Much anticipation ensued when we spotted a newly-opened Chinese restaurant around the corner from my work earlier this year. Brick Lane has more restaurants than you could shake a stick at, but has lacked a decent Chinese for a long time. The next nearest lunchtime option is Noodle King; about the best thing I can say about this place is that their servings are significantly larger than a Pot Noodle.

Our excitement increased when we spotted Red Bar’s menu—full of Szechuan and north-eastern Chinese specialities, many of which we recognised from the excellent Gourmet San (further down Bethnal Green road, but not open for lunch). Now Szechuan food excites me—it’s spicier and more intensely flavoured than the Cantonese-style food which most Chinese restaurants in London serve. What’s more, as a less well-known and spicier option, it’s usually prepared to a higher standard for more of a Chinese clientele.

My excitement was soon tempered, though, by a number of failed attempts to eat there at lunch. Red Bar’s opening hours can be a little sporadic, and it was a while until we got to eat there.

Boy, was it worth the wait.

The first thing we tried—Yu-Hsiang shredded pork—stuck with me as a favourite. Tender strips of pork, Chinese mushroom and vegetables come in an intensely flavourful sauce, full of garlic, chilli oil, Chinese wine and vinegar. Servings are big, and with some steamed rice this will leave you very satisfied.

I developed other favourites over a series of visits. Beef brisket with tomatoes is really tender, served in a thicker, delicately spiced sauce which is full of flavour. Lamb on fire (who can resist “on fire”?) comes wrapped in foil and surrounded by a slightly strange burning gel; it’s marinated in Chinese wine and spiced with lots of cumin, which for a moment almost recalled some of the curry joints down the other end of Brick Lane. But with black bean, the wine and other flavours, it makes for a tasty combination which I’d not tried before.

Another stand-out is sea bass, baked and served in foil with spring onions and (again!) a rich, intense sauce which also features cumin. Western cooking usually tries to avoid overpowering a fish like this, but here it totally works, the fish juices adding into the mix of flavours and producing something really rich and sublime.

This being Szechuan food of course, chilli does feature quite highly. Most of the drier dishes come with both smaller dried red chillis (quite lethal, but mainly just there to garnish and imbue flavour) and slices of the larger fresh red and green chillies, which are quite edible and tasty when cooked (taking the seeds out helps a bit). Some dishes, like the chilli king prawns, come with a giant pile of both.

It’s not all spice though; one soup starter we tried, while very large, was rather too watery. On the other hand, braised chicken and mushroom (which turned out to be virtually a soup) is excellent, with a dark fragrant broth and a generous helping of different dried mushrooms. Veggie dishes also turned out great, with yu-shiang sauce suiting the sweet sautéd aubergine particularly well.

—

After a bunch of evening visits, it was a while until we tried the place again at lunchtime. So there was another rush of excitement a few weeks ago when we spotted the introduction of an unlimited £5 lunch buffet, which on our first visit included a dish of giant mussels!

The mussels sadly never returned; and the buffet options on the whole leaned a bit more towards their Cantonese-style takeaway menu, which we generally ignore at dinner in favour of the more interesting options. But these dishes are better done than the usual Chinese buffet, and with more of a chilli kick too. The buffet featured things like fried chicken, a great stew with beef, pork ribs, fish in a sauce, battered fish, tofu, noodles, egg-drop soup and more. Tasty and great value for money.

Disappointment was in store again, though. Demand seemed low for the buffet (we were the only customers sometimes) and they stopped doing it. Here’s hoping it comes back!

One question which many will ask is: how does Red Bar compare with Gourmet San along the road (one of London’s most recommended Szechuan restaurants)? It’s not yet as popular, so no queues to get a table, and some of the dishes which I’ve tried at both were slightly better presented down the road. But there’s really not a lot between them in terms of flavour, and on their top dishes I think Red Bar has a slight edge on the competition. They try a little harder than Gourmet San with the decor too, but it’s still fairly basic—it’s the food that matters here.

