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Monday 20 February 2012

BLANDFORD'S

Cabbie's Delight

'Two eggs, and a slice of toast darling'.

Keeping it Simple

Bench Warmer

His and Hers

Wooden Bench Booths

A Lady Comes Around

A bow for Blandford's

# 21  Key Of The Door

Taxi Haven

This north Marylebone institution has witnessed a few scoops, chronicles and celebs in it's time. Plus a few high ranking taxi cabbies. A daily commute of continuous traffic plods and meanders its way to Blandford's doorstep, covering all cultures and generating a gentle stream of constantly busy, without punters feeling poked or rushed. You could hang out in here all day, do your laundry, mend a radio and bake a cake and nobody would bat an eyelid.

Blandford's is one of those places you discover by chance and keep close to your chest. London's underbelly bubbling away in all its glory. It's a conversation listener sort of a place, that any script writer worth her salt would sponge dry.

Unlike most places of a greasy spoon genre, Blandford's isn't seedy or preferential and has an elegance in its manoeuvres. The wooden furniture, tables and benches are worn into place and provide a golden hue and timeless attitude. The long french cafe curtain wraps up the ambience, allowing a sense of place and secret escape. It also keeps the cold out when your inner icicles are popping a cog.

For those partial to mechanically recovered meat, this is sausage fry up heaven. Seriously good comfort eating. It might not appear at your table foaming with liquid nitrogen or warrant attendance at the Soho Food Feast but get off the grass, who cares ?

Who can be bothered banging on about sourdough and spelt when you can have processed plain white pre-sliced supermarket bread for your toast. They could even fry up Tongue-in-cheek.

There is no such thing as a flawed meal, moreover a welcome retreat from highfalutin, 'menu degustation' grandiloquence. Gordon, Fergus, Heston, sling your puffed-up butchers hooks. 

Blandford's was doing its worst while other recent cool cafe cubs were still doing wedgies on the Brit Cuisine trail.

No. There's nothing bland about Blandford's.




Friday 17 February 2012

CAFE GOURMAND

Homemade French Food



'I Love Starting Things'  Lucien Freud



Bécher de Thé à La Menthe



Community Table



Matchstick Bulbs



Mood Lighting



# 20 One Score



Bécher de Thé

It's Valentines day, you've fluttered and swooned in slow motion over the stunning retrospective of Lucien Freud at the National Portrait Gallery and your ready for an amble and intimate refresher.

Where do you go for the perfect beaker of tea ?

Shake a tail feather down to Cafe Gourmand on Lexington Street in Soho.

This French Cafe-Bistro hang out has all you need. If your peckish, there's Coq Au Vin. Omelettes. Roast Topside of Beef Sarnie. Pork Sausage and Haricot Vert Cassoulet. French Onion Soup. Roast Belly Of Pork. Croustillant Aux Champignon. Tartine Savoyarde. Quiche du Jour. Croque Monsieur. French Apple Tart and the Pastries ........

All the ingredients to echo CG's playlist of a homemade menu du jour, featuring a remix of 'The Perfect French Trough'.

Thé du Menthe is served in elegant and functional crystal clear German-Jena beakers by the amiable, chatty French proprietaire, the friendliest of hosts on this well frequented block.

Cafe Gourmand has a lovely personality and a real sense of soul. It feels a home-from-home, cosy and sophisticated and the kind of place you would regularly meet like-minded buddies to snack and meditate over a suitably aesthetic dialogue. Lucien would have approved.

Cafe Gourmand be my Valentine.









Thursday 16 February 2012

da POLPO



Osteria decor
Florentine Paper Menu


Twin Beakers and a Cosy Carafe

# 19  Goodbye Teens


Snug and Cosy

Having already enjoyed the intimate sibling shuffle between the two popular Soho twins : polpo and polpetto, when finding ourselves down in the camping district, we chanced upon their triplet: Osteria da Polpo. Keen to pitch our grazing tent for the night, we ventured in to see what all the fuss is about.....

The secret of the current de rigueur policy for 'no reservations' is to drop in pronto and watch the queues snake around the door while you happily tuck in.

This is the work of restauranteur of the year Russell Norman, a chap whose been busy opening a little emporium of food eateries, ( Spuntino and Mishkins are part of the family) each having a unique notion and idiosyncratic setting, cleverly avoiding the ignominy of being considered a chain concept. It is easy to see how this family of Eateries has been built upon erudite success and a penchant for canny street placement. Couple this with an assured balance of modernity and familiarity and recognisable touches of elan, such as the florentine-esque paper menus, doubling as place mats.

da polpo breezes through the challenge, maintaining a comfortably relaxed attitude and deals with the bustling frenetic demands of hungry urban punters in a chilled out confident manner. Twinkling candlelights for dinner created intimate shadows, but due to the bloggers preference of old fashioned mobile apparatus, the chiaroscuro has reduced this blog to the imagination.

This polpo team are big on meatballs and offer a variety of  winning flavour concoctions. Lamb and Mint balls followed quick fire on the heels of Fennel, Curly Endive, Almonds and a Mackerel Roulette special of the day. Then followed by a chaser of Chicory, Pear and Taleggio. Yum, yum. Score.

