East End Review

Tag: restaurant review

Sagardi – restaurant review: ‘The waiters wear wireless headsets, like they are in the secret service’

Taken to Basque: A waiter prepares some of the excellent steak at new Shoreditch restaurant Sagardi

Some restaurant groups grow organically, opening branches that preserve the intimacy and quirkiness of their flagship and by extension the signature of the chef who made it famous. Ottolenghi or the international Momofuku spring to mind.

Sagardi on Curtain Road is not one of those restaurants. It is the first UK outpost of a global chain of which Basque restaurants are only one of many well-oiled components.

When we walk up, a smartly-dressed woman is by the front door, handing out Sagardi cards to passersby, reminiscent of the curry house frontmen on Brick Lane.

She ushers us in, past the long pintxos bar to our right and white-tiled butchery counter to our left, to the 100 plus cover restaurant where we are seated under a huge decorative boat suspended from the ceiling. The waiters all wear wireless headsets, like they are gamers, or in the secret service.

Sagardi makes a big deal of its steak, which is fair, because the steak is very good.

It also makes a point of its produce, flown in daily from Spain, presumably to emphasise the authenticity of its regional cuisine. The paradox of the much-vaunted ‘seasonal menu’ is that if you are not concerned with geography, it is always summer somewhere.

The heirloom tomatoes, which come drizzled in olive oil and a few slices of chilli, certainly taste of sunshine, but personally I would prefer something from Kent.

Our favourite small dish is the morcilla, rich Spanish black pudding served with roasted peppers that provide a sweet punch that cuts through the earthy sausage.

The steamed clams in green sauce come with its sauce thickened with starch, and I find it too heavy. But the tuna tartare is fine. To reiterate, the steak really is excellent: buttery and tender, grilled on a wood fire, sliced up and served rare.

The side of lettuce with spring onions, however, is priced at eight quid. There’s a lot you can do with a simple green salad, but this was just iceberg lettuce topped with spring onions – we could find nothing obvious to justify the hefty price tag.

While the earpieces remind me of the time I went to the Las Vegas Rainforest Café, Sagardi shares none of the former’s ruthless efficiency. Service is friendly but a little confused and drops off as the evening wears on.

I ask our server for a wine recommendation and she tells us a sommelier is on his way. The sommelier never appears but we are at least brought some pleasant, average white wine. Judging by the extensive wine list, and wine cellar that runs the length of the restaurant, this is not all Sagardi has to offer, but it is bustling and hard to get anyone’s attention. We have some non-descript desserts and head home.

I ask my dining companion what he thought of the place. “Very Shoreditch,” he responds. What that means is open to interpretation, but if you are looking for somewhere spacious, impersonal and expensive to dine then Sagardi is the perfect fit.

Sagardi
95 Curtain Road, EC2A 3BS
sagardi.com

October 6, 2016
Jidori, Dalston, restaurant review – View-a skewer

The bar at Jidori. Photograph: Mary Gaudin, Design: Giles Reid Architects

Jidori had been piquing my interest ever since it first opened. Walking by on Kingsland Road, I couldn’t discern the cuisine, but the warm, soft lighting beckoned, and through the glass pane I could see the tables were full, with pairs of casual diners chatting at the wooden bar, the whole dining space framed by blue-grey walls lined with crockery and plants. The cuisine is contemporary Japanese, and when I finally walked in for dinner, TLC’s ‘No Scrubs’ started playing whilst I was served a Yuzu lemon slushy margarita. All my pleasure centres lit up at once, as if an algorithm somewhere was running to ensure maximum appeal to a broad, urban 30-something demographic.

In fact, the responsible parties are Brett Redman and Natalie Lee-Joe, restauranteurs and co-founders. Redman has opened several popular places in London, of which I’ve only been to the Pavilion café in Victoria Park, a very different type of venue but again, one that knows its market very well. Whereas the Pavilion serves free-range breakfasts and craft beer, the vision for Jidori is yakitori – a casual type of Japanese cuisine centred on chicken skewers, cooked on a charcoal grill and washed down with copious amounts of booze. Although there are nice vegetarian highlights, I wouldn’t recommend eating at Jidori if chicken isn’t your thing.