Price-wise it’s all very reasonable too, and unless you’re particularly hungry, you can easily share 3 main dishes between 4 (or 2 between 3). In fact, sharing is the best way to go with this food.

In short, a great local restaurant, and just what the area needed. There are lots more dishes for us to try (including some untranslated ones, some of which apparently are Hangzhou specialities, for even more variety!) and we’ll be back again and again.

In summary

Red bar and restaurant
132 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 6DG
0207 729 9954
Open 5pm-11pm, and usually for lunch on weekdays!

In Broadway Market’s Buen Ayre, though, we have a new champion. We left the restaurant not only with sickeningly full stomachs, but with doggy bags full of two pounds of leftover steak—these salvaged from an even bigger pile of unconsumed meat. (Matthew got four days of steak sandwiches out of his doggy bag share.)

Why so much meat? Buen Ayre specialises in the Argentine art of the parillada, a mixed grill cooked on a parilla, an Argentine grill that’s hung above flaming charcoal with chains. Starting at £16.50 per person for a minimum of two diners, Buen Ayre’s parilladas are a vegetarian’s nightmare—sizzling heaps of Argentine sausage, black pudding, sweetbread, kidney and all manners of grilled steak. (The Parillada Mixta does however come with yummy grilled provolone and deliciously nutty pesto-stuffed mushrooms in place of short ribs.)

Irish-Argentine chef John Patrick Rattagan grew up barbecuing meat outside Buenos Aires, and the charred, juicy results really are Buen Ayre’s reason for existing. The lengthy menu extends to starters (we ordered empanadas and ox tongue) mains and sandwiches, but there’s hardly a vegetarian option to be found; the restaurant’s simple setting, a small, slightly cramped dining room with wooden floors, tables and chairs, means the meaty dishes are the main attraction.

We ordered two parilladas, the Mixta and the Al Paso, a lot of meat for even the most serious carnivore, but, as the last table of the night, when it came to portion size we did even better: the kitchen piled their leftover glut of sirloin steaks on top of our expected lump of flank steak, sausage, black pudding, short ribs, provolone and mushroom. On the side was the famous oil-chili-garlic-oregano sauce, chimichurri, and two bowls of fluffy, crispy chips (one bowl drenched in garlic and parsley), and our glasses were full of Argentine red from the lengthy wine list.

The challenge of chewing through such a mountain of flesh was made easier by fact that it was all pretty tasty. The rich blood sausages were swallowed effortlessly, and the steaks, though slightly tough, were nevertheless rare and well-seasoned, just the way we like them. (The lengua a la vinegreta, our marinated ox tongue starter, remained the highlight of the night, however—the vinegary, tender slices converted even those of us disgusted by ox tongue as children.) Come midnight and closing time, we were still happily (though sluggishly) chewing. We’ll be back—definitely without any vegetarians in tow.

In summary

Buen Ayre
50 Broadway Market, Hackney, E8 4QJ
020 7275 9900
6pm to 10:30pm Monday to Friday; noon to 5pm and 6pm to 10:30pm Saturday and Sunday.

Not being sure to know an authentic dim sum dish from a chichi western imitation, we called on the assistance of Jill, who hails from the dim sum capital Hong Kong via pleasant Oxfordshire. (We’d already decided our dim sum meal should represent Hong Kong; we’re eyeing a Szechuan spot for China proper.) Jill is vehement in her dislike for chains like Ping Pong, which I’ll admit to having enjoyed in the past; so she suggested an oft-neglected dim sum restaurant in Chinatown serving the real deal.

The standard restaurant food at Golden Pagoda is, all told, as mediocre as any of the other outlets dishing up westernised Cantonese food on Gerrard street. That’s not why we visited, though. At weekend lunchtimes, a dedicated dim sum chef (Wai Sui Yu, from the acclaimed Dragon and Castle south of the river) takes over, and things take a turn for the better.

