Year of Eating Differently - Best of London

So after more than half a year, I had to leave the country. Whether this was because I'd exhausted all possibilities for lunch or not is left as an exercise for the gentle reader. Because everyone likes lists, here's a quick summary of the ten best and worst establishments that I've frequented/endured. (Followed shortly by an analysis of what kind of food I've eaten most and least of).

First, five of the best:
Subway - I can't figure out why, and it really shouldn't be here, but it's a much better example of manufactured food than the other chains - Pret was probably quite close, and Starbucks well behind because of the feeling of impending bankruptcy it induces
Lindsay House - right at the other end of the price spectrum. Simply superlative. (Maybe I'll cross L'Escargot off the list on a visit to Greek Street in the future, which could conceivably bump this down a bit)
Itsu - so good, I had to go to Canary Wharf
Foyles - by far the best cafe-in-a-bookshop I've encountered. Yes, there are lots of Starbucks inside Borders, but quantity is not always the same as quality...
Mr Jerk - I'd include Jerk City too, but it doesn't seem right to have two examples of such fabulously filthy, dirty food. Here's to the majesty of the roti.
Geisya - nervous waiter, great Japanese.

And 5 of the worst:
Govinda - file under trustafarian hippy scum, and with a case of gut-rot to boot
Abokado - not only was this seriously dull, but it provokes somebody to complain that it was much better than I had said. Well, that only makes it worse. (Strangely, the only comments attracted so far have been for Abokado and the aforementioned Govindas...)
Soba - the gloomy reflection of Geisya - best not to eat here if you've recently been to anywhere that can cook Asian food.
Vita Ingredient - for sheer pretension and a badly spelt name. And the food wasn't great
Casa Fresh - what a great leaving present - vegetarian food with added beef - at least the photograph of my wastebin has a certain soft-edged quality to it, like mist gliding across a winter field
Funnily enough, Make Mine is no longer the nemesis that it was when I began all of this. Wouldn't go back there, though, even now. There are other worthy contenders for the crown of worst food, but it would be rather depressing to mention them now.

Statistically top food: Mozzarella (16 mentions), followed by tomatoes (14) and cheese (12), although it's fair to say that these are probably over-represented due to their presence in other food.
First proper meal type (who says they're going to get some mozzarella for lunch, after all?) is falafel (12), although some controversy exists about the correct spelling. Should it be Just Falafs, for example?
burger is next with 11 mentions, and it's interesting to see the almost constant conjunction of curry (10) and expense account (7). Let us be thankful there's only one disgusting on the list - could have upped this score with a few more visits to Charing Cross Road...
Finally, as a well behaved lad, raised by his parents to treat each person as a valuable and unique snowflake, and not just a lump of flesh, I'm proud to report there's only been one instance of needless objectification of women thus far. (This could go up, depending on the cultural surroundings I subject myself to in following months. It's not my fault, it's the pressures of my environment!)

Year of Eating Differently (124): Palms of Goa, Charlotte Street

One last lunch before leaving Soho Square, and it was at Palms of Goa, a crowded joint on Charlotte Street. Service was pretty slow, but then they were congested with Friday lunchtime traffic. Of course, if we'd been hard charging on the lager then that would have got us served (and probably processed back out again) much more quickly.
I was suffering - 7 doses of Sophie's Choice plus a ginger martini (all at Polka) the night before was leaving me shaking like a sick dog. Luckily I got to skulk off in the afternoon and get my back seen to over in Clapham - so no stress for me.
As a result, not paying full attention to the meal that it possibly deserved. Fairly ersatz biryani (although recent perusal of Swindled! and consultation with Germanophones has educated me to realise that ersatz != mediocre and actually substitute/replacement (eg chicory coffee)) but it filled a gap.

Year of Eating Differently (123): Casa Fresh, The Plaza, Oxford Street

Well, it seemed too good to be true, and so it was. 2.75 for a vegetarian motette (like a burger in a flatbread, with lots of beans and assorted mexican stuff). I take my order back to the office, chow down, and notice a suspiciously meaty flavour to it all. Yup, they'd gone and given me something full of delicious, life-giving beef. So in the bin that goes. Now I have to get through the afternoon with nothing more substantial than a Yorkie bar and half a mouthful of beefy goodness. Boo.

Serving suggestion: toss it in the bin

Year of Eating Differently (122): Soho Snax, Brewer Street

Godawful.
Some kind of tricolore focaccia, served up by a guy who was almost too shy to speak, wrapped up in paper like a piece of battered cod, and then I made the mistake of adding a geriatric blueberry muffin to my order. If I've said the Pret Christmas muffin was a ball of hot disappointment dressed up as mucus, wrapped in a doughy exterior, then I'm sorry; this was far far worse. Not in a long time have I had to throw something away because I couldn't face taking another bite of it.