The tsukune, with cured egg yolk. Photograph: Aaron Tilley

The menu is quite small and we had most of it, starting with the katsu curry Scotch egg, which, in the final reckoning, was a well-executed Scotch egg, but a Scotch egg nonetheless, so not exactly a rarity in Hackney. I then had a simple bowl of chicken broth. Broth well done is lovely and understated. This had depth and flavour and was as clear as glass, indicating the stock was simmered slowly and never came to the boil. Next, the omakase, a tasting platter for two, which for £18 each allowed us sample most of the skewer menu. Chicken thigh and spring onion; aubergine and miso butter; chicken hearts and bacon; king oyster mushroom; and tsukune: minced chicken on skewer (think the consistency of kofte), dipped in raw egg yolk. The mushroom, hearts, and tsukune stood above the rest. The set menu included rice and pickles. It was supposed to also include an onsen egg, but this never materialised. We finished off with the ginger ice cream with miso caramel, which is a serious dessert and unmissable.

Jidori is certainly not the only, or the most authentic, yakitori in London – perennial favourite Jin Kichi in Hampstead comes to mind – but it is inviting and cheerful, with attentive service. It is also good value – even with drinks you can eat there for less than £20 a head. With this winning formula, there may well be more restaurants to come from Redman and Lee-Joe.

Jidori
89 Kingsland High St, London E8 2PB
jidori.co.uk

August 25, 2016
Chuck Burger, Spitalfields, restaurant review – ‘no nonsense’ burgers and wings

The Chuck menu. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

Tucked in at the end of Commercial Street – just before it opens out onto Aldgate East station and the surrounding chaos – you’ll find Chuck Burger, plainly fronted with a black sign and solitary neon light.

The place is outfitted with no-nonsense tables, industrial metal fittings and paper menus, a bugbear for some but one that’s never really concerned me at laid-back fast-food restaurants. If you’ve ever visited a Meat Liquor restaurant, think that kind of mess-hall layout, but more laid back and without quite so much nightclub lighting.

Add a smidgen of Yankification as well, which stretches to its drink selection – resplendent with American and American-inspired beer offerings including the white-collar hipster’s choice Pabst Blue Ribbon, along with cocktails and ‘hard’ milkshakes with added rum.

Aiming to get into the American spirit, I decided to start with the diner staple that is the Oreo milkshake. However my sense of place was swiftly rerouted back to East London once I noted that said shake came in a jam-jar, as most things do when you’re that close to Shoreditch. Nonetheless it totally hit the straw-clogging spot, and I was ready for real food.

I was surprised, when I asked my ultra-friendly waiter for a recommendation, that the first thing that came out of his mouth was “the wings”, rather than anything beefy. He explained that they are first smoked, and then fried to finish, with a faraway bliss in his eye that suggested this was a Very Good Thing. Obediently, I ordered the buffalo wings, which come in sets of six or 12 for £5.50/£9 (as do the the Korean hot wings.)

They arrive slathered in sauce that delivers an unexpectedly huge piquancy (and almost lung-searing acridity if you breathe it in too closely.)

However the effectiveness of the cooking techniques, and therefore the moistness of the meat hidden away under the sauce and skin, ensures that the flavour of the chicken is not lost – a minor miracle.

It’s a similar story with the burger. The meat, at the centre of it all, speaks for itself – it tastes clean, fresh and with a perfect medium-rare texture. As Chuck prepare their own patties, they can even legally take it down all the way to rare – a treat for punters still gnashing their teeth about the pernicious effects of ‘elf and safety on the redness of their beef.

The additions, which consist of red onion, pickle, American cheese and Chuck relish (which includes Sriracha, seemingly a house favourite) in the cheeseburger, are nice but nothing out of the ordinary – think Burger King if they upped their patty game. I find myself wishing I’d plumped for a more adventurous item: perhaps the halloumi stack, or the Thai inspired pork ‘Same Same’ burger. The burgers range from £6.50 to £8.

If I were to pinpoint a disappointment, it would be that the onion rings, listed on the menu as “pickled onion rings”, had no discernable difference in taste from the usual, and in fact were a little too thin and overwhelmed with batter. The fries, McDonalds-esque in their slimline saltiness, or the sweet potato fries, are potentially better options side-wise.

However, for those hoping to knock back a few beers and some meat in a comfortable setting, Chuck Burger can barely be quibbled with – they certainly get the ‘meat’ bit 100% right.

