion is key here.

We’re given a hearty welcome as we walk in and leave the cold riverside wind behind us. The large restaurant space is cleverly set out, divided into a deli section and a slightly more formal restaurant area. A tiled floor and walls adorned with oils, wines, deli foodstuff and a large photo of Sophia Loren amongst other Italian knickknacks is warm and homely, far from what the bland exterior hints at.

The menu is also something of a revelation. The wine list takes a manual form, describing Italy’s twenty-one wine regions, as well as some of the characteristics of each area. It’s clear that wine is taken very seriously here, and hugely refreshing for us consumers to be given so much information without intimidation from an overzealous sommelier.

For an Italian restaurant, the menu is surprisingly succinct. Our waiter explains why, saying that the kitchen want to ensure that they can do each dish justice before expanding the offering. This is an endearingly honest approach, and one we could probably all back up with tales of lacklustre dishes in establishments that overflow with choice.

A selection of cured meats, marinated vegetables and some stunningly fresh homemade bread kick things off in fine style, and a follow-up of pasta Genovese, served straight from the pan with a hearty beef stock taking a welcome centre-stage continues the meat feast.

A recommended rib-eye steak served with parmesan and balsamic vinegar, is a simple but perfectly executed main course, going down so easily that it’s not until it’s finished that we notice we’ve eaten practically nothing but flesh. We’re not really complaining, but it’s interesting to note there’s not a single fish dish on the menu. Asking our waiter about this unusual omission, we’re told it’s all about the suppliers. In Italy, great, local produce is used without exception and whilst the restaurant is convinced of Britain’s meat offerings, they’re not sure about London’s supply of fish.

It’s hard to think Billingsgate wouldn’t suffice, or that if London seafood stalwarts such as Bentley’s can get the good stuff then Caparossa can’t, but at least the decision shows a true dedication to top notch produce.

There’s a good scattering of vegetarian dishes, and an indulgent and happily meat-free dessert selection including oozy homemade nougat. This is a case where we’ll gladly forgo the fish and settle for quality over quantity.

Caparossa is at 3B The Piazza, 30 Brewhouse Lane, Putney Wharf, SW15 2JX. Visit www.caparossa.co.uk.

Tom and Ed Martin, the dudes behind ETM Pubs (The Cadogan Arms, The Well, The Gun and more) have “injected new life” into The Angel & Crown, a pub that’s been at 58 St Martin’s Lane since 1727. The opening marks ETM’s West End debut. There’s a decent selection of cask ales such as Sambrook’s Junction, Adnams Bitter and Spindri as well as rotating guest seasonal brews and craft bottled beers like Dark Star Espresso Stout from Sussex. The menu (pheasant sandwich with parsnip crisps, Clonakilty black pudding Scotch eggs, Herdwick mutton hot pot; braised rabbit…) is decidedly British. Two and three course pre-theatre menus are available daily between 5pm – 6.30pm and a post theatre menu is also available between 10pm – 11pm for a late night supper.

Bistro du Vin Soho has launched an afternoon tea with a “putting the G back into the T” option offering a gin and tonic served from a China cup. Prices start at £14.50. Teas come from Miller Harris and Canton Tea Company. All teas must be booked in advance.

Charlotte’s Bisto in Chiswick (our interview with Chef Wesley Smalley here) is hosting a Game Night on 23 January from 7pm. Londonist has had a go at Smalley’s menu and reckons it’s a winner of a feast. Among the dishes to be served, we hold Smalley’s venison tartare, anchovy sabayon, pickles and crudites and bitter chocolate in very high regard. Drinks will be served upon arrival followed by a sit down seven course menu “celebrating seasonality, quality local produce and modern British cooking at its best.” Wesley will join guests in the dining room after dinner to talk about the menu. Tickets cost £58 per person. There’s an additional £38 for the wine pairing.

On Wednesday 25 January from 6.30pm at Whitechapel Gallery, artist Hannah Collins will discuss “the crossover between the visual and culinary arts” with famed elBulli chef Ferran Adrià. The event will launch the publication The Fragile Feast: Routes to Ferran Adrià by Hannah Collins. Last we checked tickets were still available and priced from £7.

