VILLA BIANCA

'And we call it Bella Notte'

Summer Lovin' Had Me A Blast

I Met A Boy Crazy For Me

I Met A Girl Cute As Can Be

We Made Out Till Ten O'Clock

She Was Good....You Know What I Mean

Tell Me More, Tell Me More, 
How Much Dough Did He Spend ?

#22  Two little Ducks

Ciao Bella

If you and your beau should ever fancy recreating the intimate al fresco scene from Lady and the Tramp (Bella Notte) with-the-best-spaghetti-in-town, there are few destinations in London to match 'Villa Bianca' on a clear warm spring night. Nestled in leafy Hampstead on a quiet cobble stone alley, the traditional maitre d' welcomes you in with the traditional ambient Roman smile, donning his crisp white two button Corleone jacket. Those who have dined at 'Diana' in Bologna will know the idea....

In a blink of an eye your table is effortlessly covered in tasty bits and bobs with VB's courtesy amuse-bouche. A cerebral sense of cluttered contentment washes over, with live music playing indoors aiding the sense of an old timers twinkling romance.

Long fingered grissini sticks, marinated olives tucked into pastry puffs and freshly baked focaccia bread with sicilian olive oil, are prominent heavyweights featuring in the relaxed chit chat and gratuitous grazing thing. From the comfort of prize ringside al fresco seats, we ordered 'Antipasti', the house speciality  of tempura battered fresh squid, accompanied by the chef's tartar sauce. 

Navigating around the temptations of a 'Primi Piatti' (to avoid rolling one another home), we headed straight to the 'Secondi Piatti', sharing the delicious home made Tagliatelle with wild Porcini Mushrooms and cream and the Grilled Sardines with garlic, rosemary, olive oil and lemon. When ingredients are as fresh and simply garnished as this, there is nothing better to tickle your taste-buds.

Unbeknown to the blogger we were hobnobbing with the stars and entertained by a vocal running commentary from our neighbouring table, featuring an elderly Warren Mitchell aka Alf Garnett, directing his chauffeur driven car up the alley from 60 paces.  Who said the PC brigade have taken over ?

Villa Bianca

BLANDFORD'S

Cabbie's Delight

'Two eggs, and a slice of toast darling'.

Keeping it Simple

Bench Warmer

His and Hers

Wooden Bench Booths

A Lady Comes Around

A bow for Blandford's

# 21  Key Of The Door

Taxi Haven

This north Marylebone institution has witnessed a few scoops, chronicles and celebs in it's time. Plus a few high ranking taxi cabbies. A daily commute of continuous traffic plods and meanders its way to Blandford's doorstep, covering all cultures and generating a gentle stream of constantly busy, without punters feeling poked or rushed. You could hang out in here all day, do your laundry, mend a radio and bake a cake and nobody would bat an eyelid.

Blandford's is one of those places you discover by chance and keep close to your chest. London's underbelly bubbling away in all its glory. It's a conversation listener sort of a place, that any script writer worth her salt would sponge dry.

Unlike most places of a greasy spoon genre, Blandford's isn't seedy or preferential and has an elegance in its manoeuvres. The wooden furniture, tables and benches are worn into place and provide a golden hue and timeless attitude. The long french cafe curtain wraps up the ambience, allowing a sense of place and secret escape. It also keeps the cold out when your inner icicles are popping a cog.

For those partial to mechanically recovered meat, this is sausage fry up heaven. Seriously good comfort eating. It might not appear at your table foaming with liquid nitrogen or warrant attendance at the Soho Food Feast but get off the grass, who cares ?

Who can be bothered banging on about sourdough and spelt when you can have processed plain white pre-sliced supermarket bread for your toast. They could even fry up Tongue-in-cheek.

There is no such thing as a flawed meal, moreover a welcome retreat from highfalutin, 'menu degustation' grandiloquence. Gordon, Fergus, Heston, sling your puffed-up butchers hooks. 

Blandford's was doing its worst while other recent cool cafe cubs were still doing wedgies on the Brit Cuisine trail.

No. There's nothing bland about Blandford's.

CAFE GOURMAND

Homemade French Food

'I Love Starting Things'  Lucien Freud

Bécher de Thé à La Menthe

Community Table

Matchstick Bulbs

Mood Lighting

# 20 One Score

Bécher de Thé

It's Valentines day, you've fluttered and swooned in slow motion over the stunning retrospective of Lucien Freud at the National Portrait Gallery and your ready for an amble and intimate refresher.

Where do you go for the perfect beaker of tea ?

Shake a tail feather down to Cafe Gourmand on Lexington Street in Soho.

This French Cafe-Bistro hang out has all you need. If your peckish, there's Coq Au Vin. Omelettes. Roast Topside of Beef Sarnie. Pork Sausage and Haricot Vert Cassoulet. French Onion Soup. Roast Belly Of Pork. Croustillant Aux Champignon. Tartine Savoyarde. Quiche du Jour. Croque Monsieur. French Apple Tart and the Pastries ........

All the ingredients to echo CG's playlist of a homemade menu du jour, featuring a remix of 'The Perfect French Trough'.

Thé du Menthe is served in elegant and functional crystal clear German-Jena beakers by the amiable, chatty French proprietaire, the friendliest of hosts on this well frequented block.