Year of Eating Differently (121): Pizza Express, Greek Street

So, 120 meals later we're back at Pizza Express, and it's a mushroom pizza again (this time on a Romana base, which is slightly wider and flatter - does the apparent lack of actual increased volume really justify the £1 surcharge?). The Greek Street version of Pizza Express is much darker than Dean Street, with more mirrors, and all the waitresses are pretty identical. Or at least I had to assist my co-diner, who couldn't distinguish the uber-waitress (tall, black framed glasses) from the poor benighted woman responsible for bringing out the food (average height, clear framed glasses). Perhaps the irony of all this is that the whole thing is chopped out in a cookie-cutter these days, so perhaps the only distinguishing features are the waitresses. Who all look the same. Although I don't remember them looking anything like the service staff at Dean Street. But that was so very, very long ago...

Year of Eating Differently (120): 7 Soho Square

Possibly this should be taken as an admission of defeat; exhausted, tired and stressed at trying to arrange flights to a foreign country, I've resorted to scavenging from the left-overs from a business lunch, that have been deposited, unloved and unwanted, in the company kitchen.
As one might expect, presentation leaves a lot to be desired; they've just dumped a whole bunch of partially dismembered sandwiches, and a heap of potato crisps, on a silver plate and left it atop the fridge. Quality isn't too bad though; the sandwiches are suffused with oil but there is enough sundried tomato/avocado/cheese to feed me. Service: well, that was non-existent. At least there's dessert, in the shape of dozens of galia melon slices that were apparently too healthy for the occupants of the meeting, plus strawberries, grapes etc. All washed down with a can of soda from the company fridge. I may have no self-respect, but my wallet is unscathed today.

Year of Eating Differently (119): Bar Chocolat, D'Arblay Street

There have been varying reports about the quality of food at Bar Chocolate; some people have said it's good, others that it's bad, and still others that it's non-existent because all they serve is booze.
Had a sort of assignation here to meet with a Swedish sound designer who has brought me back some sweets from Stockholm (Plopp, if you were wondering...). Always go mobbed up to a meeting like this, so she brings back-up in the form of another sound designer, and I have an accomplice too, so that if things go south while we make the exchange, somebody's got my back.
Nobody turns up with a shooter though, so we have lunch instead.
Service isn't bad, just very shy. Eventually the waiter detached himself from his hiding place behind the bar and took our order. What is a little surprising is the size of the options. Two of us ordered a chicken wrap, which you wouldn't expect to be big, but turned out to be a cruciform arrangement of four wraps each, in both cases forcing defeat before the meal was over. I got a vegetable pie. A pie in a bowl. A pie in a bowl with no pastry, but with two small pats of butter next to it. Some kind of condiment for the pie? Very confusing.
Full marks for the cocktails. Because I couldn't go back half-cut, and neither could the designers (both working on something top-secret for Sony that involves Terrible Sounds being made in the basement of their Soho building) I had something non-alcoholic; presentation good. Only problem is that the ginger in the ginger beer wasn't strong enough. If a constituent of your meal doesn't make you weep, you're probably not sufficiently emotionally involved.
Finally, although it looks great in the evenings, in the daytime it looks rather shabby on the outside. Here's a photo from the inside instead:

Year of Eating Differently (118): Rasa Samudra, Charlotte Street

Pretty good for lunchtime, although I had real troubles from about half way through - think my cold was starting to kick in and I went from happy awareness of my environment to feeling like death in about ten minutes.
Staff are a bit too attentive - I really wished they would stop asking me if I was happy with my food or not, but perhaps I've had too many aggressiveness pills this week. Food was all good though, apart from the yoghurt & aubergine, which I felt masked the aubergine's flavour with nothing satisfactory. Dosa and mango & green banana curry particularly recommended...