Clerkenwell’s Argentine steakhouse, A La Cruz, is hosting a cordero entero (whole lamb) winter supper club on 1 February from 7.30pm. Slow cooked on a traditional Argentine asador for four hours, the crispy and succulent lamb’s the star of the feast. But your £40 ticket also gets you a plate of three starters, a taster of beef fillet from the charcoal grill, accompanying sauces and for dessert panqueques filled with dulce de leche. Gorgeous. Septima wines will be specially selected to match the meal and available to buy by the glass or bottle on the night.

Photo/Paki Nuttah

Welcome to our Dining Beyond Zone 1 series of restaurant reviews, dedicated to seeking out quality local places to dine beyond the frenzy of Central London.

With a name like Powder Keg Diplomacy, this is one neighbourhood bar that’s out to make an impression. After all, it’s a fairly bold statement to name a venue after Britain’s imperialist glory days when we truly ruled the waves and used mass force to gain territory in a real-life game of Risk.

With this brutal mentality summed up in the title, it’s reassuring to know that the trendy space on Battersea’s St. John’s Hill which the restaurant occupies was rightfully and lawfully acquired, rather than being captured during the recent Clapham Junction riots.

In fact, the company responsible for the opening is something of a military operation itself, incorporating the restaurant-cum-bar-cum-club collective that is The Lost Society, The Blind Tiger, The Lost Angel and Citizen Smith, all scattered across London’s SW postcode area.

If an undisputed air of coolness and a focus on mighty quaffable cocktails are signature of the group, then this latest venture is in the same vein. Military paraphernalia, Victorian knickknacks and patriotic wall claddings reveal an interior designer gone characteristically overboard, and the waistcoat wearing staff uphold the group’s theatrical touches.

It’s the restaurant facet of Powder Keg which is where the ante is upped. Bar snacks and gastropub grub is elevated into a more fine-dining environment thanks to a plushly decked out conservatory out back. Whilst you may be preoccupied with the thought of Colonel Mustard marching in with a candlestick, you’ll want to pay full attention to the food, which sees defiantly old-school offerings such as melba toast given an overdue outing, this particular relic making an almighty accompaniment to a seductively smooth and creamy duck liver terrine.

A three-bird roast amalgamating duck, goose and partridge hovers somewhere between Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Mrs Beeton, served here with all the winter trimmings, a herby Cumberland sausage stuffing and a rich sage gravy. An utter triumph and certainly not a drop of jus here.

And what could follow this better than a gooey, date-studded sticky toffee pudding or an all-British cheeseboard? And how about washing it down with a dessert beer or a bottle from the ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ wine lists, organised depending on the countries’ colonial positioning?

If you’re needing a bigger portion of patriotism, we’d recommend the Regalitea cocktail made with Plymouth gin, Earl Grey tea and English sparkling wine. Rule Britannia, indeed.

Powder Keg Diplomacy is a short walk from Clapham Junction station at 147 St. John’s Hill, SW11 1TQ. Visit www.powderkegdiplomacy.co.uk.

Welcome to our Dining Beyond Zone 1 series of restaurant reviews, dedicated to seeking out quality local places to dine beyond the frenzy of Central London.

Who’d have known that a westbound District line service could take you so far east? It’s a superb Vietnamese restaurant, a couple of Chinese eateries and a Thai ‘lounge bar’ which dominate the stretch of vibrant King Street close to Ravenscourt Park tube.

Potli is the latest Asian on the block, replacing a shabby tandoori grill with an Indian that’s about as far from a curry house as you can get.

A cosy square of restaurant space is adorned with Indian knickknacks, tribal masks and nostalgic paintings. Vibrant reds and rich browns add a feeling of authenticity and back up the warmth of the staff’s welcome as they show us to the table and take the time to explain the restaurant’s concept of bringing regional Indian food, which has been passed down through generations, into London.

In case you’re needing something other than superb hospitality to heat up your wintery London cockles, then be assured that a chilli & ginger martini has the requisite fire by the barrel-load, and that’s just one of many classic and spiced-up cocktails available alongside a large list of wines, beers and spirits. Told you this wasn’t your average curry house.

The good news for anyone toying with the concept of a January detox is that Potli’s food is noticeably lacking in the greasiness and high oil content of many of their counterparts. The bad news is that the extensive menu of regional specials does encourage greediness. Well, it does if you’re us, anyway.

 After polishing off a basket of pappadums served with homemade chutneys including a punchy beetroot creation, we dig into one of the best versions we’ve tried of one of our all-time favourite Indian dishes – a bhelpuri which consists of puffed rice mixed with roasted peanuts, onions, tomatoes, cucumber and a rich tamarind relish.