Cafe Gourmand has a lovely personality and a real sense of soul. It feels a home-from-home, cosy and sophisticated and the kind of place you would regularly meet like-minded buddies to snack and meditate over a suitably aesthetic dialogue. Lucien would have approved.

Cafe Gourmand be my Valentine.

da POLPO

Osteria decor

Florentine Paper Menu

Twin Beakers and a Cosy Carafe

# 19  Goodbye Teens

Snug and Cosy

Having already enjoyed the intimate sibling shuffle between the two popular Soho twins : polpo and polpetto, when finding ourselves down in the camping district, we chanced upon their triplet: Osteria da Polpo. Keen to pitch our grazing tent for the night, we ventured in to see what all the fuss is about.....

The secret of the current de rigueur policy for 'no reservations' is to drop in pronto and watch the queues snake around the door while you happily tuck in.

This is the work of restauranteur of the year Russell Norman, a chap whose been busy opening a little emporium of food eateries, ( Spuntino and Mishkins are part of the family) each having a unique notion and idiosyncratic setting, cleverly avoiding the ignominy of being considered a chain concept. It is easy to see how this family of Eateries has been built upon erudite success and a penchant for canny street placement. Couple this with an assured balance of modernity and familiarity and recognisable touches of elan, such as the florentine-esque paper menus, doubling as place mats.

da polpo breezes through the challenge, maintaining a comfortably relaxed attitude and deals with the bustling frenetic demands of hungry urban punters in a chilled out confident manner. Twinkling candlelights for dinner created intimate shadows, but due to the bloggers preference of old fashioned mobile apparatus, the chiaroscuro has reduced this blog to the imagination.

This polpo team are big on meatballs and offer a variety of  winning flavour concoctions. Lamb and Mint balls followed quick fire on the heels of Fennel, Curly Endive, Almonds and a Mackerel Roulette special of the day. Then followed by a chaser of Chicory, Pear and Taleggio. Yum, yum. Score.

Foolishly we didn't elect to wash down the signature 'Nutella Pizzetta' with a 'Jerry Thomas Manhattan', but the offer was there....

da Polpo has a stylish pair of legs, admittedly a bit meaty compared to Legs and Co but certainly a gratifying retreat if your out buying rambling boots.

KOYA

First Come First Served

Wall Mounted Menu Scripts

Outside bench

Hiya !

Japanese tea Ceremony

Deep Fried Tofu bedded on Cabbage Leaf

Mushroom and Walnut Paste on Udon

Nude Udon,  Tempura - Assorted Vegetable

Prawn Tempura Float

Ram Packed

Heading Home

# 18 Coming of Age

Nude L's

Favourite Places to Eat are places you tend to go back to..... hence they become destination favourites. After my 4th visit to Koya since it's word of mouth inauguration, you could say it genuinely falls into the "favourites' category.

So what's the big deal ? 

Udon. Udon a go-go. It's all about the Udon, the thick soft flour noodles with a discreet slurp soundtrack, that originate from the south of Japan.

These noodles are fast on the draw and could go head-to-head with any gung-ho gunslinger. Perfect when your feeling famished and warding off a cold winter's evening. Though fast doesn't mean at a loss of the authentic assembly and depth of flavour. The key ingredients, (stocks and sauces) are prepared slowly in advance, Udon with love. The Japanese are partial to al dente Udon and this makes sense when observing their quick consumption - to avoid a soggy wicket in the hot broth. 

If you haven't already guessed, Koya concentrates on Udon noodles (even kneading the dough on the premises with their feet- the authentic tradition) but there is much, much more than a one-trick pony with these specialists, having created tsunami waves in noodle circles. The clever bit is their low-key approach, they don't sing and dance about it, or  perform the 'haka' when you walk in. They do wear neat aprons and head scarves and generate an authentic Japanese-London hang out. Even the european staff seem to have been zapped with a Japanese essence.

The decor is just bare enough to notice all the considered details. Ercol chairs, functional accessible wall hooks, large mounted menu scripts and an APC Antwerp style graphic tile floor. The solid oak benches outside provide a welcome pit stop to shoot-the-breeze- and a chance to feel elated at the head of the Udon queue, snaking its way back past Ronnie Scotts. Another celebrant of not taking bookings, it's best to run down there once you clock off, as this place becomes ram packed, in less than fifteen minutes of opening their Noren curtains.

Koya keeps it simple, as all good specialists do and serves Hot Udon (Atsu-Atsu) , Cold Udon with hot broth (Hiya-Atsu) and  Cold udon with cold sauce (Hiya-Hiya). Frequent yelps of Hiya! Hiya! to the staff brings giggles as they say "Hiya" back and raise the bar a little higher.

Little intricate appetisers of pickled beetroot and deep fried Tofu on cabbage leaf set up the forthcoming Udon spectacular. If you don't like amazingly tasty noodles, you can relax as the Tempura is also uncontrollably good here. Try not to pinch others, no matter how tempting that seems.

There is something most attractive about a place that concentrates on one thing and does it with excellence, appealing to hungry 8 years olds as much as a retired ventriloquist or bohemian film director. 

Don't be coy, cuddle up to Koya.