I did come with an idea of what to expect—my first dim sum experience in Toronto’s Chinatown centre was, I imagine, pretty authentic. Trollies full of small unidentified dishes were wheeled around the large room and devoured by eager Chinese pensioners, leaving the non-Cantonese-speaking amongst us to take a “lucky dip” approach to the day’s lunch menu. I tried many things, some delicious (dumplings, buns), some not to my taste (rubbery pickled slices of chicken feet) and some completely unidentified.

While Golden Pagoda doesn’t serve from trolleys, we were still glad to have some help in deciphering the Chinese order card, on which one ticks off quantities of dishes desired. Having a big table meant we got to sample a great variety of dishes, which is the best way to go about it, although leaves me struggling to describe all we ate.

Lots of Cantonese favourites were present, including many varieties of dumpling. (Har gau with their pleated wrappers; siu mai which are open-topped and orange-tinged; siu lung bau, extraordinary feats of engineering which burst with a filling of hot soup; the translucent fun gor.) And of course, some great steamed buns with char sui (bbq pork) and chicken.

Cheung fun are another Cantonese classic, with meat and seafood fillings wrapped in soft rice noodle sheets and slathered in soy. They’re slippery customers when armed with chopsticks, but proved very popular.

Yummy squid came both deep-fried and raw with a vinegary salad; lo bak goh (steamed turnip cake) and a similar steamed seafood cake proved a little gelatinous for some of us, although served well at soaking up soy. Lo mai gai (lotus leaf rice), while comforting, was not the best I’ve had.

The surprise for me was the chicken feet (fung zao), which I’ll admit to approaching with scepticism. This batch, served whole, boiled until tender, heavily seasoned and barbecued, were a much more agreeable proposition than the rubbery kind I’d tried in vinegar.

When it comes to desert, I missed out on my favourites, deep fried sesame buns. But we did try fried custard buns (near enough!), and a Hong Kong speciality, egg custard tarts. (These look very similar to the Portuguese pastel da nata, and probably arrived via the nearby Portuguese colony Macau.) Jill’s favourite was another Hong Kong dish, mango pudding, which rather resembles a blancmange.

How was the food then? Experienced hands certainly thought highly of it; for my part, I found it an altogether different experience to the fancier-looking dim sum chains. Perhaps a little less variety and subtlety when it came to flavours and fillings, but more wholesome and satisfying, and the feeling that liberties weren’t being taken with a reliable tradition. Good hangover food, in fact, making it an excellent choice for Sunday lunch, and great value at around £10 a head.

In summary

Golden Pagoda
15a Gerrard St, Chinatown, W1D 6JD
020 7434 2888

That said, there’s one thing that I’ve never liked about it—the service. This time it started before we even got there. I got a call from the restaurant the day before our 202 Meals visit, informing me that although we had a booking for six o’clock, we’d have to come at “four-thirty or five”, because a group of 60 and a group of 20 were coming at half-past six. The waiter on the phone assured me this was to give us “the best service”, but the rather abrupt command to leave at the end of our meal the next day confirmed their motives were entirely more predictable.

Every Persian restaurant I have been to has nice decor, but Mahdi’s is particularly pleasing, with real waterfalls as well as Persian rugs and cushions. While waiting for the inevitable latecomers, we admired the walls, covered in Persian art, and ordered a pot of Iranian tea (black tea with cardamom). The tea was not to everyone’s liking; the same cannot be said about the houmous, which everyone ordered. The sesame seed-covered nan, made onsite by a baker stationed by the front window to tempt passers-by, was an excellent accompaniment.

The choice in main courses is between kebabs and lamb stews—the menu is more or less evenly divided between the two kinds of dish. Fortunately there were no vegetarians among us, for there’s only one (unspecified) vegetarian dish on the menu.

Most of us went for kebabs, and all three kebab varieties on offer were represented at the table: lamb, minced lamb and chicken. The lamb versions were not hugely different from similar Turkish or Lebanese dishes, but the chicken was cooked with saffron and lemon juice, making it a little more distinctive. Those who ordered a side of rice rather than salad or rice/salad split were given not just a mountain but a mountain range of the stuff.