The gluttony that ensues includes some pleasingly tender masala lamb chops boldly spiced with fresh ginger, characteristically oozy stir-fried okra laced with mango powder, king prawns cooked in banana leaves (which renders them amazingly soft, as they’ve effectively been steamed), a Kerala fish curry made with tilapia, some creamy black dhal, a couple of keema naans and a spiced paneer kebab. We reckon that list could well be sung to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas.

There was only kulfi on offer for dessert on our visit, so we thought we’d honour our pained stomachs and give it a miss. We understand there’s usually some specials on available which are worth trying, though. Perhaps we’ll make that our excuse to return.

With dishes starting from just £3 and staying well under the £10 mark, a blow-out meal needn’t blow the budget. Get in there whilst you can, because for our money Potli’s definitely up there with some of London’s best known Indian restaurants, and it’s only the prices that haven’t yet caught up.

Potli is at 319-321 King Street, W6 9NH. Visit their website for more details.

Photo by DodgyEye

Scottish restaurants Boisdale of Belgravia, Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf are getting in there early with their Burns Celebration on Monday 16 January. Expect all the traditional stops pulled out with a piper and a bloke in period costume stabbing the haggis at your table. Set menus from £42-69 per person.

Scottish Ale Week should get you in the mood for Burns revelry at the White Horse in Parson’s Green from Friday 20 January. They’re also serving up a traditional Burns supper menu in the pub on 25 January and upstairs there’s a special beer and food matching event, including an address to the haggis (£45, please book).

The Ceilidh Club runs a string of Burns Night ceilidhs at Hammersmith Town Hall on 20, 21, 27, 28 January and 4 February. Expect a slap up Burns Supper (dollops on paper plates) and a bar selling passable whisky but these events are all about the dancing. Get there early, put your coat in the cloakroom and get on the floor (tickets £13-25).

Take a tasty Scottish tour of London with Tastour’s Robbie Burn’s Haggis and Whisky fuelled Birthday Celebration on Saturday 21 January from 1.45pm (£5-15).

Join the Burns Club of London to take part in an elegant and old school black tie ball at the Caledonian Club with a traditional Burns Supper, reciters, toasts and ceilidh dancing on Saturday 21 January.

Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library throw a ‘pre-Burns Night Party‘ on Monday 23 January with free Scots culture, including haggis, neeps and tatties and news about the future of the library, from 7pm.

The Glasgow International Comedy Festival Gala provides laughs for Burns Night on Wednesday 25 January at Leicester Square Theatre. Will the not very Scottish Stewart Lee and Robin Ince kilt up? Book to find out (tickets £14.50).

The most Scottish pub in London, the Rob Roy at Paddington will celebrate, as is traditional, with their Piper, Mr. Dave Brooks, playing at the pub and around 7pm, the haggis will be piped in and addressed, before being decimated and distributed to everyone. All are welcome, including ‘well behaved Sassenachs’.

Albannach, the upmarket Scottish restaurant and bar off Trafalgar Square, hosts two sittings of a 5 course Burns Supper (including Tipsy Laird Trifle) on 25 January — one at 6.30 for 7pm (£70 per person) and another at 7.45 for 8.15pm (£85 per person) with poetry, piper and all that too.

Vinopolis throws an extravaganza of a Burns Night Ceilidh on 25 January from 7pm with a sit down supper involving unlimited drinks, recitals, toast to the haggis and dancing till late (tickets £89).

Green’s Oyster Bar is going for an upmarket approach to haggis, neeps and tatties, promising ‘no other Burns night supper London will compare‘. Book your table for 25 January at either the Duke Street SW1 or Cornhill EC3 restaurant for fine dining, whisky, poetry and tartan.

The Islington Barn’s serving up a Burns Night supper with all the works at £45 for 5 courses, including wine and whisky, courtesy of @pipsdish, on 25 January from 6.30pm.

Have a Scottish inspired dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s The Narrow, Limehouse (£30 a head).

You can also find a Scottish menu at Restaurant One08 in Marylebone on 25 January only (£29.50 per person, kids 4-12 half price).

Edible Experiences’ Supperclub dishes up a traditional Burns Night menu with a few contemporary twists on Friday 27 January (£25 per person, BYO wine).

