Jen's reviews
Review of Bar Shu
20 Nov 07, 11:56
Unexpected & truly tasty! 
Bar Shu has been around for a year or so and I admit, I just assumed it was a touristy Chinese place best avoided. How wrong I was.
Not a whiff of MSG was to be had: this menu will not leave a nasty taste in your mouth. Bar Shu showcases Sichuan cuisine to great effect: fresh, spicy and imaginitive. Some of the dishes are worryingly referred to as "numbing and hot" but it's the kind of spice you can taste as opposed to the Vindaloo variety. We had a good mix of vegetarian and meat based dishes (the gung bao chicken and the sesame beef were particularly good) and several bottles of rather nice Burgundy. Our bill came to £43 per head - not bad at all for all those taste sensations.
And guess what? Not only did we not feel too full afterwards (believe me, there was enough food left over), we also didn't feel hungry again an hour later. Result!
My one gripe is that the staff kept trying to hurry us up to release our table for the next sitting, but in the end they let us stay an extra half hour (must have been all that nice wine we kept ordering).
Try it - I think you'll like it. I'll definitely be going back!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Review of The Forge restaurant
19 Nov 07, 11:34
Warm and welcoming
The Forge is part of a little group of restaurants including La Deuxieme in Long Acre; the chef came from the restaurant at Tate Britain (which I remember fondly), so I was expecting the food to be good, and it was. I defy anyone not to find something they like on the extensive brasserie-style menu of comfort food. I had a wonderful melt-in-the-mouth rib-eye steak with "real" chips that lived up to their name, accompanied by fresh and perfectly cooked french beans. My friends raved about their Eggs Benedict and the Dover Sole.
But it was the ambience that made a real impression: it was amazingly busy for a Tuesday - the restaurant was buzzing; the lighting was soft without being too low; the decor and finish (turquoise comfy leather chairs and exposed brickwork) made it feel warm and welcoming without being too stuffy; and the service was professional and attentive. It reminded me of The Ivy, but with fewer pretensions!
There were 6 of us, and we all had two courses and polished off a couple of bottles of wine and a half-bottle of dessert wine during the meal. The bill came to about £50 per head, which I thought was perfectly acceptable given the quality of food and service. My one gripe is that the wine list was on the pricey side, but we all left full and happy. I would definitely go back.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Bumpkin
01 Nov 07, 22:32
What's all the fuss about? 
We went for lunch on a Saturday and were immediately confronted with a 20 minute wait for a table and a brunch menu. Hmmm. Brunch at 2pm didn't really do it for us but fortunately there were a few more lunchy choices too.
Once we had a table, our waitress was very sweet and accomodating... and the cocktails were rather good. I decided that the best way to view Bumpkin was through the filter of a few martinis... suddenly the wallpaper wasn't quite so painful to the eye, and the brunch options seemed like a good idea. My burger was fresh and tasty, the chips were decently chunky and on the whole no complaints.
However, it's not a place I'd rush back to - so many gastro pubs do it so much better, but the cocktails (harking back to this site's previous incarnation as the Liquid Lounge a few years ago) are definitely worth a visit.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Moro
01 Nov 07, 17:49
Viva Moro! 
It may be busy, it may be noisy, but Moro delivers on all other fronts. We went late on a Saturday night just after the Rugby World Cup, and the din was impressive to say the least, but once seated we had our very own culinary adventure, such is the quality of the menu.
My intensely flavoured pate melted in the mouth, and was accompanied with a chilled Amontillado as per the menu recommendation - quite the most satisfying combination of tastes and textures I've had in a long while. The thing about Moro is that it confounds expectations: its roots are in Southern Spain but the cooking takes off on fascinating tangents and keeps surprising you. We had lamb for our main course - NOT a tagine! - perfectly cooked and flavoured, and oh so tender, a shining example of exactly how it should be.
Our waiter knew his stuff too - and acceded to our many requests and questions with grace and good humour, making several excellent recommendations along the way. We finished the meal with a Pedro Xeminez - a wonderful dessert sherry redolent of raisins and molasses.
And with that taste still tickling our taste buds as we wandered out into Exmouth Market after midnight, we found our earlier defeat in the rugby had faded to such an extent that we could judge the evening a great success...