Chuck Burger
4 Commercial Street
E1 6LP
chuckburgerbar.com

August 9, 2016
Café SoVegan, Clapton, restaurant review – ‘a project to be heralded’

A selection of Café SoVegan’s comfort food. Photograph: Jade King

I am not a vegan. I feel at pains to open this review with this fact, especially as I arrived at Café SoVegan’s home, the Royal Sovereign pub on Northwold Road, with my girlfriend. She follows the vegan diet that I sometimes feel I should follow too, given the often catastrophic environmental impacts of meat consumption, not to mention my waistline.

Nonetheless I felt on more familiar ground once I’d figured out that, aside from the open kitchen and serving area, this café is situated in a classic London boozer. There’s a spacious beer garden (festooned with posters advertising charity drives and the local cricket club) and a covered area where we chose to plonk ourselves. There, we mulled over the daily specials board, before deciding the main menu was too generously stocked with options (pancakes! a burrito! how on earth do they make quiche?) to overlook.

We ordered four dishes, all to arrive at once. My partner let me have the first bite of the Café SoVegan Seitan Burger, which we both ended up considering the standout of the afternoon. Not to bring things back to meat unnecessarily, but the seitan (a ‘meat’ made from the protein in wheat) had a firm texture and meaty succulence that was really a revelation – especially for my dining partner, a veteran of many a flavourless vegan mush-burger.

The patty is perfectly seasoned and peppery to boot, and the optional guacamole served as an extra ace-in-the-hole (vegan cheese and/or bacon can also be added.) At £5.50, it’s excellent quality and value for any kind of burger in the capital, and it comes with a wonderfully fresh Hackney Salad, comprising leaves plucked from Growing Communities, the Stoke Newington social enterprise and organic veg connaisseurs.

Special diet: a selection of the daily specials at Café SoVegan. Photograph: Jade King

I had the Mac ‘no’ Cheese: visually the same, if not as the luminous boxed variety, as the snappily packaged Mac ‘n’ Cheeses you see served at various London watering-holes. (Refreshingly, the portions here are much bigger.) The dish uses butternut squash in its base, and is then enhanced with turmeric, smoked paprika, crispy onions and of course, “cheese”.

Vegan cheese, from what I hear, is an eternally difficult thing to get right – it seems where one aspect of cheese is achieved, such as meltiness, one is sacrificed somewhat. Here there is a slightly missing cheesy tang to be borne in mind. It all has a lovely warm comforting effect though, especially with the accompanying kale. This adds a salty, semi-crisp texture that works excellently in the mix – showing the real culinary skill that married co-owners Michelle O’Mahoney and Davina Pascal are able to bring to this food.

The two other sides, which we opted to share, confirmed Café SoVegan as a proposition that will appeal to vegans and non-vegans alike. Firstly – sweet potato fries. These really can come out with varying degrees of success, a truism that I’ve demonstrated with weary regularity at home. The ones here strike a really good balance of crispness and flavour, and obviously go brilliantly with a pint.

The second was the Cauliflower Nuggets, which I was particularly in favour of ordering, as chicken is the only thing I’ve eaten in nugget form before. These were battered cauliflower pieces with a delicious spicy warmth, light as a feather and without a hint of greasiness – a really worthwhile addition.

Given the paucity of fully-vegan restaurants in the country as a whole, Café SoVegan is a project to be heralded. Vegans with a taste for comfort food will be in raptures, and omnivores like me, if not totally converted, at least walk away knowing what “seitan” means – and why they may well be dining SoVegan again.

Café SoVegan @ The Royal Sovereign pub
64 Northwold Road, E5 8RL
London

July 27, 2016
Chriskitch, Hoxton, restaurant review – ‘weird and wonderful delights’

Main attraction: Mushroom broth, vegetable salad, Korean rice and crunchy bean curd skin

You are not always sure of what you are eating in Chriskitch, a new restaurant tucked behind Hoxton Square, but as I learnt, it pays to put your trust in the chef.

Surprising combinations are the order of the day here (BBQ duck ravioli and quinoa popsicle anyone?) all of which inspired by the worldly travels of the restaurant’s chef Chris Honor.