Unfortunately for Andrea, the waiters brought her a slightly boring lamb and okra stew she hadn’t ordered, only then informing her that that the more exciting lamb, pomegranate and walnut stew she’d chosen wasn’t available. Matt was luckier on the stew front, receiving a pile of fragrant saffron rice filled with tender lamb bits. Everyone else was happy with their choices, if a little overwhelmed by the size. There were certainly more unfinished than finished dinners, but it wasn’t a reflection of the food itself.

There are many good Persian restaurants in west London, but for the best it’s worth going a little further out than West Kensington or Bayswater. Despite the negative picture this review may give about Mahdi’s service, the food convincingly trumps this.

In summary

Mahdhi
217 King Street, Hammersmith, London, W6 9JT
0871 075 7388

The building’s interior is an odd mix of embassy and suburban house; we catch some old Czech guys watching TV on the way in and feel like we’re entering a rather grand home.

The club’s restaurant does appear to cater primarily to ex-pat members missing a taste of home. Our lack of Czech proved quite an impediment, both to explanation of the menu and comprehension of our order, leading to a few mistakes. The food is comforting rather than fancy, and lacks some of the flair of eastern European restaurants we’ve tried elsewhere in London. That said, the club is one of the few places in London where you can try Czech specialities, and resulted in an interesting meal.

(The Czech Republic and Slovakia were of course still a joint entity for much of the club’s life, as its name reflects. Its founder was a Czech, however, and its website humbly admits that “if you are after a classic Slovak restaurant in London we may not fully satisfy you”. So we’ll be seeking Slovakian food another time.)

A few of us picked starters, something of a brave move considering the usual size of eastern European portions. Pickled herring, one of my favourites, has just the firmness and pep I demand from it. Potato pancakes in the Czech style prove delicious, large, dark and topped with smoky bacon, but Alex’s brie salad, while interesting (it was served in a vinegary dressing) didn’t quite leave him crying out for seconds.

Whether by accident or design our main courses turned out very similar. On each plate a big hunk of roast meat swam in a generous but rather sickly soup of sauerkraut, more the consistency of apple sauce than the shredded German variety I’ve tried before. Czech dumplings (knedlíky) on the side were not quite what we expected either, consisting of large, bready slices of boiled dough. (Apparently smaller potato dumplings are also served, but knedlíky are the classic Czech variety.)

Meat and game are quite central to Czech cuisine—we tried goose, duck, boar, beef and chicken and all proved well-prepared, rich and tasty. My main course, stuffed breaded wild boar (plněný kančí řízek & příloha), was the subject of particular curiosity. Wobbling on the plate like a morbidly obese schnitzel, the wild boar fillet is breaded and fried after stuffing with onions, ham and smoked bacon. (More conventional schnitzel has a strong presence on the menu too, alongside other eastern European standards like goulash).

All this left us with little room for desert—just as well as we were turfed out rather summarily at the club’s 10pm closing time. All in all I’d say it’s worth visiting for the authentic Czech experience and the history of the place, but the service left a little to be desired and I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a first place to try eastern European food.

In summary

Czechoslovak National House
74 West End Lane, West Hampstead, London, NW6 2LX
0207 372 1193
Open Tuesday to Friday 5pm to 10pm, and weekends noon to 10pm.

But curiosity, and panic at the prospect of missing out on a one-time opportunity at a restaurant that’s gotten some really nice reviews, took over. So Matt, Karol and I visited. And didn’t regret it at all.

The restaurant—set up like more of a café—is part of the Stratford Circus theatre at Theatre Square, located off a desolate stretch of road skirting some indeterminate large-scale Olympic development near the Stratford rail station. The square, I’m told, is becoming increasingly hip. (Besides the theatre, it boasts an arty cinema reminiscent of Rich Mix, but also a Pizza Express.)