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of The Gay Hussar
01 Nov 07, 17:17
A character event
The Gay Hussar is not a "normal" Soho restaurant, if such a thing exists. It's more of an experience: less for the food than for the slightly odd slice-of-history-and-culture ambience and decor.
A favourite of mainly left-leaning politicians, their signed mugshots and caricatures are closely-hung on every available wall space along with literary figures like Tolstoy.
It was very busy in the main restaurant so we were shown into the private dining room upstairs (there were 8 of us). A round white linen table in a red room with windows looking down onto the street below, it had a certain faded "gentleman's club" feel: there was no music but we soon made up for that with increasingly raucous conversation. The menu is true to its Hungarian roots but it's not just goulash and sauerkraut - there was enough variety to please even the vegetarians amongst us, all accompanied with Hungarian paprikas for a little extra spice.
We drank a robust red (Bulls Blood) during meal and of course had to sample the Tokaji after dinner - no one was disappointed! Service was attentive and shot through with a dry humour that got everyone giggling.
Let's face it, Hungarian cuisine isn't exactly the holy grail of dining out, but the Gay Hussar adds enough atmosphere and character to an evening to make it a worthwhile detour from the more conventional destinations in Soho. I've eaten there twice now and would happily do so again: it particularly suits a big group.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Hakkasan
10 Oct 07, 16:58
All the fun of the fair at half the price
The legendary Hakkasan has a well-deserved reputation as a top restaurant - sultry low-lit ambience, great service, jaw-droppingly good cocktails and incredible fusion food. The only problem I have found is the price - it's really rather expensive.
I've been for dinner there twice and both times the bill has elicited a sharp intake of breath and a hastily organised overdraft from yours truly. So, when organising a birthday lunch for my partner I thought Hakkasan would fit the "occasion dining" criteria but wondered how I could keep the cost down. The answer is to eat from the dim sum menu.
We had a cocktail each, a few jugs of sake and positively stuffed ourselves with delicious dim sum - all for around £30/head - that sounds expensive for dim sum but a) it's very, very good dim sum and b) it's very cheap for the Hakkasan experience.
So that's my top tip - do dim sum and swank it up! PS. the zesty martini has to be tasted to be believed...
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of The Queens
04 Sep 07, 11:11
Reliable pub grub in a gorgeous location
The Queens has been a regular haunt of mine - when I lived in Primrose Hill it was my local (and a really good one at the time) and its position makes it a great, easy-to-find watering hole for out-of-town friends and locals alike.
The great thing about The Queens is that it doesn't oversell itself. I wouldn't say it's a gastro pub, but it is a slight upscale, pleasantly shabby pub in a beautiful setting on the edge of Primrose Hill park. It has a separate dining room upstairs and does decent food: they have a good lunch menu of traditional pub fare mixed with slightly more ambitious stuff. It's a little on the expensive side (£9 for fish and chips) - but you are paying for the location.
Last weekend we had lunch there with some out-of-town friends - we got a table in a prime spot on the balcony overlooking the park, the service was friendly and attentive (but not intrusive) and our food and wine were delivered promptly and of good quality. Can't say fairer than that really!
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Skylon
03 Aug 07, 15:22
eating for aesthetes
Skylon is the new restaurant in the Royal Festival Hall - named after the towering splinter sculpture erected on the South Bank during the 1951 Great Exhibition. The 50s futuristic scale of the space is sympathetically echoed in the muted colours of the new decor: it screams quality, attention to detail (the wonderful staff uniforms) and a certain chilly formality.
Looks aside, I found the dining experience disappointing in small ways. Skylon has the feel of somewhere special: the beautiful flower arrangements, perfect place settings and that fabulous view across the river (most tables are well placed for this) - but that seems to be as far as it goes. There are lots of staff hovering around and each seems to have a highly specialised role - you can't ask waiter A for more water because he's there to take your food order, and waiter B can deliver water but not wine... If you ask for tap water in a carafe they won't leave it on the table because it "doesn't look nice" regardless of how thirsty you are. The food (when it finally arrives) is beautifully presented, but nothing out of the ordinary. And don't expect value for money, you're paying for the view.
Overall, I was left with a feeling of superficiality - if you want the undeniably spectacular view and an impressive space to eat in, this is a good place to come (I can imagine having business meetings here), but don't focus on the food and be prepared to pay more than it's worth.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.