Hootananny Brixton lays on storming pipe and drums, Braveheart hairy men and kilts to lift the roof off! Live folk music all night from 9pm-3am on Saturday 28 January (free entry).

Do you know someone at Middle Temple? Their Burns Night Ball on 28 January sounds fabulous. Get in if you can!

The Button Club’s 10th Spectacular Burns Nicht Extravaganza involves a 5 course Highland menu, copious wine and whisky and joupin aboot at the Royal Overseas Club, St James’s on Saturday 29 January from 7.30pm (tickets £100).

Are you having a Burns Night supper? Here’s how it should traditionally go.

What have we missed? Let us know in the comments.

13-15 January

The Old Coffee House, Soho: Brodies Beers make a welcome foray into central London with their ‘West End Festival’, which runs from 11am ‘til late on all 3 days. 12 beers will be available, including 6 new collaborative brews that have been made in conjunction with the likes of the Kernel and Redemption. All pints are just £2.99 and a special food menu, featuring the fantastic-sounding ‘Shoreditch Sunshine Sausages’, will also be available.

16th-30 January

The Speaker, Victoria: Busy politicians can recover from their latest Twitter scandal with a selection of Winter Ales at this popular pub. The selection will be on offer throughout the two weeks and more details are due to be published on the website.

20-29 January

The White Horse, Parson’s Green: The inimitable West London pub presents a week of Scottish beers to get you in the mood for Burn’s night. Opening hours are as normal. Slainte!

26-28 January

The Hope, Carshalton: The “Have I Got Beer For You” festival promises ‘fine examples of all styles of British beer’, and, given their reputation for continually supplying a diverse range of good ales – check out the ‘beer cam’ on their site -, you can expect a great selection.

Just as we know we shouldn’t do with books, it isn’t always wise to judge a restaurant by its name either. After all, how can each and every Best Chicken & Kebab truly offer London’s superlative supper?

Onto a place that entertains a higher class of service, though, and The Hideaway in Streatham can most certainly be labelled as true to its title. Tucked down a residential side street at the back end of the neighbourhood, this intriguing venue is one of the capital’s premier jazz haunts, as well as playing host to other occasional musical events and live comedy. Call us cultural masochists if you want, but we quite like the fact that it’s less than conveniently located, that we have to hunt to find it, and that even when you’re there it’s tricky to know which door actually leads you in.

As we negotiate the confusion and are shown to our table in the air hanger-esque space, we’re amazed that a room with so much corrugated steel can feel as cosy as it does. We must also confess to feeling as cool as Draper in the Manhattan-chic surrounds as we sip a well balanced Old Fashioned lovingly crafted from Four Roses bourbon.

Rollo Markee & the Tailshakers are our hosts for the night, and despite not sharing the jazz know-how of some of the clear aficionados in the audience, we’re quickly won over by their blend of hypnotic instrumentals and tale telling vocals. In fact, we almost forget about the food.

The menu is simple and fitting of the scene. Well, most of it. We couldn’t tell you what the Thai Green Curry or Fish & Chips are like, as we quite frankly couldn’t think of a much more inappropriate setting for them. A magnificent plate of jerk chicken served with rice ‘n’ peas, Caribbean coleslaw and salad, however, couldn’t seem more right if it tried. That we rate it as on a par with the royally ramshackle roadside joint that is Smokey Jerkey in New Cross doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it really, really is. Go.

A burger loaded with bacon and a smoky tomato and pepper Creole relish doesn’t quite live up to the highs of the chicken’s lip-sticking syrupy marinade, tangy charred edges and juicy meat; though does an honourable job in delivering what it sets out to, with the adornments apltly accompanying the juicy meat patty centrepiece.

We can vouch for the quality of a squidgy chocolate fudge brownies and a buttery shortbread-topped apple crumble too.  Though it’s evident that The Hideaway isn’t offering the most exciting menu you’ll find in the surrounds, for somewhere that’s first and foremost an entertainment venue, we’re bloody impressed.

Go look at the website, pick your act and check it out for yourselves at 2 Empire Mews, Stanthorpe Road, SW16 2ED. Google Maps and the 159 will help you on your way…

About a fourth of the way into a two-year stay, Roganic is a pop-up restaurant brought to you by Simon Rogan and Penny Tapsell of the Lake District’s much lauded and Michelin starred L’Enclume restaurant. Offering the “the very best in British natural ingredients all cooked with skill and imagination and served with warmth and style,” Roganic is a pared down but pleasant setting for enjoying a bit of Northern comfort with haute cuisine style.