Maybe it’s because I’m naturally an easily-confused person, but when I entered I had to ask someone if I was actually in the restaurant—the fact that I only saw a bar and a couple of flimsy tables and chairs, plus no restaurant staff, threw me. It turns out the dining action was up above on the mezzanine-like first floor, for this evening anyway. Thanks to some dim lighting and a pianist, the simple space, naked but for tables and some long, sheer curtains, turned out to be pretty atmospheric.

All we knew coming in was that the tasting menu had been inspired by Newham specifically (according to Wikipedia, the most diverse district in the UK). And that, according to some website hints, the dishes would probably reflect some combination of African, Caribbean, South American, European and traditional East London cuisines. We’d also read that, promisingly, chef Kevin Richardson is actively trying to promote quality food at freakishly affordable prices. (No dish on the standard menu is more than £10.)

The resulting meal was filling and delicious. And had been carefully prepared—the dishes were well-presented, loaded with traditional foods made over with bursts of modern creativity. Here’s what we ate and drank:

For Eastern Europe

Thick, mildly spicy borscht unlike the thin, vinegary kind we’re used to, adorned with cream, a slice of beetroot and, interestingly, fresh mustard shoots. It was a bit salty, but good, and went well with the accompanying vodka and apple juice.

For India

Smooth, fluffy, bright green spinach pakora with okra, a tomato-y sauce, dried tomato slices(!) and fresh baby spinach. The dish was served with a French white wine.

For Asia

Thai fish cakes and noodles in a sweet chili sauce. The fish cakes were lumpy and homemade-tasting, a revelation for me—I’d only ever had dry, rubbery, bland excuses for Thai fish cakes before, and hadn’t realised any other sort existed.

For South America

A refreshing, palate-cleansing, genuine mojito, brimming with mint leaves and crushed ice, and minus the sickly gobs of sugar that often ruin the drink.

For Africa

Spicy jollof rice, familiar from our Ghanaian expedition, with a buttery-soft fried tilapia fillet and a Nigerian beer called Star.

For England(?)

Tender, perfectly cooked lamb chops with a fruity red wine reduction and potatoes and veg, including a single white asparagus spear. Like a fancy miniature Sunday roast, the dish came with a glass of Argentinian red wine. (Delicious as the dish was, its French influences made the connection to East London seem a bit tenuous. Being a modern East End menu, though, I guess it didn’t have to be pie and mash or jellied eel representing East End English fare.)

For desert

Continuing on the English theme, some interesting British cheeses, AND two mini cakes, AND a glass of port! The cheeses, paired with apple and pear slices, were amazing, and this is coming from an incredibly picky cheese lover. One resembled double gloucester with chives, one was bright green and tasted of basil, and one was an orange blue cheese that tasted like a firmer stilton. We should have asked their names, but by now we were quite drunk, with near-bursting stomachs, and so a bit preoccupied. Cakes-wise, the passion-fruit cheesecake outshone the slightly dry Chantilly-topped brownie, but they were cakes, and we weren’t complaining.

Somehow, bizarrely, this seven course combo was priced at only £25 a head plus service, including the drinks. We’d been expecting a decent meal, but for what we paid, we got way, way more than we ever would have dared to hope for. If it’s really possible for a restaurant to feed picky diners this well and still profit from an almost non-existent bill, Circus Eats is on to something. Hopefully chef Richardson won’t wait until the next East festival to launch another multi-course tasting menu experiment.

In summary

Circus Eats
Stratford Circus, Theatre Square, Stratford, London, E15 1BX
020 8279 1022
Open daily. Breakfast 9am to 11am, ‘light bites’ 12pm to 6pm, a la carte 12pm to 3pm and 6pm to 9pm.

It’s strange that Georgia isn’t better known for its wine. Wine is central to Georgian culture, and those who claim Georgians invented it might be correct. Archaeologists have found evidence of viticulture in the region from early as the fourth millennium BC, according to The Georgian Feast by Darra Goldstein. (Other fun facts from Goldstein: scientists believe the original wine grape was native to the Caucasus; some linguists consider the Georgian word for wine, ghvino, to be the prototype for the words vino, vin and wine; and early Georgians actually worshipped the grape with sacred back garden wine storage sheds.)