Year of Eating Differently (117): 12-Bar Cafe, Denmark Street

Like a step back in time to the 1980s, or indeed some indefinable era before I was fully conscious. This may be to do with the terrible cold air today, or the NME obituaries of Marc Bolan, Sid Vicious¹ and Kurt Cobain that decorate the walls.
However, this morbid atmosphere is alleviated somewhat by the cheerful reggae that keeps plonking away, although that too adds to the sense of this being a cafe before time. The plastic coated menu, the plastic table cloth, they too seem like something very old - not necessarily aware in some awful ironic sense of its retro status, but just a bit old, possibly a little tired.
When my burger (my reggae burger no less, complete with cheese, pineapple and chillis) arrives, it is in an old school bun, with no sesame seeds on top. That is how in the 1980s we would know we had something English, a little tired, the quintessence of the Old Country rather than the brash competence of McDonald'. But I go on too much. The chips and the 'salad' (tomato, one slice, cucumber, one slice, lettuce, one leaf) are somehow moribund, but in keeping with the burger, which is bland and yet with a hidden sting to it. Just as I thought to myself that the chillis were unnoticeable, my mouth began to quiver. But of course, in the 1980s we didn't eat spicy food (apart from chicken tikka masala, one supposes, but never in my childhood experience - I had mashed potato, carrots and peas and that was as far as it went), so in a few moments the burning sensation vanishes again.
So far, this sounds a little derogatory, but this is one of those few places that provides a simple oasis from the world for a moment or two. You could imagine that mobile phones, the internet, the very word (or words) 'dot-com' had yet to materialise into our daily lives. And that, perhaps, is what a meal should provide in the middle of the day.^2
1 Is it just a terrible rock legend, or did Sid's mother really drop his urn as she carried him back home from New York, with the dire consequences that his ashes were sucked up into the air conditioning systems of Heathrow, never to rest? Surely seems too awful an end not to be true...
² In writing this, I may have been unduly influenced by reading Starbucked which raised (for me, for the first time) the concept of the third place, as possibly invented by Ray Oldenburg and then promulgated by Schulz and Starbucks et al, of cafes/bars/etc providing some adjunct to the humdrum experience of sleep-work-home-sleep by being an alternative to exist in. Or maybe I had just been time tunnelling...

Year of Eating Differently (116): Ed's, Old Compton Street

This shining glass temple to 1950s Americana has haunted me for some time, but I've never managed to get beyond the doors; tried last week, but was dissuaded by my American accomplice.
However, made it through at last today. Plonked myself at the bar and the sunburnt chap of indeterminable accent took my order, and ten minutes later I was out again, clutching a brown paper bag holding chips and burger.

Burger was - well, just pure filth. One of the best I've had yet, a slice of half melted Swiss cheese, some unidentifiable sauce (probably mayo) enough lettuce to obviate the guilt at chowing down on so much burger, and the thing so greasy that the paper wrapper had turned transparent. Joyous.
Ten minutes later you're hungry again, but too bad. On the downside, the chips were just - well, not unpalatable, but nothing exciting, and really I wanted fries, long bootlaces of trans fats with a golden gleam, not something that's half the way to being a potato wedge. Not so happy about that.
Then again, by the sounds of it I really should have ordered a milkshake made with a pulverised Kit Kat and half a pint of icecream, and then I would have spent the afternoon burbling like a fool and occasionally lapsing into consciousness. Next time...

Year of Eating Differently (115): Neal's Corner Sandwich Shop, Shaftesbury Avenue

So, in a bit of a hurry today, and it's grey and wet outside, so a quick visit here was all I required. This is probably one of the best small sandwich shops that I've been to in recent weeks; bread for my tricolore panino tasted much fresher, and the avocado actually had a bit of flavour to it too (unlike say the chilled-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life-and-never-quite-revived stuff you get at Pret, for example). Service is admirably quick, and they have a pretty good selection of gooey chocolate cake.

Year of Eating Differently (114): 16mm, D'Arblay Street

Not really geared up for takeaway food, poor things. Although possibly the wait I had was while they found two identical tiny paper bags to each put one half of the ciabatta into.

The actual quality is very good - bread feels a lot fresher than some of the junk I've had in recent weeks, although the brie isn't that flavourful, it's not some kind of overpowering experience of CHEESE that to be honest can't be that pleasant for one's coworkers.
Also, there's a very good selection of cake; right up there with Konditor & Cook's outpost in the Curzon for variety and apparent quality, although nobody had touched the lemon tart.
Finally, there's a screening room downstairs for hire, but I can hardly justify nipping out at lunchtime to watch Citizen Kane, can I?
[Tried this once, years and years ago, and no, 3 hour epic films and lunch hours are not strictly compatible...]

Year of Eating Differently (113): Julia's Meadow, Newman Street

Well, it was this or Spud-u-like in the Plaza, and my companion was unimpressed by that idea, so we ended up here instead, sat down at a table and drinking ginger beer like civilised people.

Service was a bit slow because there was a constant stream of people coming in for takeaway and being prioritised over us, so if you were in a rush this wouldn't be much good. Then again, if you were in a rush for take out, you'd probably be in a huff that the smug people hunkered down over a table were getting their stuff first.
Had a panino; the usual triumvirate of green, white and red. Wasn't bad, wasn't anything special.

Year of Eating Differently (106): Cafe Veneziana, Frith Street

Way down south beyond Old Compton Street, there's a maroon coloured cafe with a boombox parked on top of the drinks fridge, pumping out awful house music - is that to attract the clientele from G-A-Y? Surely not at midday on a Monday - there must be some time that's too early for that. Or possibly too late for the Sunday stragglers.

Anyways, got a portobello mushroom stack in ciabatta for the thoroughly reasonable price of 3.50. The combination of brie and livid orange peppers is a bit much. Now feel rather bloated, and that's before I chow down on a piece of shortbread. Adequate, then, apart from the soundtrack.

