Dinner for 2 with a bottle of wine: £50ish

The ish is because this was a birthday dinner (mine) and Chris treated me so I didn’t pay close attention to the bill.

I noticed Ida whilst whizzing by on a bus on my way home from a shopping trip.  It intrigued me right away because it reminded me of a typical neighborhood Brooklyn Italian restaurant.  At least it looked like one from the outside anyway.  I love eating in London (no surprise there) but I do miss the food in New York from time to time.  London has a lot of fantastic food – but small, family owned Italian restaurants where you can go and get an inexpensive, unpretentious freshly prepared Italian meal are sadly a rarity as they have been pushed out by the horrible Bella Italias and awful Pizza Expresses.  So as you can imagine I was excited to try out Ida.

The restaurant itself is cozy and welcoming.  It’s decor is definitely not slick or fabulous, but that lack of polish lends to the comfortable neighborhood restaurant vibe.  I could easily see myself popping in on a weeknight on my own with a book for a leisurely meal here.

Insalate frutti de mari

We started with seafood salad and a crostini.  The salad was very nice and fresh – it won’t win the chef any Michelin starts but it was very enjoyable.  The crostini was a scrumptious mix of pancetta, fava and herbs – delicious.

Crostini

Next we both had pastas.  Chris had a simple but lovely spaghetti with olives and I went a little more decadent with a house made ravioli stuffed with venison prosciutto which was delicious.  I should point out that Ida make all their pasta fresh which makes all the difference.  They also focus on the food of a specific Italian region every month.

Ravioli with venison prosciutto

We then shared a dish of cuttlefish and sausage with peas which was just so so.  I think at Ida the pasta dishes are the real stand outs.   And then for dessert…just kidding that would have been nuts.

This is really my favorite kind of restaurant.  Small, staffed by the owner his chef and one waitress serving lovingly prepared food to a manageable number of tables.  No multi-chain empire – just good, honest food on a human scale.

Ida is a great place for a romantic but laid back dinner that you can have in jeans.  Also good for a small group of friends (it’s not big enough for a huge party of people).  I will definitely be making this a regular stop as it is only a five minute walk from my flat but it is worth hopping on the tube for.  They have cooking classes too which I just might have to check out.

Ida
167 5th Ave
London, W10 4DT

Dinner for 3 with wine: £69.00

I get my hair done at a place on Portobello road and it is becoming something of a tradition that I meet up with friends who live right down the road for dinner afterward.  After this particular haircut we were headed to try a recently opened restaurant on Portobello called Persian Kitchen.

We had a reservation for 8:30 but when my haircut was running a little behind schedule (beauty takes time people) my friend had called the restaurant to let them know that we were going to be late and had been assured that this was not a problem.  This message was not passed on to the other waitstaff apparently.  When we walked in at 8:45 for our 8:30 reservation and asked for the table the waiter barked “And what time is it now?” – us “sorry?” – him – “Your reservation was for 8:30 – AND WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?”  The other waiter noticed the impending fracas and let his colleague know that we had actually called and he then sat us with out so much as an apology.

At this point my friends were considering leaving on principle.  I as a New Yorker was considering making an incredible scene.  But we were hungry and had gotten all excited for Persian so we decided to stay.

After this unforgivable breech of waiterly conduct I was prepared to absolutely, positively hate the restaurant and give it as scathing a review as possible.  And I should note that the obnoxious waiter became friendly and helpful only after I took my camera out to photograph the starters.

We started with a selection of mezze – Dolmeh, Sabzi Khordan and Mirza Ghasemi.  They were all quite delicious but the Mirza (eggplant with tomato and garlic) was the most interesting.