The starter of champagne-poached oyster, truffle oil, caviar and scrambled eggs struck me as something a child would dream up, asked what grown-ups eat.

But there is nothing childish about this starter, which bursts with rich truffle and sea flavours. It is beautifully presented – just like everything else on the menu – in an oyster shell propped up by sorbet, on a bed of ornamental seaweed.

Starter’s orders: champagne poached oyster with truffle and chive scrambled eggs

Other weird and wonderful delights pop up around the starters – cheese popsicles, crisped rye bread… even powdered white truffle on a teaspoon to cleanse the palate.

It is the juicy kale rolls that steal the warm-up show, however, which were much more lively than they sound, bursting with south east Asian flavours of basil seeds and fresh herbs. These complimentary bites are welcome in a menu that veers towards the pricey, with mains averaging at around £19.

And with the mains come flavours of the Middle East: the signature blackened lamb dish is enclosed in succulent aubergine strips, topped with salty feta and with the sweet hint of date chutney.

Moving on to Mediterranean climes is the salmon: crispy skin, succulent and flaking apart underneath. Somehow this dish smacks of the sea even more than expected, perhaps due to deep notes of anchovy. Underneath is bone marrow and a bacon and endive tart – though I’m not sure exactly which part is which. What I can vouch for, though, is its deliciousness.

For dessert we forego the recommended chocolate pudding, opting instead for the picture-pretty crème brûlée. It combines all the great things about a crème brûlée – a rich and smooth vanilla flavour with a crispy top – yet is even more delectable thanks to the fresh fruit flavours of thin candied lemon slices and fresh raspberries.

A poached pear poked through a mysterious round pastry crisp, served with a smear of salted caramel sauce, vanilla cream and ‘activated’ walnuts – which, yes, really did taste nuttier than usual.

At Chriskitch you pay more than your usual Hackney joint, but the menu takes you far beyond this borough.

Chriskitch,
5 Hoxton Market, N1 6HG

At work: chef Chris Honor

July 21, 2016
Worth a butcher’s – Hill & Szrok restaurant review

“Easily the best steak either of us has had in the UK…” – the T-Bone at Hill & Szrok

Is it a butcher? Is it a restaurant? Actually it is both.

Hill & Szrok you might know as the cosy Broadway Market butcher-cum-restaurant on Broadway Market.

Its no-reservations table is invariably full of an evening, a fact that has always made me wonder if I will ever set foot inside.

But no more. For the team behind Hill & Szrok have opened a new pub and dining room in what was The Three Crowns near Old Street roundabout.

In keeping with a seemingly increasing trend for nose to tail eating, the team uses up every bit of the animal. The menu changes throughout the day as Alex Szrok, the chef, and his team work their way through the cuts.

All the meat is slow-grown, free range and taken entirely from sustainable farms across England.

The menu is small: a handful of starters, mains and sides, with a few specials on the blackboard that hangs above the open kitchen.

But we found the select choice ample. The smokiness of the roasted romanesco and tang of the pickled radicchio cut through the rich, soft goat’s curd beautifully.

Mussels made another welcome deviation from the meat theme, although they were slightly overpowered by the accompanying pancetta.

For mains we were delighted to have taken the waiter’s advice and ordered what the restaurant does best: big cuts of meat.

We shared a T-bone steak, which gives you both the sirloin and tender fillet cuts. It was easily the best steak either of us has had in the UK – juicy, flavoursome, pink the whole way along the cuts and falling apart in the mouth – and it rivalled any we had tried in South America.

Though the restaurant stands out for its meat, a great deal of attention was paid to the details, which makes a huge difference. The chips were spot on: piping hot and crispy, served with aioli, and the spring greens were fresh, flavoursome and nicely seasoned.

Vegetarians need not be deterred by the butcher’s reputation. The fish and vegetarian options were meals in themselves, not just back ups.

The sourcing and the quality of the ingredients are a cut above the rest. The publicity promised “a no fuss, maximum quality approach”. It achieved exactly that.

Hill & Szrok
8 East Rd, Old St, N1 6AD
hillandszrok.co.uk

April 19, 2016
BúnBúnBún: nosh from ’Nam

New to Kingsland: Bunbunbun

BúnBúnBún is a new Vietnamese café that has bravely opened on Kingsland Road just two doors up from neighbourhood favourite and hallowed legend Sông Quê.

