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Byron at the Intrepid Fox, Soho

 
Byron at The Intrepid Fox
97 Wardour Street
W1F 0UD

Date of Last Visit: Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Victims: Mireia, John

The Damage: £12 or so each?

The Background: So it's Day 2 of my photography class and again, I get to pick the lunch place. Fantastic. So Byron's it is. I've been craving a burger since my fantastic example at Rockit in Chicago earlier in the month--19 very well-spent dollars worth of Kobe beef. (Brief Chicago round-up coming up. Don't worry--won't bore you with multiple single posts. I'm going to do one big summary.)

The Entrance: Bryron at The Intrepid Fox is NOT fast food. We are shown to a table and given a menu and after what seems like hours later, someone finally comes to take our order.

Then, after what seems like even more hours later but was only 20 minutes (still longer than I expected), our food finally arrives. Burgers for me and John. Salad for Mireia. (She's so good.)

And the burger is GOOD. Really good. Perfect medium. Great flavor. Perhaps the only fault is that the bun just isn't toasted enough for me. By the end of my burger, I'm holding a bit of a soggy, bready mess. But you know what? I really didn't mind.

The Verdict: Cheaper than The Hawsmoor burger. Juicier. More informal. Good times, but still no American cheese. Seriously...my kingdom for some Kraft Singles!

Mooli's, Soho

 
Mooli's
50 Frith Street
W1D 4SQ (They need to capitalize on their Foursquare postcode!)

Date of Last Visit: Saturday, February 20th, 2010

The Victims: Nigel, John

The Damage: CHEAP. Like £6 or £7? (With just tap water, happily provided.)

The Background: My friend Mireia and I have been taking some photography classes at the London School of Photography. Let's hope it rubs off. During our intro course, I kept trying to get her and our other friend Larry to come out to dinner with me every night after class. Denied! Too tired, too busy. (To be fair, so was I. Dinner always sounded great at 6:30 p.m. But after three hours of class, I just wanted to go home.)

Luckily during our weekend course, I found some willing victims, and suggested to John and Nigel that we check out Mooli's during our lunch break. (Mireia had to zip off to a fashion show, where her champagne Champagne Penet Chardonnet was being served.)

 
Mooli's is bright and fun and cheerful. So too are the staff, who applauded my "advanced" selection of the mini goat mooli. Why goat is not more popular, I don't know. At some point last year, I declared 2009 the Year of the Goat, but it never came to fruition. Maybe that will happen this year. Friends, embrace goat. It's delicious. (I've just checked the Mooli's Web site and there's a big announcement strapped across it...The goat mooli is now available! See...all the cool kids obviously like it.)

I round out my order with a pork mooli.

The Food: I have no clue what was in the goat Mooli. Besides for the goat. But whatever it was, it was freaking delicious. The pork was good too, but simply not as delicious. (And it was a bit messier, which was no one's fault but mine.)

John and Nigel--who I don't even know--kept saying how cool the place was and how good the food is and what a great choice this was.

And I agree.

The Verdict: Love Mooli's! Love having two great meals withing 24 hours. (Kikuchi and here.) Food gods, smiling upon me.

Kikuchi, Tottenham Court

 
Kikuchi
14 Hanway Street
W1P 9DD

Date of Last Visit: Friday, February 19th

The Victim: Rutton

The Damage: Uh, £70 each. Blame the sake.

The Background: I haven't seen Rutton since the wedding. HIS wedding. So we make plans to meet up. I think maybe Roka, but something in me wants something less "all that." I just want sushi. I don't want pretty cocktails. I also want to give Rutton shit for putting me at the singles' table at his wedding. The single GIRLS' table. WTF?

The Arrival: Irasshaimase!!! Many times over. I've picked the right place. I'm shown our table and try to order a drink. There's a language barrier. I love Kikuchi already. Eventually, a beer arrives.

 
The Food: There was a lot of it, and I didn't take pictures of everything. I liked the tempura, even the mushrooms. (New readers: I generally don't like mushrooms. Or grapefruit. But luckily, there was no grapefruit here.) Was not the hugest fan of the chicken yakitori, but I think that's just because I don't really like working for my food. Loved the gomae. And the cod.

