Restaurants in London

It is good to be home again after a rather extended time away for me involving two separate trips with only a quick night at home to change suitcases!  Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful advice about where to eat in London.  In fact OH was complaining each day was only a trip between restaurants for lunch and dinner, but that sounds like the perfect holiday to me!

We were staying in Beckingham and ate at Pierluigis

http://www.pierluigis.com/

which had wonderful homemade pasta with creamy non diet sauces.  A decent bottle of wine and suddenly we relaxed and were on holidays.  It is a lovely neighbourhood restaurant and would love one like it in my town.

On Easter Monday, all our plans were changed as we found a 4 hour queue in the rain for the David Hockney exhibition which we were not prepared to do.  The exhibition of European Model Railways  supposed to be happening in the Royal Horticultural Society , was news to the door man.  Our guide book must have been wrong.  Nothing achieved and now time for lunch!  We were half expecting Beruit Express to be closed too, but it was open and buzzing

http://www.maroush.com/beirut-express-edgware

We ordered a Mezza plate of cold starters, some mixed kebabs and the chicken livers in garlic sauce, too much food I know, but I wanted to taste everything!  When the waiter started to make rapid repeat journeys to our table, I knew we had over ordered!  But it was all so good, the Mezza plate had a bit of everything loaded up on one giant plate.  Indeed, with the lovely flat breads that came with it, would have made a decent lunch for two.  Hommos, two types, one hot and peppery, some tabboulet, vine leaves, pickles, salad, the plate was overflowing with good things to eat.  The chicken livers were divine, lemony, charred on the outside, soft and pink in the middle, creamy and utterly moreish.  For me they were the highlight in a packed feast. 

We also had some skewers of minced lamb, marinated lamb and chicken cubes. In case this was not enough, we had also ordered some Lebanese rice.  It was all so good that we must have spent a good hour mixing and matching, a mouthful of hommus with lamb, some chicken with tabboulet, etc, until we felt we had done justice to this great spread of tastes and flavours.   There was no rush and the lovely waiter even encouraged us to take our time.  It was all so interesting for me as we could have been sitting at a table in Beruit, elderly fathers sitting at the top of a table of men, people reading Arabic newspapers, beautiful costumes.  Edgeware Road is definitely streets away from where I live!  I was soaking it all in while trying not to stick out too much .  When the waiter was clearing our plaates, I apologized for not being able to finish everything, even though it was all good.  He said the Chef hates it when everything is cleared as he thinks he has not cooked enough!  We ate nothing else for the day.  A stroll through the interesting shop fronts helped to work off at least 10 or 20 of those calories.  A great recommendation and thanks Kavey for the heads up.  We spent £40 on lunch, but honestly, you could eat well here for £10 a head.  The restaurant does not serve alcohol.

Another failed outing the following day as we went to Eat Street at King’s Cross station for what we thought would be an eating stroll through the traders at the street market there.  But we only found an empty street, as they only trade on Thursday and Friday.  Doh!

We went inside and ordered a Mamta curry from Leon inside the station, the vegetarian one.  I felt so delighted, I almost told the server “I know her!”  It was really good, full of squash and peas, and a light curry sauce, served with rice and slaw.  We shared one between us, but I had to fork fight OH to get any.  He really loved it.  Really, really good fast food, I must get back to Leon and try more dishes.

OH said he was still hungry and disappointed that Eat Street was not open, so he took out my list of places to eat and off we headed to the next one........