Foolishly we didn't elect to wash down the signature 'Nutella Pizzetta' with a 'Jerry Thomas Manhattan', but the offer was there....


da Polpo has a stylish pair of legs, admittedly a bit meaty compared to Legs and Co but certainly a gratifying retreat if your out buying rambling boots.



Tuesday 14 February 2012

KOYA



First Come First Served



Wall Mounted Menu Scripts



Outside bench



Hiya !



Japanese tea Ceremony



Deep Fried Tofu bedded on Cabbage Leaf



Mushroom and Walnut Paste on Udon




Nude Udon,  Tempura - Assorted Vegetable



Prawn Tempura Float



Ram Packed



Heading Home

# 18 Coming of Age

Nude L's


Favourite Places to Eat are places you tend to go back to..... hence they become destination favourites. After my 4th visit to Koya since it's word of mouth inauguration, you could say it genuinely falls into the "favourites' category.

So what's the big deal ? 

Udon. Udon a go-goIt's all about the Udon, the thick soft flour noodles with a discreet slurp soundtrack, that originate from the south of Japan.

These noodles are fast on the draw and could go head-to-head with any gung-ho gunslinger. Perfect when your feeling famished and warding off a cold winter's evening. Though fast doesn't mean at a loss of the authentic assembly and depth of flavour. The key ingredients, (stocks and sauces) are prepared slowly in advance, Udon with love. The Japanese are partial to al dente Udon and this makes sense when observing their quick consumption - to avoid a soggy wicket in the hot broth. 

If you haven't already guessed, Koya concentrates on Udon noodles (even kneading the dough on the premises with their feet- the authentic tradition) but there is much, much more than a one-trick pony with these specialists, having created tsunami waves in noodle circles. The clever bit is their low-key approach, they don't sing and dance about it, or  perform the 'haka' when you walk in. They do wear neat aprons and head scarves and generate an authentic Japanese-London hang out. Even the european staff seem to have been zapped with a Japanese essence.

The decor is just bare enough to notice all the considered details. Ercol chairs, functional accessible wall hooks, large mounted menu scripts and an APC Antwerp style graphic tile floor. The solid oak benches outside provide a welcome pit stop to shoot-the-breeze- and a chance to feel elated at the head of the Udon queue, snaking its way back past Ronnie Scotts. Another celebrant of not taking bookings, it's best to run down there once you clock off, as this place becomes ram packed, in less than fifteen minutes of opening their Noren curtains.

Koya keeps it simple, as all good specialists do and serves Hot Udon (Atsu-Atsu) , Cold Udon with hot broth (Hiya-Atsu) and  Cold udon with cold sauce (Hiya-Hiya). Frequent yelps of Hiya! Hiya! to the staff brings giggles as they say "Hiya" back and raise the bar a little higher.

Little intricate appetisers of pickled beetroot and deep fried Tofu on cabbage leaf set up the forthcoming Udon spectacular. If you don't like amazingly tasty noodles, you can relax as the Tempura is also uncontrollably good here. Try not to pinch others, no matter how tempting that seems.

There is something most attractive about a place that concentrates on one thing and does it with excellence, appealing to hungry 8 years olds as much as a retired ventriloquist or bohemian film director. 

Don't be coy, cuddle up to Koya.



Thursday 9 February 2012

LOUIS PASTRY AND TEA ROOM


Paint job echoing Louis' Blue and Gold Rolls Royce

The window flocks them in

Step this way

Essential Bits and Bobs


Dress Code

Inner Sanctum

Untouched Beauty

Sugar Lump Mountain

Something from the Hot Plate Sir ?

Hand Ledger
# 17 Dancing Queen

So You Like Cake ?

Well eat this. 

There is a secret gem of a Hungarian tea room nestled in the leafy throws of Hampstead village, who serve cake on tray stilts as if Cake as we know it has gone out of fashion.  

Walk on in and take a pew in a beautifully preserved rich wood panelled room with Chesterfield style leather seating and watch the action unfold before you. Aprons shuffle behind clandestine theatre-esque velvet curtains and the sense of concealment sets the tone for a show stopping spectacular.

Like a mini stage set, fellow diners are mesmerising - some in a decidedly geriatric but sharp as a button fashion - busily discussing the topics of the day. 

When the cakes arrive a discernible hush pings around the room and all eyes are on the lucky table. The choice of cake is so extensive and resplendent you can see the panic set in, as punters grapple with their taste-buds trying to make the final decision.

Washed down with a cuppa served in the queens own silver, and poured into floral patterned bone china, it really doesn't get any better than this.

Surprisingly in such a beautiful tea house, in such an affluent borough you might expect hefty prices, you couldn't be more mistaken, as orders are boxed and bowed for less than the five shillings you might find in the Artful Dodger's silk purse.

Of course like any good fish and chip shop it is not the price that wins the day but the steady flow of customers who provide rich reward to any savvy business; as can be seen by the Louis gold and blue Rolls Royce parked outside whose spray job mirrors the facade of the tea room. Nice touch.

It can get chock-a-block so pick your time to visit this unique cake emporium carefully. 


www.ofcourseLouisdonothaveawebsite.com




Favourite Places To Eat

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