Tag Archives: Soho

Pierre Victoire, Soho

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I seem to hang out a lot in Soho at the moment, and on Saturday I found myself there once again. This time I met up with Laura for an early supper at the French bistro, Pierre Victorie, on Dean Street.

This is a restaurant that I kind of liked, but it could be so much better if just the waiting staff were nicer. The food is hearty and well cooked and the prices are very reasonable (read cheap) and yet as a costumer you are not exactly blown away. And the reason for that is merely the staff. We were asked if we were ready to order by 4 different staff members in less than 4 minutes. That’s just stressy.

After enough interruptions we were ready to order and the food arrived efficiently.

Both of us went for soup as a starter, above is Laura’s French onion soup that was really good. Below is my potato and leek soup. It was nice and rustic and almost tasted homemade.

I went for a simple steak frites with garlic and herb butter and although it wasn’t very expensive, the steak was good quality and perfectly cooked. The fries on the other hand were a bit too pale and therefore less crunchy. A shame since it is so easily fixed with a few minutes more in the fryer.

Laura’s seabass with potatoes, fennel and gremolata looked beautiful and she thoroughly enjoyed it.

So there was defintiely noting wrong with the food (apart from the pale fries), but once we finished eating and wanted to sit for a few more minutes the staff resumed to being rude and it felt like they were kicking us out only so they could relay the table and make more money. But that is not the way a costumer wants to be treated, regardless of the quality of the food. A real shame.

Pierre Victoire
5 Dean Street
London
W1D 3RQ

Barrafina, Soho

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I feel incredibly lucky working where I do. The company is great but this time I was actually refering to where the offices are located; just by the embankment. That means I can wander into Soho, Covent Garden and even Mayfair on my lunch breaks. Not bad, huh?

I am also lucky in the sense that I work with a fellow foodie, Caroline. Once in a while we go out for a proper lunch together, we have a long list of eateries we want to go through.

Last week we went to Barrafina, Caroline’s choice, but I loved it too. It is a small tapas bar (with emphasis on bar) consisting of one curved bar with 23 seats. When we got there at half past twelve they were all taken to our disappointment, but the waiter asked if we wanted to sit outside where they had a few tables on the side walk. Of course we wanted to sit in the glorious sun and enjoy our meal. And as  there were heaters all along the wall we were definitely not cold.

We got a menu in the form of a placemat on the table as well as a small black board with the specials. We chose (with difficulty as everything seemed delicious) a few dishes from each menu. We also settled for sparkling water and we probably had a bottle each, it just kept on coming and our waiter really looked after us.

We received the cured ham we ordered, Lomo, first of all, and shortly afterwards the lovely Pan con Tomate arrived; toasted sourdough with tomato pulp.

Next to arrive was the razor clams with olive oil, garlic and parsley. Lovely!

After that the pancetta wrapped cuttle fish with ink arrived and it was absolutely beautiful. I think this was both our favourite.

Next was the Morcilla Iberica, a blood sausage served with piquillo peppers and fried quail’s egs. The sausage was nice enough on its own, but paired with the egg it was really good.

One of the items from the special’s board was this kale with garlic, chilli and olive oil. Wonderful although so very simple.

We enjoyed the whole meal but a few dishes (the cuttle fish and the kale) were better than others. Everything was really fresh and well cooked. I will definitely come here again, and please stop by if you happen to be near here.

Barrafina
54 Frith Street,
London,
W1D 4SL

Cocktails at Bob Bob Ricard

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Photo: Bob Bob Ricard.

On Friday the plan was for me, Laura and Jess to go to a nice pub in Chelsea, but we ended up having cocktails at Bob Bob Ricard in Soho instead, before heading to another bar for food and some more drinks.

 

Pear bellini

Once we decided to stay central we actually wanted to go to Mark’s Bar at Hix, but it was full and it was too cold to hang around waiting. Instead we walked two blocks to Bob Bob Ricard. It was the first time we were here, but we liked what we saw (and experienced).

When we opened the heavy door, at least four staff members greeted us, took our coats and showed us to our table in the downstairs bar.

The whole place is in art deco style and it looked really nice. The bar downstairs was all in red and had little booths with sofas and little flap chairs. The cocktail menu had lots of interesting English cocktails, as well as little nibbles like olives and popcorn.

Jess and I had a pear bellini each, which was lovely, and Laura’s choice of a Garden drink with Pimm’s, elderflower and mint was very refreshing and it was fun to see what else you can do with Pimm’s apart from serving it with fruit and lemonade.