For my main I had the Koobideh – grilled minced lamb.  It was very tasty.  The meat was moist and well seasoned – grilled just right.  The rice was also delicious – buttery and fluffy.  But what the hell is going on with that “salad” on the left hand side of the plate?  Iceberg lettuce is not a food – not in my book and the whole dish was seriously letdown by its presence and the cold, tasteless tomato wedges sitting on top of it.  Put the whole disj on a smaller plate and just give me cucumbers or something – iceberg lettuce is bleh. This restaurant is clearly trying to go upscale but the iceberg belies kebab shop roots.

Another main dish was a fantastic lamb and aubergine stew called Gheimeh Bademjan.  It was delicious and is definitely worth trying.

We also had several deserts – Faloodeh and Zoolbia Bamieh which were very nice.  The second being given to us on the house – mostly because the waiter thought he had offended some important food writer.

I hesitate to recommend this place because while the food was really very good (iceberg aside) – our greeting was seriously unforgivable – especially for a new restaurant trying to build a customer base.  I probably would not go out of my way to go again entirely because of that bad first impression.  I will probably order takeaway because they deliver to my area and the food was very good – but I would not recommend coming all the way across London to be treated poorly by a waiter.  I am sure you can find that experience much closer to home.

Anar Persian Kitchen
349 Portobello Road
London, W10 5SA

Dinner for 2 with copious amounts of Obe beer: £75.00

Korean BBQ is to me – and I know many will disagree – the best BBQ that there ever was.  In fact since it is nigh impossible to get even remotely authentic Southern BBQ in New York City (where I am from) I would have to say that Korean is the closest my hometown has to a local BBQ culture.  I love it and I am amazed that its just not more common here in London.  So anytime I have the chance to trick someone into going out for Korean food with me (this time it was a date) I jump at the chance.

Koba is pretty small so if you’re expecting anything resembling one of the Manhattan/Queens style hangar sized BBQ palaces you’ll be dissapointed.  I’d think the biggest party you could possibly get away with is 8 people comfortably around a table.  Also if you want to sit and stare deeply into someone’s eyes its a bit of a stretch as the tables have to be big enough to accommodate a grill and an extraction hood.  Both myself and my date each smacked our heads into the extraction hood over the table during the meal.

The one major disappointment I have with all Korean restaurants here in London so far is that you have to order and pay for your namool – little dishes of most often pickled things.  In NYC at any Korean restaurant they are complimentary and are often a real highlight as you get a chance to try all sorts of things you might be scared to order off of a menu.  For example I never knew that I loved dry shredded squid until I was served a small dish of it once.

Assorted Kimchi/Pickles

We started with a selection of kimchi which were absolutely fine though quite a bit less spicy than usual.  I think this is a case of dumbing things down for a Western palette.  But they were still spicy enough to get your appetite going.

mmmmm.....Ddukbokki

Next we had Pajun – a pancake with seafood and spring onions (not pictured) which was yummy.  And ddukbokki – rice and fish cakes in spicy sauce – one of my absolute favorites .  I cannot explain my obsession with this particular dish.  Its full of all sorts of strange textures and flavors and I just love love love it.  Their version was pretty good – not nearly the best I’ve had – but pretty good.

Kalbi

The main event is of course the meat and I cannot express to you how delicious the meat is.  I don’t know what it is that Korean chefs do to make it all taste so good but whatever it is it works.  We had a selection starting with Kalbi – marinated beef spare rib.  The marinade is slightly sweet and the beef was incredibly tender.

Next up was daeji bulgogi (not pictured) which is spicy pork – ridiculously good.  And last we had prawns which were not marinated and which were so fresh and sweet that they really didn’t need any sauce at all.

It was a fabulous meal and I am already plotting to go back. I am pretty sure my date liked it too.

Koba
11 Rathbone Street
London W1T 1NA

Dinner with lots of wine: Jenelle and Tom paid! (but expect to pay around £50)

Man I love the name of this restaurant. I’ve giggled every time I walked by it for about a year on my to and from other meals. I giggled again when I was recently invited to attend a birthday dinner there for a person I’d never met.  The birthday girl who turned out be named Yvette, also turned out to be a lot of fun and didn’t mind having a total stranger celebrate with her.