Tbilisi celebrates this with a long list of authentic Georgian wines, and through a few decor nods—shelves displaying spot-lit wine bottles hang on the wine-red walls of the modern-looking space. (The restaurant is a warm, cosy place despite the contemporary look, though, with a menu full of charming spelling mistakes like “crashed walnuts” and “vanilla ace-cream”.)

Kvanchkara, at £18.99, was the priciest Georgian wine on the list, but we couldn’t resist; it came recommended by our waiter, and by the menu, which calls it “most favoured” by Georgians “with a rich sweetness of fruit and oak tones”. The sweet red was unusual but more than drinkable, with a honey aftertaste. Our second bottle was a dry red made from the saperavi grape, still boasting a hint of sweetness; its name, Tamada, so the label said, is the Georgian word for a host or toastmaster charged with creating a social, celebratory atmosphere during meals.

The arrival of our starter, khachapuri–cheese bread–was enough to create a celebratory atmosphere at our table. Like hot, fluffy pizza dough with a moist, mildly cheesy centre, it was delicious on its own, and even better with two accompanying toppings: a spicy salad of cooked carrot, coriander, cumin, crushed walnut and pomegranate seeds, and, the surprise favourite, salty, spicy chunks of liver adorned with onion, parsley and more pomegranate. (Surprising because some of us, like me, who had been disgusted by liver as children, couldn’t get enough.)

The spicy theme continued into the mains. My khinkali, dumplings resembling a larger version of the Chinese steamed sort (in texture, not shape), were topped in fiery black pepper that added an edge to the ground beef/pork and vegetable broth filling. Those dining on chanaki, “spicy lamb and aubergine”, called it a cross between rogan josh and goulash—the perfect description.

Walnuts were back again too, in vegetarian dishes like aubergine with walnut sauce. (This was surprisingly un-walnuty, more like a Moroccan aubergine/tomato combo with a jalfrazi spiciness.) Walnut sauce can also come atop tabaka, traditional Georgian chicken grilled on the bone, but our table chose a sweet and sour plum sauce for the dish.

The desserts arrived full of yet more walnuts—a baked green apple filled with a very Greek mixture of yogurt, honey and crushed walnut, and a jelly-like concoction made from grape juice and corn flour, and topped with whole walnut pieces. (Georgian chacha—grappa—was also consumed.)

Tbilisi’s food isn’t the most mind-blowingly delicious we’ve tried, but it’s exciting, reliable and filling. We’d love to see Georgian cuisine increase its presence around London, but for now, Tbilisi makes an excellent North London hub for those wanting to discover it. Here’s hoping the near-empty dining room we witnessed isn’t threatening this restaurant’s survival, because I want to go back.

In summary

Tbilisi
91 Holloway Road, Holloway, London, N7 8LT
020 7607 2536
Open daily, 6:30pm to 11pm

More Georgian

My friend Emily, who made a point of seeking out the most exotic restaurants she could find while visiting London a few months back, drooled over her cheese bread, khinkali, and trout at Mimino.

Like all foreign fast food though, it leads one to certain inevitable questions: Is this how it’s really eaten in Turkey? What might a more authentic sit-down meal consist of? How can they stand the influx of drunks at closing time?

It wasn’t until I first moved to London (Dalston, fortuitously) that I found answers to some of these. Dalston is home to London’s most recent wave of Turkish immigrants, and as such the best place for a really authentic Turkish meal. A cheap one, too—I remember being astounded at the generosity of the diner across the road, which would feed me lots of lamb stew with plates of rice, fresh bread, salad and pickles for just £3. Some years later I was hankering after a return to one of these establishments, and found the options have multiplied even further since my last visit.