 
And then there was the sushi, and lovely it was. I went straight for the mackeral. Fresh. Generous cuts. Perfect.

Why I Came Here: Nuno told me to.

The Verdict: Loved, loved, loved Kikuchi. And they gave me a voucher for my next visit! You know I'm a sucker.

Guerrila Burgers, Marylebone

Guerilla Burgers
35 James Street
W1U 1EA

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, February 18th, 2010

The Victim: Niamh

The Damage: Free to those who RSVPd.

The Background: Here is something you should know about me. I can never remember how to spell "occasionally." Or "sandwich." And, apparently, "guerilla." I didn't know about "guerilla" until recently, when I tried and retried starting a post about London's latest burger offering, Guerilla Burgers. Guerilla. Guerilla. Guerilla. One R. Two Ls. I will try to remember. Unless Guerilla Burgers makes me forget.

I do like a good burger. I'm American, after all. So when the very social-media savvy Guerilla Burgers popped up on Twitter and promised burgers AND fish tacos, well, I couldn't not respond to their oh-so-tempting offer. (There was no champagne involved. But there was plenty of wine.) So I did RSVP. And found myself at a soft-launch-type event, surrounded by many others who had been lured in by the promise of good (and, well, free) burgers.

 
Buns, not guns! Power to the patty! Gosh darnit, but I really wanted to like the place based on the decor alone. Badly. And after meeting our charming Canadian server as well as the woman behind Guerilla Burgers' Twitter account, I wanted to like them even more. The staff here are friendly, knowledgeable, and nice. (And kudos to our server for recommending that we mix the chipotle tabasco with the mayo. That was pretty fantastic.)

On this evening, we were treated to free chips--both crinkle cut and sweet potato--and free mini-burgers. And free wine. And free margaritas. There was a lot of free stuff. I think we could have even had free dessert if we wanted to.

 
The burgers were pretty cute. I wanted to like them. I really wanted to like them a lot. They get points for presentation and concept. (Although maybe the mini burger was the hors d'oeuvres--something else I can't spell--of 2007.) 

So you can probably guess what happened. I didn't like the burgers. They were dry. They were hard. They lacked flavor.

But they were free. There was that. (Should free food taste better because it's free? Or is this just an accident waiting to happen?)

On the other hand, I liked the sweet potato fries. Being partly Floridian, I eat a lot of sweet potatoes. I don't think they get enough table time in this country. So I was glad to see the sweet potato fries on the menu at Guerilla Burgers and happily polished off the bowl. (Sorry, Niamh.)

The crinkle cut fries were another story, however. These were limp specimens. But maybe I ate too many Nathan's fries as a kid. So I had to remind myself as I downed another glass of free wine...they were free.

The Verdict: There's a lot to like about Guerilla Burgers. The location is great. The concept is cool. The staff are lovely. (Long may they stay that way!) So I will give this another shot, even when it's not free. (That was me trying to be funny, for all you out there who take me too seriously.) But my initial impression, on a night it was all free was that the mini burgers were not as enjoyable as I was hoping. But at least I can remember how to spell "guerilla" now.

Ms. Marmite Lover's, Kilburn

Ms. Marmite Lover's
Kilburn
London

Date of Last Visit: Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

The Victim: Me and a bunch of people I've never met before

The Damage: £30

The Background: Ages ago, I told Ms. Marmite Lover that I'd totally come by the Underground Restaurant if she ever held a singles' night. 

I try to stay true to my word. So when I heard Ms. Marmite Lover was having an Anti-Valentine's Day party for all the singletons this year, I bought myself a ticket. And that's the funny thing about the Internet. I figured Ms. Marmite Lover would see my name on the list and think, "Oh, Krista's coming!"

But I forget that there are probably lots of other people named Krista out there. And Ms. Marmite Lover doesn't know my last name.

And so as it turned out, my presence was (I hope) a very pleasant surprise.

 
Ms. Marmite Lover's abode was also a pleasant surprise. I really dug her flat. And her plates. A lot. Very cool. I thought her daughter was a riot. And I liked how we were greeted with a glass of cider upon arrival.