Roganic’s draw is the intriguingly flavoured food of delicate beauty. The vast majority of the ingredients are seasonal and British, a good number of which you’ve probably never even heard of or at least never thought of combining. Doing up the dainty and delicious dishes with great success is head chef Ben Spalding. The dude knows how to rock a palate with the likes of “warm spiced bread, salted almonds, buckthorn curd and smoked clotted cream” and to tickle it with stuff such as a warm milkshake seasoned with Douglas fir. Spalding’s quite poetic too; we love the sound of rose veal cooked in buttermilk, cobnuts, savoy and mead sauce.

Featuring a regularly changing menu that’s mandatory  for anyone keen to taste a shining example of just how wonderful British cuisine can be, Roganic is located at 19 Blandford Street, W1U 3DH.

Photo/Chris Osburn

Bunga Bunga has upped its already fairly high ante for Christmas, with a special festive menu and even more wacky twists and turns along the way. Try a sharing portion of their spiced pear bellini to get you in the mood. It arrives without warning in a hollowed out plastic Christmas tree decorated with baubles bestowed with the faces of iconic Italians. Tacky? No. Not compared to the poster plastered walls, the upstairs Eurovision karaoke room complete with dressing-up box, or our straight-from-a-stereotype Mucho Italiano waiter, anyway…

Bunga Bunga’s array of well-crafted antipasti options prove there’s gumption behind the gimmick. Deliciously salty polenta chips are accentuated with a rosemary tang; a creamy burrata is unctuous and gooey; and succulent discs of chewy wild boar salami are like wine gums for carnivores.

The Buon Natale! (exclamation mark included) is the must-have pizza for the festive season, topped with turkey, sausage stuffing and cranberry. It delivers all that it promises, and is certainly no monstrosity, though we did prefer the more traditional Julius Cheeser option, which is topped with gorgonzola, taleggio, mozzarella and goat’s cheese, making it almost as cheesy as its name. It’s the sourdough bases which give Bunga Bunga’s now famous pizzas their oomph, and starting at just 6,500 Lira a pop, they’re good value for a quick bite anytime.

Oh, we should point out that the menu prices everything in the now non-existent Lira. Don’t ask us why, but just know that 1000 lira equals one pound. Also don’t do what we did and confuse the 6000L addition to a cocktail description to mean litres. There’s no way to enjoy that responsibly.

Our British mince pies and Christmas pudding are thrown into the Med, with an oh so Italian panettone stuffed with zabaglione headlining the dessert options. Along with a shot of Limoncello, of course.

We leave full, well spirited and knowing just a few more Italian phrases than we did before. Perhaps Clegg should consider hiring out one of the private rooms upstairs as a way to convince the coalition’s Eurosceptics. They’d be singing Abba and diving into the dressing up box in no time…

Bunga Bunga is set by river at 37 Battersea Bridge Road, SW11 3BA. Visit www.bungabunga-london.com.

If a visit to East Street presents you with a strong sense of Wagamama or Banana Tree deja vu, well then you are quite possibly hitting the nail on the head of this restaurant’s concept. And if it reminds you of the mostly up north restaurant chain, Tampopo, there’s a good reason. East Street and Tampopo share the same owners. And if you think “kinda like Chilango” when you enter – yep, same designers.

All in all, there’s nothing really bad to report about East Street. It’s a pleasant place to eat in a convenient location with a price point in line with what you’d expect to pay. The food is squarely okay, and the menu seems to have been assembled with an aim to please all palates. You can have fun cocktails that reflect a holiday in Thailand, and the beer selection includes some especially crisp ones such as Beer Lao. But you’d be hard pressed to discover anything truly unique about this place except maybe its own reshuffled representation of some rather same old same old components.

East Street opened this week (with queues out the door during its first day of trading) at 3-5 Rathbone Place, W1T 1HJ right off Oxford Street and just above the Roxy.

Photo/Chris Osburn

Londonist visited East Street upon invitation of the restaurant.