Turkish grills, or ocakbasi, dominate the upper stretches of Kingsland road, with the Mangal chain particularly renowned. These represent the more authentic origins of England’s fast-food kebab shops, with their charcoal grills and cabinets full of freshly-skewered meat. We wanted to try some Turkish mezze as well though, so after some deliberation headed to 19 Numara Bos Cirrik 1, one of the best-reputed local restaurants with a grill and an extensive restaurant menu too.

Turkey, of course, is a big country with many borders, and its cuisine reflects this, bringing together flavours from Greece and the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Our plate of mixed mezze served as a great example of this. Cacık (cucumber with yoghurt, dried mint and olive oil) is the Turkish version of Greek favourite Tzatziki, and Patlican soslu (grilled aubergine and pepper in an olive oil-rich sauce) definitely brought to mind the Mediterranean. Tahini-rich hummus and taze fasulye (a mezze made from green beans) might feel at home in the middle-east, while the Russian salad and our favourite starter, mücver, recalled Eastern Europe. (Mücver are soft fritters made from potatoes, cheese, egg, minced courgette and dill).

The kebab and the charcoal grill still feel like the heart of Turkish cooking, and of the menu at Bos Cirrik. Having led 202 Meals there myself, I feel almost obliged to try their £12 mixed grill, a selection of kebabs which you can watch sizzle over the coals.

(We are sorely tempted by an aubergine and minced meat kebab, grilled wrapped in foil, but are warned, as I have been elsewhere, that these involve a quite a time commitment. Someday I must wait for one of these beasts.)

Juicy chicken şiş and çöp şiş (small lamb chunks) are familiar from more everyday kebab joints, but what a change to taste them succulent, well-marinated and fresh off the smoky charcoal grill. Pieces of lamb shank (a giant skewer of which Andrea almost conquers) add variety, and an Adana (minced lamb) skewer tastes homemade, juicy and rich with fresh herbs. Alex’s beyti is similar, but comes encased in thin Turkish bread before slicing, something of a novelty to us and very tasty. His was served İskender style (sliced over garlicy yoghurt and tomato sauce), while our grills came with butter-infused Turkish rice.

We all shared free sides – lots of fresh pide (the Turkish version of pita bread, softer and thicker, without the pocket) and three different salads including, to my delight, what I now know to be Izgara soğan. I have saved this until last, because it is actually my favourite part of the meal. It is slices of grilled onion, served with a dramatic purple sauce made from pomegranate syrup, turnip juice, and sumac (a sour, purple-coloured powdered spice common in Turkish cooking). It’s wonderfully intense, providing sour bursts of flavour and some crunch to help the meat along its way.

By now, as you can imagine, we were stuffed. The size of their portions is incredible, and in retrospect ordering mains after mezze was a little rash. Sometimes I do find Turkish main courses a little too much of the same thing, consisting as they often do of big, straightforward combinations of grilled meat, bread, rice, salad and yoghurt. When well-executed with fresh ingredients, as they are at Bos Cirrik, they are delicious—but the ingredients are key, and one should be careful to avoid ordering too much.

In summary

19 Numara Bos Cirrik 1
34 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, N16 7XJ
020 7249 0400
Open noon to midnight daily

More Turkish

Dalston abounds with cheap and authentic Turkish eateries, with lots more in surrounding areas of North and North-east London
including Stoke Newington, Green lanes and Finsbury park. We can recommend Petek on Stroud Green road, which offers some great Turkish food in a slightly cosier restaurant setting.

There are also many Turkish bakeries in North London; a local favourite for me is the Yildiz bakery in Archway, serving delicious lamacun (Turkish flatbread with minced meat and spices), börek (pastries stuffed with cheese, spinach, meat and other fillings), baklava and other Turkish deserts.

The above (all delicious, by the way) are possibly the only Canadian foods that exist, or at least that I can think of. So having any sort of Canadian meal in London, let alone finding a restaurant for one, was always going to be a challenge.

Luckily for 202 Meals, there’s the Maple Leaf. I was floored when I heard about it from a Canadian seatmate on my first ever flight over here. Canadians aren’t used to having our identity celebrated in any way—we’re not even sure we have one. So the existence of a Canadian-themed pub in a foreign country is both an honour and a curiosity.