What I didn't like, however, was
the
lack
of
men.

As Ms. Marmite herself states in her wrap-up post, there were 17 girls. 3 guys. Gentlemen, really. I mean...really! This could have been your night! And two of those guys...they were more on a reconnaissance mission than anything. (The details are hazy but I think one of them admitted to having a girlfriend?) They're opening their own underground restaurant in Dalston (Called 99). So my hopes of Ms. Marmite Lover introducing me to my future husband...dashed. (In a last minute bid to help, I e-mailed every single single male I know in London and tried to get them to come. No dice. Their loss!)

That being said, us 17 girls and 3 guys made the most of it. We bonded over Foursquare. And social media. And underground restaurants. And when some guests split immediately after dinner, we drank the rest of their wine. The three men rotated tables like at a bad speed-dating party. (Are there ever any good speed-dating parties?)

 
The Menu: As it was Shrove Tuesday, it was all pancakes. This is not an American thing, this pancakes on Tuesday thing. (I had to turn to Wikipedia for the answer: Pancakes and doughnuts are associated with the day preceding Lent because they were a way to use up rich foodstuffs such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent.

We started off with smoked salmon and blini. As Ms. Marmite Lover notes on her own blog, the blini were particularly fluffy. Well done.

 
This was followed by a cheese galette, which had been baked in the oven. I could have had a 2nd one of these but felt weird asking for reinforcements.

 
Some lovely heart-shaped cheese. Where the heck do you buy heart-shaped cheese in this city?

And then there was a Crepes Suzette, but my photo didn't turn out so you will have to imagine it.

The Verdict: At the end of the day, I'm glad I went to Ms. Marmite Lover's. She's a great hostess and her kitchen is fab, as are her plates. Bummer about the guys though.

Pizza East, Shoreditch

 
Pizza East
56 Shoreditch High Street
London E1 6JJ

Date of Last Visit: Friday,  January 29th

The Victims: Feathers, Jen, Niculie

The Damage: £10ish each

The Background: On Fridays, if I do go out for lunch, I refuse to go out for a 1 p.m. booking. Because here's what happens. EVERYONE goes out for Friday lunch. At 1 p.m. They sit down, they chat. Maybe they order some drinks. And then they all put their orders in between 1:10 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. which means that the kitchen gets slammed and you don't see your food until at least 1:45 p.m.

If it's a Friday booking, I'll only do 12:45 p.m. Beat the crowd by 15 minutes, you know?

So it was that we found ourselves at Pizza East on the last Friday in January. Promptly at 12:45 p.m. And you know, I didn't expect to like the inside as much as I did. This is a pretty cool space. Check out the front deli area. A little retro modern...

Pizza East is also pretty massive. Caterer Search says that on a busy night, they can do 600 covers. The restaurant seats 200. I don't mind massive, as long as you have a good product. And I think Pizza East is off to a pretty good start in that respect.

 
Based on some recommendations from the friendly folks on Twitter, I went for the spicy sausage and sprouting broccoli pizza. Liked it. Big time. Except for maybe the too puffy crust. I left a lot of the crust behind. Carbs are evil anyhow. The sausage was spicy, as advertised. But I've never been quite sure what "sprouting" broccoli means so I can't comment there.

The Verdict: I really liked the space at Pizza East. (Sucker for subway tile, sorry.) My one pizza was pretty good too. I'd go back here. Even just to check out the deli and drink some of the "wine on tap" business.

Civet Cat Club, Newington Green

 
Civet Cat Club
Newington Green

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Victims: Feathers, Jen, Kellie, and many others

The Damage: £30 each, plus BYOB

The Background: Ages ago, Tess from The Civet Cat Club suggested I drop by. You might know how I feel about invites and everything that goes along with them. So part of me was in no rush to drop by, but part of me was still suitably intrigued. Especially because I could more or less take a bus to the Civet Cat Club. I mean, I'd still have to walk, but it wasn't in Kensington or anything. It was my side of town. Points.

And it was underground. And mysterious.