Just a quick post to say if you’re around Soho tomorrow morning (14 December) from 8-10am, Giraffe Bar & Grill (11 Frith Street, W1D 4RB) is offering one free meal along with soft drink or hot drink from the resto’s new “Wide Awake Breakfast” menu to each guest with no purchase necessary. Meal choices include country ham, aged cheddar and smoked tomato bloomer butty, a sweet waffle topped with Greek yoghurt, fresh strawberries and orange blossom honey, a “brekkie burrito” of scrambled eggs, chorizo, jalapeno chillies, cheddar cheese, avocado and salsa wrapped in a tortilla or the bangers and eggs (fried or scrambled) on a toasted doorstop of bloomer.

Photo/Alex_Pink 

Yeah, much of the charm and appeal of The Counter Cafe is its Hackney Wick location, an area known for having the highest concentration of art studios anywhere in the world and for being smack dab right up against the the Olympic Park. Such a combo means a compellingly frothy cappuccino for folks contemplating the fate of this area during and after the Games. Fortunately, the cafe makes a great cappuccino for just such considerations.

The food’s good too. Pouched eggs on crispy potato cakes with salmon (£6.50) is an especially tasty number. Portions are ample. Service is pleasant. The setting is striking.

The Counter Cafe is located at 7 Roach Road, E3 2PA.

Photo/Chris Osburn

Welcome to our ongoing mission to explore what London has to offer the discerning lover of excellent beer – from pubs and retailers that take pride in the quality of their hoppy offerings, to local breweries and beer events. In this instalment, we check out a long-awaited craft beer destination.

BrewDog, for the uninitiated, is an independent Scottish brewer of rather bold craft beer. In the four years that they’ve been operating, it’s probably fair to say that they have actively courted controversy – on-off arguments with the Portland Group and CAMRA alike, along with a distinctive penchant for brewing fiercely strong beers, have regularly kept them in the drinks industry headlines. It’s clear that they’re shameless publicity-seekers – emphasised by their latest stunt of driving a tank around Camden Town to promote the opening of their newest bar.

All of this would be rather annoying if it was just bravado – however BrewDog have always put their money where their mouth is. Behind the headlines, they produce consistently good beer. And their new bar in Camden, which seems to have opened on the sly several days ahead of the official launch, is a great showcase for this. We popped in yesterday afternoon to check it out.

The modestly-sized bar features gunmetal grey walls and ceiling, paired with brick, wood and large windows, providing a pleasant contemporary décor. The bar was quite busy with a combination of traditional Camdenites and beer geeks even in the middle of the afternoon, and became progressively more-so as the evening approached, to the point of near immobility.

The beer selection was, as expected, unapologetically focussed on strong, powerful craft beers. Ten of BrewDog’s own draught brews were supplemented by half a dozen US and European imports from the likes of Mikkeller and Stone Brewing. Fridges behind the bar offered a good selection of similar styles of bottled beers. It was immediately clear that this is not a bar for the weak-of-liver or shallow-of-wallet, as the vast majority of beers boasted high (or stratospheric) levels of alcohol, and many of the beers had price tags to match. Two of BrewDog’s more headline-grabbing beers, Tactical Nuclear Penguin and Sink the Bismark were offered in 25ml measures – oddly sensible considering their spirit-like ABV.

As is typical for BrewDog beers, flavours often tended to be strongly hop-focussed, with a considerable variety of pale ales on offer, alongside various porters and stouts. The highlight of our visit was a bottle of the now rather rare Chaos Theory, a balanced and comparatively delicate IPA, belying its 7.1% ABV, but with such a wide range of beers available everyone seemed to have their own favourite.

Despite the bar’s busyness, the staff remained friendly and helpful, happy to help those who were unsure what to order. The presence of BrewDog’s founders James Watt and Martin Dickie emphasised this. Food offerings were slanted towards hearty snacking, with pizzas and cheese and meat platters proving popular.

It seems that BrewDog Camden is not quite ‘officially’ open yet, but they’ve been doing great business nonetheless this weekend, and look set to continue to do so.

BrewDog Camden, 113 Bayham Street, Camden.

The free event features more than 40 artisan chocolate producers. Visitors can taste samples, watch demonstrations, and browse a wide range of delicious chocolate treats. The festival runs until 8pm tonight and from 11am to 6pm tomorrow.

Organiser Yael Rose says:

“This weekend is a celebration of everything chocolate. We want to give people an amazing experience and a great time, and also promote the chocolate industry. It’s a rare opportunity to see fabulous chocolatiers at work.”