We agreed that this is a perfect place to start a date or just go for a drink or two when in need for some instant glamour.

Spice Market

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I prefer to bring lunch with me to work than to grab a sandwich every day. To be honest, as a Swede I could never get used to English sandwished on spongy bread. But when I do go out for lunch on a weekday, I prefer to go somewhere nice and splurge a little, a reward for having packed lunches most days.

Most of the time I go for lunch, I go with my colleague Caroline and this week we ventured to Spice Market in Soho. She had been to the New York branch before so that’s why we wanted to try this place.

The cuisine is Asian and it is all served family style, i.e. the dishes are to be shared and they come out of the kitchen when they’re ready.

We ordered two starters and two maincourses to share, as well as a glass of  Sauvignon Blanc.

Before the first dish arrived we got a warm towel scented with lemongrass to refresh ourselves with. The first dish on the table was crab dumplings with sugar snap peas. The dumplings were nice but not very flavoursome and the whole dish was powdered with way too mush pepper. We also received some poppadoms and chilli sauce which was nice.

The next dish however, was really nice; eggrolls with mushrooms (lots of) served with a velvety tarragon sauce.

We ordered one fish and one meat maincourse, both were ok but nothing special. The fish was sole in a quite thick batter, and it was slightly over done and a bit dry. The ginger and basil emulsion was nice though, but didn’t add much to the bland fish.

The meat was slowly braised and incredibly tender. But unfortunately the broth didn’t have much flavour at all, just some heat at the end from the chillies. As I told Caroline, if I was cooking this, I would not have put it out on the table as it was. It needed garlic, sugar, salt and pepper, there was no oomph and not much flavour, the opposite of what you expect from an Asian restaurant.

Before we ordered we asked how large the dishes were, and we were told that they were of regular starter and main size. On the contrary though, they were huge, especially the mains. The fish consisted of three fillets and the meat was about 200 grams, so not something two girls can demolish when they have had starters as well.

It does not feel right leaving food on the table, but this time we had no choice.

All in all we had a lovely lunch, but that was more because of the company and the wine than the food. I am not sure I will go back, but if I do it would be solemnly because of the mushroom rolls and I would just order starters to share.

Spice Market
10 Wardour Street
London W1D 6QF

Bubble tea at Bubbleology

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In Soho, a stone’s throw away from China town, a few bubble tea vendors have popped up recently.

Last week, Jenny and I, went to Bubbleology to try it out. We expected a cold tea with bubbles bursting of flavour, and were actually slightly disappointed.

There were two types of tea to choose from; milky or fruity, with lot’s of different flavours like mango, strawberry, caramel, chocolate… The same type of bubbles were added to the teas if one didn’t request any of the special ones at the counter. We tried the regular thing, one mango and one passionfruit and were sorry to discover that the tapioca bubbles (more like a chewy ball actually) were quite slimy and didn’t taste much.

I loved the big straws though, which easily carried the bubbles (boba, I’ve been told they’re called) to your mouth. But after having enjoyed half the tea, we were a bit bored of the bubbles. Not even the tea on it’s own was that nice, it tasted more like squash with a bitter tea-after taste.

However, it was fun to try, and checking out all the Asians drinking the milky versions, we felt that maybe we could give it another go.

To learn more on bubble teas, have a look here.

Paul A. Young fine chocolates in Soho

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Last Friday when Jenny and I were out and about in Soho, we stumbled upon the new Paul A. Young shop, just a few days after I had read about the chocolaterie in Time Out. The shop was gorgeous with a large round table in the middle of the room showing the different kinds of truffles. There were certainly interesting flavours like the Marmite truffle, that we were told a food writer from the Times challenged them to create. I suspect we were speaking with Paul himself even, and he told us what a difficult process it was to find the right combination of flavour and chocolate. Other interesting flavours were tarragon, tomato and basil etc.

I bought a few truffles to try, but I stuck the more traditional ones such as champagne truffle, and the flavours I know I like; the combination of salty and sweet like the sea salt caramel truffle. One wild card though, a dark chocolate truffle with tahini.

My verdict reflects more upon me than the chocolate; I really enjoyed the champagne truffle and the salted caramel which was divine and I prefer those flavours to the more intersting ones. The salty nut cluster was nice, but a bit too bitter in the aftertaste, and the tahini truffle did taste of tahini, it was just not a combination i enjoyed very much.

You can still tell how skillful the people making these truffles are though, these are the most pretty chocolates I have ever seen, and although it might not be for everyone, it is fun to try new combinations of flavours, and it makes a great gift.