Good food and restaurants

London being a multicultural city there is always plenty of different restaurants to choose from. Everything from the simplest sandwich bar to high-class restaurants serving Guide Michelin cuisine. So last week the foodie in me really got satisfied by trying a lot of new places and dishes.

Past Brown
Next to Covent Garden two of my colleagues and I found this very relaxed pasta restaurant perfect for chilling out after a hard day’s work. My cannelloni came straight from the oven and the ricotta and spinach filling were just perfect. Some lovely dry Pinot Grigio also did the trick for a very nice and girly evening out.

Belgo Centraal
Back in 2000 my friend Jo took me here for moules and friters. We also managed to end up in a photo shot for Condé Nast Traveller and got quite a few shots as a thank you. This time my London colleague brought us here for some real nice Belgian steaks and golden crisp friters. As desert I opted for home made pistachio ice cream and hot chocolate sauce. Pure divine.

Palms of Goa
As an Englishman Philip is quite fond of Indian food or a curry as one says. Wherever we go in central London it seems like he knows a great curry house to eat. (Needless to say he does know other places as well…) On Friday night he, his friend Michael and I went to a small Soho backstreet restaurant specialising in Goan food. I tried something called Chicken Cafreal. A dish very much influenced by the Portuguese settlement in Goa. Tender chicken breast marinated in hot sauce and then grilled with spring onions and peppers. Very fresh and nice, and different from the creamy sauces that Indian food usually comes with.

My Old Dutch
Another great find of Philip for lunch on Saturday. Gigantic Dutch sweet pancakes with different fillings. He went for salmon and I for asparagus. Both very delicious and filling. I actually didn’t clean my plate, which is very rare. The pancakes were served on genuine Delftware plates and the whole restaurant felt very Dutch with tulips, wood furniture and the colour of orange of course. The only thing I didn’t see was clogs or any clog dancing. But maybe that is something that only goes on in the evening?!

After spending the afternoon on Hampstead Heath we ended up at local Vietnamese restaurant in Hackney. On the way over there we also had a couple of drinks at a very strange bar on Brick Lane. Afghan meets India who meets kitschy English DIY bar. The crowd there was as mixed as the setting with Asians, other Swedes (they seem to be everywhere in London) Brits and Germans. You just name it.

I’ve heard about restaurants where you have to bring your own drinks since they don’t have a licence, but I have never experienced one. The Vietnamese restaurant was exactly one of those places so Michael had to pop over to the off-licence next door to get drinks. For the first time in my life I tried seaweed, which is suppose to be very good for you. But being deep-fried I’m not sure how good it really was. It didn’t taste much though. Just very crunchy and a bit salty. The biggest surprise of the evening was probably the check. For both starters and main courses we paid £ 10 each. What a bargain! OK, that was without drinks, but for me only used to central London prices it was a quite a pleasant surprise.