Peter Holmes, a charity worker from Fulham, is enthusiastic about the event. He said: “There are free tastings, demonstrations and chocolate everywhere, it’s amazing. I think everyone should come.”

Several unusual and distinctive products are on offer at The Chocolate Festival. Kieran Renihan, founder of The Chocolution, is selling dairy-free, sugar-free chocolate. He hopes to educate people on its health benefits. He said: “Cacao is naturally powerful and nutritious. We don’t tamper with our chocolate, we let it retain as much of its goodness as possible.”

Sunday’s schedule includes several free demonstrations. Corrigan’s Mayfair head chef Chris McGowan will prepare chocolate cigars and shortbread topped with hot chocolate foam, and Great British Bake Off finalist Miranda Gore Brown intends to bake a Snowy Chestnut Brownie Cake.

The Easter Chocolate Festival will be held on South Bank between March 30th and April 1st next year.

By Theron Mohamed

The Chocolate Festival is at Southbank Centre Square on Belvedere Road until 8pm today and 11am-6pm tomorrow.

“Your local shops delivered” is the catch phrase that start up Hubbub wants you to be humming as you peruse its site and order items for delivery from the yummy likes of Ginger Pig, La Fromagerie, Paul A Young, E5 Bakehouse, Hansen & Lydersen and so on. Hubbub delivers Monday to Friday, 4pm-10pm in one hour slots with plans to extend service to the weekend soon. Prices are the same as in the represented shops plus a £3.50 delivery charge for orders under £75 “no matter how many shops you buy from.” The first delivery is free (and Londonist can’t seem to find any mention of a minimum spend on its site).

During all of December, Palm Court at the Langham hotel is home to a 4.3 foot tall gingerbread house. The hotel’s Executive Pastry Chef, Cherish Finden, and team spent more than 200 hours creating the confectionary construction and reckon it’s a perfect thing to ponder while enjoying their current Festive Afternoon Tea, Priced at £42 per person, the tea includes roast Norfolk turkey breast with violet mustard sandwiches, eggnog cream, “your very own mini gingerbread house” and home made mince pies.

This Saturday from noon to 7pm, the Water Poet pub at Spitafields will host a free Christmas Fair. With its “glorious garden barn” turning into a food hall with gifts for sale from Haggerston Honey, Potter’s Preserves and Alsur Spanish Produce. Roasted chestnuts and a spit roast hog will be available all day along with an array of speciality beers, retro cocktails and schnapps. Carols performed by brass band With Bells On and a sleigh full of classic Yuletide movies screened in the pub’s basement cinema add to the festivities.

Celebrated Seven Dials restaurant, Kopapa, turns one year old today. To mark the occasion, co-proprietor chef Peter Gordon and crew will introduce a special Winter Feast Menu. However so as not to have their bday muddled in with all the festive season hoopla, the menu will be available from 6-29 January with two courses at £25 and three for £30.

Comptoir Libanais has brought its stylised, bright light/vibrant coloured dining and shopping concept to South Kensington with now open at 1-5 Exhibition Road.

Picadilly pomp masters, The Wolseley, are in on the sister act too and have opened a second grand European cafe, The Delaunay, at Aldwych.

And speaking of the newly opened, Harvey Nichols’ Fifth Floor Café is just that, following its first major refurbishment in twenty years. The “much loved Knightsbridge institution” is now bigger and features an open plan space where shopping can the also updated food and drink menus.

Photo/Chris Osburn

As the peckish of London well know, you can find almost any food your belly desires in the East End. But if you want some pointers to the best back-street bolt-holes or to savour some strictly off-menu dishes, Walk Eat Talk Eat will guide you. If you’re wondering where to find a cosy spot for afternoon tea, a belly-full of crackling, or a hooker, then guide Charli Matthews knows the answer.

Each Sunday, Charli leads small groups around four or five foodie stop-offs on one of three different routes. First up on the Brick Lane to Spitalfields Market ‘late afternoon lope’ was Mason and Taylor — not for one of its many, many beers but for a nice cup of beef tea. This manly sounding old-fashioned ‘restorative’ is no longer offered on M&T’s menu but you can sip its cosy lightness once Charli’s sweet-talked the chefs.

After that, it’s off for a wander through the back alleys of E1 to spot street art and ogle the kind of concept shops you probably hate yourself for loving.