So combine that with the needs for a girls' night, and we four (Yanks, all of us) found ourselves in Newington Green one Thursday evening. Feathers and Jen totally knew what we were up to (i.e., underground supper club). Kellie just thought we were going out to a restaurant. (And as such, she must have thought I was a total bitch when I emailed the gang on Wednesday telling everyone that if they were going to back out, they needed to let me know asap because I knew the restaurant was going to have to buy ingredients for us.)

The Entrance: Totally retro-modern. I could live here. Easily. In fact, I'd like to move it. Is this okay?  Honestly, we were all salivating over furniture, not food, upon arrival.

Our hostess showed us to our table--a table for eight--and we introduced ourselves to our fellow dinner companions. Two couples who didn't know each other or us. But hey, we were mostly all on Twitter, so of course we exchanged contact details.

Up first is salmon sashimi with wasabi, shallot crunch, and a lotus root crisp. I liked the wasabi cream. (And the salmon of course.) Less a fan of the lotus root, but I think that's more a generality. I also like my new iPhone, as you can see in the photo. I can't let it out of my sight. I believe I'd had it for about 3 days at this point.

 
Star anise and mussel broth with sourdough bread...really luscious broth. Good for scooping up with the bread. Star anise was just a lingering flavor...not overpowering, which we had worried about after reading the menu.

 
Best dish of the night in my opinion...mackerel with a spicy peanut noodle salad. I love mackerel. I love peanuts. And I'm a sucker for lime. So this all triangulated for me. Perfectly so. Feathers begged me to get the recipe afterwards. (But she must have been very drunk because when I produced said recipe, she said, "I wanted this???  Honestly no idea what I wrote on that comment card I was so drunk!  LOL.  Can't wait to try though it might stink up the house." Ungrateful wretch, isn't she?)

What Feathers Said: The next day, Feathers sent an e-mail to all her girlfriends around the world (she had many friends in far away places)--all about the Civet Cat Club. I kid you not. Here is what she had to say, in her own words:

Thanks to Krista for inviting Kellie, Jen and me to a secret supper club.  The idea of a supper club is someone creates a restaurant for the night, takes a small number of reservations, and a chef gets to try out a menu. [NB: I don't exactly agree with this definition, but it's Feathers' and we'll let it rest.] In this case the person hosting does a supperclub at their home about once a month. The home was amazing. The whole house was perfectly decorated with fabulous modern design. There was a vaulting horse in the living room and some random stuffed animals-like taxidermy stuffed. It sounds odd but was sooo cool. 

 

So we get there at 7:30 and head up to the top floor which is an amazing open kitchen with a deck off it.  They have set up three tables-one of 8 and one 5 and one 4. Krista ensured we go the big table. [NB: I didn't do anything to get us on the big table.] They put the four girls in the middle and we had a couple on either end. I think half the reason we had fun was both couples were cool. I have never laughed so hard in my whole life. Oh and it was BYOB and we did bring a lot so that helped. At one point people were trying to talk to people at the other end of the table so we developed a rotation so everyone would get to talk to new people. It was like speed dating for friends. It started out interesting talking about social media and books we have read and then at the end of the night Jen was telling them about the Wiener Circle in Chicago and everyone was laughing so hard all the other tables were staring. I apologized to the Englishman next to me and said sorry this happens a lot when you have Americans at dinner and I know the English stare so you must be embarrassed.  He said, "Oh no!  They are staring because they are jealous we are having more fun. It's great."  I never thought of it that way.  :-) 

 

And the food. It was amazing. I was not so excited about the menu.  I don't like star anise, not a fan of lychee and wasn't sure about mackerel. It was all fabulous!!!  Still dreaming about the mackerel in peanut noodles (menu attached). [NB: It's not attached.] There was a slight issue with the fish smoking up the kitchen and we had to open windows but other than that it was fine. 

 

So that is my tale of the secret supper club in London. I want to go to another but don't know how it can live up to last night. I didn't get home until midnight and am a bit hungover today but all worth it.

 
The Dessert: (Back to regularly scheduled programming.) You know I love lemon so I can't possibly write anything that's not biased. And the deep-fried lychee? I was totally okay with that. (Normally not a huge lychee fan.)