The restaurant itself is decorated in an odd form of minimalism – black walls, bench seats, low lighting.  It all works well though as even though the tables are fairly close together you don’t really notice the other diners.  That or the 2 Manhattans I’d had before dinner at Beach Blanket Babylon made me completely oblivious to the other patrons.

Before I realized that my friends were going to spring for the meal I decided to go for a completely decadent experience starting with smoke salmon with blini and creme fraiche.

Smoked salmon with blini

The salmon was nice – nothing new or earth shattering – just decent smoked salmon.  The creme fraiche was fresh.  The blini however was too big and a wee bit dry.  I think a couple of smaller blini would have been better.  You can see the size of that thing relative to the lemon wedge – it was enormous.  And I’m not quite sure what the green squizzle was in the bottom corner of the plate – there wasn’t enough of it to add any significant flavor to the dish or to moisten the blini so I ignored it.

It was fine but it wasn’t quite the decadence I was after.  Luckily I had a plate of yummy happiness on the way.

Now I am not a big beef eater.  I can probably count the number of times I eat steak in a year on one hand.  When I do eat a steak though I have very high standards and very specific requirements.  I like my steak black and blue.  This means that my steak should have a good deep sear on the outside – all caramelized and delicious – while the center should be uncooked.  When I order a steak and ask for it black and blue and the waiter has no idea what that means – I immediately change my order to nearest vegetarian option.

Ribeye black and blue

The waiter at Bloody French nodded his head approvingly at my request for black and blue so I was confident that I would in fact be enjoying a good properly cooked steak.

From the photo above (where a bite or two has gone missing) you can see that my steak was well seared on the outside (not as black as I had hoped for but still very good) and is pink pink pink on the inside (perfect).  Smothered in peppercorns and butter the steak was just lovely.  The frites were very good as well.  There’s a pot of excellent house made mayonnaise somewhere outside of the frame that was also making me very happy.

My friend Tom also had the steak. He had it cooked medium I think (wuss) and seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.

Next time I crave a steak I will be heading back here.

Bloody French
149 Westbourne Grove
Notting Hill, London
W11 2RS

Dinner for 3 with several beers: £60

This meal began with an email from Inge (of whom I have written before and who’s taste in food is impeccable) saying that she and Jackie had eaten in a Szechuan restaurant and had thought of me and would I like to join them for a meal.  Silly question really.

When I arrived Inge was running a little late so Jackie and I started off with some beers and lamb shashlik which I’ve never seen on a Szechuan menu before. But regardless of its authenticity to the Szechuan region of China you should definitely order if you should ever eat here because it is amazing.  It was so amazing that I was not at all concerned about it being served on a child’s plastic Christmas themed plate.  It could have arrived in a shoe I still would have eaten it.

Lamb Shashlik

We opted to skip any other starters and ordered three mains instead.  The first was aubergine with peppers and potatoes in a garlic sauce.  It was divine.  This is not a dish to order on a first date however as all three of us absolutely reeked of garlic for quite some time after the meal.

Aubergine with peppers and potatoes in garlic sauce

Next was spicy beef with chili.  I had hoped that the dish would melt my face off but it was surprisingly mild.  I wouldn’t order it again if only for the fact that it was just fine – but not fantastic.

Chili Crab

My favorite dish of the evening was their version of chili crab.  This is not the chili crab you would get in Singapore.  I.e. its not saucy.  It is a pungent and fragrant dish of deep fried crab smothered in whole szechuan peppercorns and dried chilis.  The perfume of the dish was incredible.

The restaurant no longer has only 2 menus in English – they have plenty now and the service was quite a bit friendlier than I had expected.  I would still get there early as there was a line out the door by the time we were done with our meal.

Gourmet San
261 Bethnal Green Rd
London, E2 6