Year of Eating Differently (104): Cotton Cafe, Berwick Street

The sign at the door says to mind the step. What is ambiguous about this is that you mind the step as you walk in from the street, not realising there's another step to trip across as you step up again into the restaurant. Thankfully I didn't land face first in somebody else's lunch; not sure if I recovered or not. Had an avocado melt, which is really a panino, but a bit dirtier; avocado and swiss cheese stuck in a panini toaster for a few minutes, but slathered on the outside with butter. Somehow this was much heavier on the filth-factor than other panini I've eaten - well done. They offer chilli hot chocolate as well - not sure about whether that's a good idea or an incredibly dangerous one - but did have a piece of pear and ginger chocolate cake, which was very good indeed.
Went back to the office, found that my date for the night had gone home sick and thus I'm without company for the evening. Possibly that's justice for yesterday's post, but it is the 14th of February...

Year of Eating Differently (100): Carlton's Coffee House, Broadwick Street

Possibly the worst panino I've eaten in living memory. Mainly because they don't have a panini toaster (or possibly to save time, although the more I think about the logistics of this, the more confused I become), they have one of those conveyor belt heating devices that in a normal cafe would be used to heat slices of toast. Thus the bread isn't forced together and fused with the innards in the way that you usually get with a panino; it's more like a sliced baguette with some warmed over sundried tomatoes and mozzarella inside. Not impressed. But the place was heaving with people - then again, it is a Friday lunchtime. Hey ho.

Year of Eating Differently (62): Pure California, Wardour Street

After a short frustration trying to get my Sony Ericsson K850i fixed (the buttons don't work, which is a software problem, apparently, despite them BEING BUTTONS) went down Wardour Street in search of pizza. I've already done Maletti's and Pizza Express, and although there were some nice-but-pricey places ahead of me, I felt strangely reticent at being sat alone in a restuarant eating a pizza. I used to be fine with that, but perhaps I'd worry too much about the human condition and start crying. So I'll save that for later in the week.
Pure California - well, when I went to California I saw the Greyhound bus station at Los Angeles and it was nothing like this. Nor was it anything like Haight-Ashbury, but since that's just the end of the 60's / Camden that's probably a good thing. Hippies not able to get over the end of their decade are so declasse darling.
Anyway, Pure California offers things with beans, hummus and amusing titles. Yes, very funny. My sides split the time I read a pun on the word hummus. Must. Get. Out. More. Settled for a wrap with beans and avocado in it - a combination I've never encountered before.
It's better than I feared. Annoyingly, you buy what looks like one wrap and then it turns out to be in two sections (similarly, I've always been frustrated by Bounty bars and the fact that you don't get one really big wodge of coconut covered in chocolate) but the combination of what appears to be raw broccoli, quite spicy sauce and almost no identifiable avocado turns out to be pretty good

Year of Eating Differently (46): Bon Appetit, Poland Street

A very large cafe, very well lit, with lots of green and mirrors. And some ferociously friendly geezers behind the bar, asking what you want to eat. I ended up with a jacket potato with mushrooms, which despite the horrible appearance in the photo, punched well above its weight. Cafe latte was good too. Caught up with an old lastminute.com alumnus and spent most of the hour putting the world to rights and deciding that our current wage-slave existences were worthless and we should both Do Something More Important. Looks like a new year's resolution or two in the works...

Year of Eating Differently (45): Silva's Grill and Sandwich Bar, Shaftesbury Avenue

Cold clear day, so what better than to wander down New Oxford Street, pick up some photos from Jessops and then wander south to the warm environs of Silva's? Had a tri colore pannino - very good, although afterwards I still felt hungry enough to go and buy some rubbish from Starbucks to go on top.

It's a bit crowded inside, but you can sit down at one of the bench seats, and then steak and chips somebody was having for lunch looked magnificent, in a prosaic "let's stuff the calories in at lunchtime in the form of a dirty big lump of cow" kind of way. How I miss meat...

Year of Eating Differently (39): Konditor & Cook, Curzon Cinema, Shaftesbury Avenue

So, I've been away for a few days in Donegal, doing advanced research into blending Guinness and Heineken, and thus hardly felt like eating at all today. The loooong journey home didn't help much either, nor did the continual dry retching. But then again, there's no other in-flight entertainment on Ryanair, so maybe I was doing my thing for everyone else's benefit.
But back on the quest for novelty in food - this time, down to the cinema at the bottom of Soho, the furthest south I've been yet. Feeling rather sick afterwards - a very rich sandwich of pesto and mozzarella and aubergine, which was good, but possibly rather ambitious after the weekend. That, combined with a huge piece of chocolate cake with vanilla icing that felt like it was almost an inch thick, has left me struggling with the world. Only another ten and a half hours before Monday is over, however...