The Verdict: Unbelievably amazingly good time at The Civet Cat Club. Great food, great dinner companions. Much fun had by all. Did not want the night to end. Would do it again in a heartbeat. You should go. Contact the Civet Cat Club now and book your table!

Itadaki Zen, Kings Cross

 
Itadaki Zen
139 King's Cross Road
WC1X 9BJ 

Date of Last Visit:  Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

The Victim: Reiko

The Damage: £35 each

The Background: You might remember that I was in Cardiff towards the end of November. At some point, after the Australia-Wales Rugby Match, we ended up in a random Malaysian restaurant. (Never wrote about it, sorry!) I was with Craig and his wife Leanne. Craig leaves to go to the men's room and Leanne and I are sitting chatting. I make a comment about the people waving Australian flags in the restaurant. (Craig and Leanne are from Downunder.) Leanne follows my gaze and yells, "Oh my God! That's my cousin!

Yes, she ran into her cousin Taman at a random Malaysian restaurant in Cardiff. He was with his girlfriend Reiko, and we all got to chatting over the rest of our meals.

I told Reiko about my blog and my trip to Tokyo in 2008 and she pronounced herself a willing victim for any meal. So it was that we found ourselves at Itadaki Zen in King's Cross on a Wednesday night in January. This was Reiko's choice, and I was intrigued. It's a vegetarian Japanese restaurant, and I'd never heard of it. Never. I like never hearing about places.

But then of course, the week before we're supposed to go to Itadaki Zen, what happens? Time Out runs this review. I was kinda bummed. Mainly because I wanted to go someplace I knew NOTHING about. But I couldn't not read Guy Diamond's review.

The Entrance: Itadaki Zen is all light wood and quiet. They had an architect in from Japan who designed the space, and apparently, he thought people would never eat in groups of three or four because he built this huge mega-wide bar down the side of the room. Not so good. I was glad it was just me and Reiko.

 
The Food: I put Reiko in charge. I don't know what I'm doing. Reiko had the chef brought out so we could all chat. Or, well, that Reiko and the chef could chat because it was all in Japanese. So we started with the vegetable sushi and you know what, I wasn't so impressed. Vegetable sushi is boring. (And high-margin.) Luckily, I snagged the fried tofu bit.

 
The spinach and tofu, on the other hand, I really enjoyed. Dense and savory. I could have had more of this.

 
The beans...I could have passed on these. I'm not exactly sure what they were--soybeans of some sort. But they didn't talk to me. At the end, this was the only dish we didn't finish.

 
So I was worried about the agedashi tofu because Guy Diamond in Time Out said "...mirin and shoyu (soy sauce) broth called tsuyu – should have intense flavours to complement the delicate tofu, but this version disappointingly lacked great depth." But I actually thought this was one of the better examples of agedashi tofu that I've ever had. Normally, I find the broth too watery and lacking flavor, but I thought this one was pretty good.

 
I really liked the spring rolls. A lot. Eons later and I'm still thinking about them. I would tell you more but I've written this post like three times now because Typepad and my computer are not getting along at the moment. So I'm kinda highly annoyed.

 
Then there was the tempura. The carrot and onion mish-mash was pretty fantastic. The rest was good, but would have been better with the tempura dipping sauce I'm used to. (At Itadaki Zen, the tempura is served with just the salt. I don't know enough about dipping sauce vs. salt to comment.) Once this stuff was cold...well, not so great. (In comparison to say, cold fried chicken, which only seems to taste better the next day!)

 
And here's the sesame pudding. I'm a sucker for anything sesame but I can see many people not liking this. But you know what, I don't care what you think. I really liked this. Anything sesame is delicious to me.

The Service: Sweet. Not Japanese. (Just stating some facts.) Very knowledgeable about the food and what they're trying to accomplish. I  like that.

The Area: Sketchy.

The Verdict: I'd seriously go back for those spring rolls. And the carrot and onion tempura. And some sesame pudding. Oh, and some more of that spinach and tofu mixture. Don't be worried about the lack of meat and fish. There's enough choice here to make up for that.