Bún’s USP, differentiating it from the other Kingsland road cafés, is that it purports to serve authentic fare from Hanoi, particularly bún chå, a pork and noodle dish served in a rich meat broth that I saw everywhere in the city when I visited, and was looking forward to enjoying again.

We thus sat down expecting to find a menu full of hard-to-find classics, but the menu was full of mostly familiar pan-Asian items: green papaya salad, satay, udon noodles, as well as a perplexing “Vietnamese burger” served on a brioche bun (a nod, I suppose, to that law passed by the Tories stating every burger henceforth must only be served well done, and on brioche).

The bún chå itself was accorded a separate instruction manual encased in a plastic stand on each table, with a mathematical formula featuring different types of meats and accompaniments. Between this, and the fact that it was filed under “noodle salad” on the menu (it’s a broth dish), I got confused, presumed that Bún was simply serving a vermicelli salad, and opted for the monkfish instead.

Unfortunately our friendly server was run off his feet and also was not fluent enough in English to answer our questions, so I also ordered some sweet potato chips from the menu, supposing they were was possibly a Hanoian speciality. Alas, I found that they were indeed just chips.

Our meal, supplemented by summer rolls and salt and chilli squid, definitely gave Sông Quê a run for its money: all of it was well prepared, fresh and perfectly executed, and I enjoyed the classics done well. The salt and chilli squid was actually far superior to most of the competitors’, and the monkfish was decently priced and generously portioned with lots of fresh herbs.

So, despite being a little disappointed that I managed to miss the signature dish (I blame both myself and how the information was presented), Bún is all right in my books, although I’d like to see the owners develop a more Hanoian feel as they find their feet.

BúnBúnBún
134b Kingsland Road
Hackney
E2 8DY
@bunldn

August 13, 2015
Restaurant review: DF Mexico

Joys of Mex: DF Mexico

If, like me, the promise of ‘bottomless soda refills’, frozen margaritas on tap and burritos the size of your face has you reaching for your Oyster card and checking the elastic of your waistband, DF Mexico might be the place for you.

Launched by the team behind Wahaca, this is nothing like Wahaca. Instead of trying to synthesise street food in a restaurant, which can inevitably miss the mark, this place is a very happy marriage of American diner fare and traditional Mexican food.

Named after Districto Federal, or Mexico City as it’s known to outsiders, the idea was born on a road trip that Thomasina Miers and Mark Selby, founders of the Wahaca empire, took around Mexico and the US. And it really works.

There are tortas – gorgeous great burger-style stacks filled with pork pibil, chile beef or ancho mushrooms and jammed with cucumber pickle, pumpkin seed mayonnaise and avocado.

There’s soft-whip ice cream in flavours like dulce de leche with peanut butter brittle smashed on top that may or not make you salivate even as you type the words 24 hours later. There’s even passionfruit flavour with popping candy on top.

Highlights include the fish tacos – a nightmare to negotiate from plate to face, but a dream to eat: fat ingots of crumbed cod (sustainably sourced) with a zippy red slaw and sweet chipotle mayonnaise zigzagged on top. If I’m not still wearing that dish somewhere on my person I’d be surprised.

Another surprise might be that one of the best things we ate was the ‘cup of corn’ – labelled with a modesty that belies its utter perfection: a little pot of delicately-seasoned chowder with translucent little cubes of sweetcorn and a scoop of something that tastes like quesa fresco, but is actually a mixture of Lancashire cheese and mayonnaise.

I loved the huge glass coolers of icy margarita and hibiscus-flavoured agua fresca swirling mesmerisingly above the tables. I loved the textures and flavours of food that tasted like it had been left to luxuriate on a stove for hours. I loved the super-sized, money’s-worth feeling of the diner experience.

Tucked into the Old Truman Brewery, there’s a nod to its surroundings too, with the bar stocking local brew and ales from Brixton and Gipsy Hill, as well as Mexican brands like Pacifico.

Another place looking to buck the dizzying merry-go-round of week-only pop-ups, DF Mexico has an 18-month residency here. It’s fun, the people are lovely and the food is great, but not pricey. Definitely worth a visit.

DF Mexico, Old Truman Brewery, Hanbury Street, E1 6QR
www.dfmexico.co.uk

September 18, 2014