Brawn

Brawn is the sister restaurant of Terroir. It also the word for pig head paté.

It is on Columbia road (known for its Sunday flower market) and is a great place to gather with friends while drinking (red) wine and nibbling on piggies.

Food is good for a wine bar, even if some dishes look over-priced, like the Saucisse Seche that cost more or less £1 a slice...hhu huu. I remember the pig trotter was very heavy, but what could I expect when ordering that?

Tapas portions are popular these days, and are proposed on many non Spanish restaurant menus. Brawn seems to be in this category since the size of the dishes are more suited to be shared with friends than eaten as starters or mains.

Saucisse seche

Deep-fried artichokes

Pig trotter

Confit rabbit

Peas and girolles risotto

Since we went there last August I don't remember how much we paid...but you can have an idea by looking at the menu below.

Life

Life is a discret Japanese bar and restaurant on Old street. As the massive wooden front door is always closed it is easy to miss the place. Inside, there is a bar on the right, and a dining room on the left with a few scattered tables.

We had dinner there with M. and R., a Japanese-French couple who got married in Tokyo in August (congratulations guys!). As we went there before the wedding, the bride-to-be ordered a tofu salad, to be able to breathe in her wedding kimono. The rest of us ordered some teriyaki and sushi sets with no guilt.

Tofu salad

Prawn and vegetables tempura

Salmon and tuna sashimi

Chicken teriyaki

Salmon teriyaki

Sushi and rolls platter

Fresh fruits and matcha creme brulee

Fish was fresh, the tempura batter was crisp, and the teriyaki marinade was well balanced.The matcha creme brulée was a nice combination to be tried at home (now that I have my torch it should be easy).


Cost: Teriyaki or Tempura course: £25, Sushi course: £30 (dinner menu) including:
2 appetizers, miso soup, 1 main (Chicken or Salmon Teriyaki or assorted tempura or assorted sushi), and dessert

Polpo

Two years after opening, Polpo still enjoys the buzz that makes people queue for one hour to get a table. The no-reservation policy is certainly a very clever strategic decision in this sense, as customers feel like they are the happy fews who manage to get in this hip place. Polpo is not a pretentious place though, it has a rustic styles that gives it an effortless cool.

As Polpo serves tapas portion of Italian food, at reasonable prices, it was the perfect place for a girls night out dinner with L. and N. While waiting we had a bottle of Sylvaner (Valle Isarco 2008, £33) at the bar, not so great.

We ordered two appetizers which were delicious but so tiny that it was difficult to share them.

Left: Artichoke & prosciutto, right: Fennel salami & pickled radicchio grissino

The rest of our order followed quickly. The dishes we liked most were the pizzetas, the cuttlefish risotto and the polpette. We liked less the runner beans with parmesan, and the scallop dish which were rather bland.

Pizzetta bianca

Spinach, Parmesan & soft egg pizzetta

Cuttlefish and ink risotto, gremolata

Polpette

Grilled polenta

Runner beans and pamesan

Scallops, garden peas and bacon

The affogato al caffe is simply an expresso with a scop of vanilla ice cream: a great and simple way to finish a meal. The flourless almond cake was good as well but the roasted peach was too sweet.

left: Affogato al caffè, top:roasted peach, right:flourless orange and almond cake,
mascarpone

Cost: £100 for 3 with 1 bottle of white wine
£1-£2 for small appetizers, £5-£8 per dish (tapas size)

Sakura

As I had a craving for sashimi, I asked R. to take me to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. We went to Sakura on Conduit street and were welcomed by  four or five "Irasshaimase!". R. spotted a real tv guy at the table next to us. He looked showbizy indeed with his orange tan, but I did not know him and don't remember his name.

Green tea

We had a platter a sashimi to share, and there is not much to say except that the fish was very fresh.

Sashimi

As the weather was cold and rainy, as it often is during the British summer, I had a hot noodle soup. The broth tasted good, as well as the finely sliced pork belly but the ramen noodles were not firm enough to my taste.

Ramen noodles with pork soup

R. has a very healthy Japanese summer salad. It was a platter of shredded omelet, cucumber, radish, cooked ham, and fish stick with cold noodles. Very fresh and tasty.

Japanese salad

Cost: less than £10 for a noodle soup, £10-£20 for lunch set / sushi set

Royal China Club

I love Chinese small eats and when I am in China I can't help myself stopping at each shop or food cart to try new stuff. My favourites small eats are zongzi and xiao long bao but I have never found good enough versions of any of these in London or Paris. Many dim sum eateries in London offer xiao long bao but they are no match to the ones I used to have when I was a child. I remember my cousin's husband waking up early in the morning and cycling to the best xiao long bao shop in Suzhou to get me some for breakfast. That was a good time. Who would do that for me today? Certainly not R., for whom the only valid reason to get up earlier in the morning is to make a Fantasy Football transfer. 

I like also all sorts of dim sum, and these can be easily found in London. For a noisy experience you can go to one of the many Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. But if you want to have dim sum in a more refined environment, Royal China Club in Baker street is a good choice. I went there with L. and N. and we had a good "pétage de bide" session. I had been to Royal China previously with L. and Royal China Club is one notch above its sister restaurant, in terms of service and food quality.

I don't remember the name of every dim sum but they were all very good.  I had never had seafood xiao long bao before and I prefer when the filing is made with pork mince. We particularly enjoyed the chives dumplings, the spinach dumplings, the sticky rice, the rice noodle rolls and the mango and sticky rice pudding. Overall it was a very nice dim sum brunch, that we washed down with plenty of jasmine tea.

Char siu bao

Chives dumplings

Seafood xiao long bao

Chinese broccoli

Deep-fried soft shell crab

Beijing style fried jiao zi

Sticky rice

Cheong fun /rice noodle rolls

Baked puff rolls

Spinach and shrimp dumplings

Boiled dumplings in a hot sauce

Mango pudding and black sticky rice

The pricing was strange. A basket of 3 dumplings was £3-£5 but one sticky rice was £8. The plate of Chinese broccoli came also at a surpringly high price of £9.

Cost: 33£ pp with tea and sparkling water