Stop two was Leila’s Shop for seasonal Kent pears. Not an obvious choice but a great one: they’re a size more common among grapefruits and so perfectly ripe it’s pointless fighting the battle to keep your chin clean. Fruity goodness then turns to meaty indulgence at The Albion Caff. Its incredible pork crackling providing a loud, crunchy accompaniment to Charli’s tales of the area’s history. Then it was into the warm embrace of Swedish cafe Fika for the rich, deep, long-lasting flavour of reindeer sausage.

Rolling back onto the streets for more factlets and tales, the last stop was the Princess Alice for a Chambord-and-cava take on Kir Royale and some afternoon tea. If you’ve a corner to spare.

The relaxed, friendly atmosphere of the Walk Eat Talk Eat tour makes it not just about gorging your way through the East End and learning its little quirks and tales. It’s also a great way to get chatting with the people you meet, even if half of your conversation turns to mmm.

There’s 3 tours to choose from each Sunday, schedule available on the website. You can also follow them less literally on Twitter: @walkeattalkeat

Alex Lemon took a tour at the expense of the guide.

Welcome to our ongoing mission to explore what London has to offer the discerning lover of excellent beer – from pubs and retailers that take pride in the quality of their hoppy offerings, to local breweries and beer events. In this instalment, we spend half the evening considering chewable pig by-products in Hackney.

With winter settling in and the usual season of outdoor beer festivals having passed us by for the year, fans of a pint or two would be well-advised to figure out how to get themselves to The Round Chapel on the Lower Clapton Road for this year’s Pig’s Ear Beer & Cider Festival.

Upon entering the building one could be forgiven for forgetting that London’s one of the most populous places on the planet – when we visited the vibe was very much a laid-back cheery and good-natured satisfied hum, as beer enthusiasts of all descriptions socialised and sampled their way through the 200-strong list of beers and ciders on offer. Among the imposing wall of barrels was something for every taste – a full gamut of beer styles on offer ranging from a sessionable 3.2% ABV up to a frankly terrifying special festival brew at 13% ABV.

In the interests of keeping it London-centric we sampled mainly locally-made brews, and even ran into a few of the brewers from London’s burgeoning local roster, such as Kernel Brewery, Redemption, and London Brewing Company: all not only supporting the event by providing their beers for the festival, but also by coming down to meet people and have a chat.

The helpful bar staff, while unable to provide taster samples (when you see the number of casks there, it all makes sense), seem to know their beers quite well and were able to recommend us towards the seasonally relevant Christmas Stout from the By The Horns brewery in Wimbledon – cloves, cinnamon, and a huge velvety chocolate-malt punch, which had us wondering if someone had added a few drops of Jagermeister for good measure.

The festival is also hosting a bar of Italian cask ales, which make for an interesting take on the English form. We tried beers from ELAV and Revelation Cat – if you think you know ale these are definitely worth a sniff.

Pig’s Ear Beer & Cider Festival, Round Chapel, Powerscroft Road, Hackney, E5 0PU. Tues Dec 6th – Sat Dec 10th, 12:00-22:30 (23:00 on Fri & Sat). Entry fee £4 (£2 to CAMRA members). Bar prices varied between £1.40 and £3 per half pint, and a selection of hot food was also available.

Disclaimer: we attended the festival with complimentary tickets.

Words and pictures by Jason B. Standing.

As fortifying and filling a winter’s meal as might be possible to find for under a fiver, a £4.25 serving of pie, mash and gravy can be a satisfactory lunch. Londonist enjoyed the “Matador” (British beef, chorizo, olvies, butterbeans, tomatoes and sherry). It didn’t blow us away or anything but did the job quite nicely. The mash was perfectly acceptable and the gravy smothered as it should. The pie et al. reminded us of a particular dish once had at the Great Queen Street Restaurant, just more accessible and much cheaper.

Choosing the “Matador” was a bit of a toughie. There were lots of other pies – with fish and veg options – suggested on the blackboard. Even a few Christmas specials were on offer, which we might have actually gone with had we been informed about them before we placed our order and not overheard them being listed to another customer.

Convenient to shoppers and Shoreditch commuters but minus the austere atmo of an old school East End pie and mash shop, Pieminister is located at Unit 60, top level, Boxpark, Bethnal Green Road, E1 6GY.

Photo/Chris Osburn