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.

LOUIS PASTRY AND TEA ROOM

Paint job echoing Louis' Blue and Gold Rolls Royce

The window flocks them in

Step this way

Essential Bits and Bobs

Dress Code

Inner Sanctum

Untouched Beauty

Sugar Lump Mountain

Something from the Hot Plate Sir ?

Hand Ledger

# 17 Dancing Queen

So You Like Cake ?

Well eat this. 

There is a secret gem of a Hungarian tea room nestled in the leafy throws of Hampstead village, who serve cake on tray stilts as if Cake as we know it has gone out of fashion.  

Walk on in and take a pew in a beautifully preserved rich wood panelled room with Chesterfield style leather seating and watch the action unfold before you. Aprons shuffle behind clandestine theatre-esque velvet curtains and the sense of concealment sets the tone for a show stopping spectacular.

Like a mini stage set, fellow diners are mesmerising - some in a decidedly geriatric but sharp as a button fashion - busily discussing the topics of the day. 

When the cakes arrive a discernible hush pings around the room and all eyes are on the lucky table. The choice of cake is so extensive and resplendent you can see the panic set in, as punters grapple with their taste-buds trying to make the final decision.

Washed down with a cuppa served in the queens own silver, and poured into floral patterned bone china, it really doesn't get any better than this.

Surprisingly in such a beautiful tea house, in such an affluent borough you might expect hefty prices, you couldn't be more mistaken, as orders are boxed and bowed for less than the five shillings you might find in the Artful Dodger's silk purse.

Of course like any good fish and chip shop it is not the price that wins the day but the steady flow of customers who provide rich reward to any savvy business; as can be seen by the Louis gold and blue Rolls Royce parked outside whose spray job mirrors the facade of the tea room. Nice touch.

It can get chock-a-block so pick your time to visit this unique cake emporium carefully. 

www.ofcourseLouisdonothaveawebsite.com

NOPI

Nopi Night & Day

Clean, Crisp White & Antique Gold

Apron Attendant

Golden Brass Table Skirting

Bringing The Goody Bag Straight To Your Table

The little round golden circle

The Interior Hub At Dusk

Flowering Bloom

The beautiful Extra White Beer

Minimal but perfectly formed

Spiced Gurnard wrapped in banana leaf, pineapple sambal

Some sort of Crazy delicious

Caramel and roasted peanut ice cream, mini tub of chocolate sauce

#16 Sweet Sixteen

Small And Perfectly Formed

When our fun loving friends Deb + Nico took us out to 'New Flavour' halfway down Dominion road in Auckland, we knew their taste buds were more than halfway polished.

The Mutton Birds - Halfway Down Dominion Road

So confident where we, of their on-the-pulse recommendations, when they suggested we check out Otollenghi's NOPI - when back in London time - we made a beeline for Yotam's hive.

Far out. What a cosseting, elegant, welcome-back into London's urban plateau, Nopi provided; with a sense of refined tranquility, sheltered from the hurly burly central hub district of the "big smoke". Inside the cleverly pitched interior, with pristine white painted brick and tiled walls, spacious opaque marble flooring, minimal art and pendulant golden-glow brass fixtures, it converged to feel like a modernists backdrop of Versailles. The golden circle brand insignia is a clever touch and pops up in various subtle guises.

Sitting up at the stunning bar counter was a treat for the senses and the bar service was just as it should be, intuitively knowing when to butt in and when to pour. We sampled a delicious extra white beer, 'Vedett' with slice of lemon and to follow a dreamy bottle of aromatic French mountain alps wine from the cellar. 

The venue is well represented with all levels of entendant staff eager to please and fulfil the essence of going out for dinner. The menu changes frequently as validated by the lovely printed press style dinner menu card, each one updated daily. The Nopi cuisine is a sort of high brow intellectual tapas touching on Moroccan, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Asian influences. It tastes and looks particularly brilliant.... in a how do they think up these innovative ideas, kind of way.

The plates arrive intermittently with just the right level of frequency. Conversation flows easily with the savvy waiters. A plate of Cauliflower, chilli and coconut fritters with lime yoghurt, knocked knees with Golden and red beet, quince and caramelised macadamias. Spiced gurnard wrapped in banana leaf, pineapple sambal could have washed up tidal alongside the Seared prawns , tomato butter, fennel, olives and Pernod. Baloo would have a field day feeding these bear necessities to the man-cub Mowgli.

Seared lamb cannon, celeriac and barberry salad, with green chilli sauce was served fresh on the heels of Pork belly, caramelised Nashi pear, grape mustard jus. Nopi informally recommends 3 dishes per person and you certainly will feel embarrassingly stuffed on 'crazy delicious' if you are happy to oblige. For pud we shared a Caramel, and Roasted Peanut Ice Cream with Tub of Chocolate Sauce. With a description like that, there is no need to dither on about how good it was. Just a contented nod is sufficient. Especially when accompanied by a glass of dessert wine from Chateau du Levant, Sauternes. Perfect....

Award winning food is all about the ambience, taste, texture, smell and aesthetic presentation. Nopi covers all the bases and is somewhere you really do want to go back to. It's price point sets it out - for most of the crowd - as an occasional treat dinner and even if you gulp, it is worth every penny.

If your not staying in to play Jenga, pop down to Nopi, you won't be disappointed.

http://www.nopi-restaurant.com/