The pub, which sits on a little lane off Covent Garden, is a celebration of Canadian-ness in the most clichéd sense: all framed hockey jerseys and mountie paraphernalia, a portrait of John Molson and a gigantic (dead) stuffed bear. Squeeze through the middle-aged male crowd clogging the entrance, navigating past slightly grimy tables to the back wall by the fireplace, and you’ll be rewarded with the only London pub television that’s ever shown a National Hockey League game.

The typical low-end pub menu gives only a few token nods to the Canadian theme, like the “Full Mountie” burger (made with British beef) and some maple-drenched desserts. And most of what we tried didn’t really impress—MSG-laden nachos topped with cheese and salsa, meat loaf more like a meat mash, and “Buffalo wings” drenched in gloopy sweet barbecue sauce rather than the trademark vinegary spice they’re famous for in North America. But none of that mattered, as we were really here for two things: poutine and Canadian beer.

Our tasting panel had quite a lot of poutine expertise for a bunch of Londoners—fellow Canadians Sarah and Brian, and sceptical Matt, who once bravely downed the mixture of chips, cheese and gravy on a trip to Montreal. Only Karol had never tried it, but he had high expectations. I’d built it up over the past year in a series of drooling descriptions: back home, even Burger King has poutine, but the most authentic Quebec versions are dotted with delicious, mild cheese curds rather than slathered in melted cheddar.

Needless to say, it was the latter here—large, formerly frozen chips lying limply in thick gravy and sprinkled with shreds of cheese so faint as to be almost undetectable. Luckily, chips and gravy are always a comforting food no matter how little thought goes into them. And, as Brian noted, the presentation—on gleaming white plates, with actual cutlery—was an interesting departure from the greasy boxes that normally hold the concoction.

Two Canadian beers were more of a success. Sleemans Honey Brown, available on tap, is a darker than average lager and infused with a honey sweetness bordering on Belgian; and there’s always something comforting about bottles of Moosehead, although the beer itself isn’t that special. (The Sleemans Cream Ale, alas, was not as creamy as I remembered, and we skipped the famous but bland Molson Canadian.)

Soon we were ready for what was meant to be the highlight of the night—dipping into a box of London’s take on Tim Hortons doughnuts, which I’d brought over from the Spar on Haymarket that’s now selling them. Strangely, Tim Hortons has licensed its doughnuts (and coffee and muffins) to just this one London Spar location, which has become a bit legendary for Canadian ex-pats, even though the word is they taste nothing like the real thing. Now that I’ve tried them, I can agree that they don’t, nor do they look it, save for the comforting Canadian doughnut chain logo-covered packaging, which is the same as back home. Really, they’re just the usual flat, misshapen, lying-all-day-in-a-corner shop kind of doughnut. Only two varieties bore any resemblance to true Tim Hortons flavours: the maple glazed and old-fashioned glazed. But instead of the cakey freshness I’ve grown up with, they were dry, and the maple glaze hard and gritty rather than the soft, fudgy topping I’m used to.

Still, it was really fun to sit, armed with Tim Hortons paraphernalia, in a kitschy Canadian pub for the night, attracting a bewildered Montrealer to our table to ask where we’d gotten the doughnuts. And it’s comforting to know that there’s a place to go for yummy, if overpriced, Sleeman’s. Spar’s doughnuts and the Maple Leaf may not be the best Canadian ambassadors, but it’s nice to have them around, especially for an identity-starved Canadian.

In summary

The Maple Leaf
41 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 7LJ
020 7240 2843

More Canadian

The Canada/Australia/New Zealand/South Africa shop down the street from the Maple Leaf on Maiden Lane stocks goodies common to Canadian supermarkets, like Kraft Dinner, Kool-Aid and Shake ‘n Bake, Canadian beer, and yes, plenty of maple syrup products.

Polish restaurants open in London less frequently than one might think. There has long been a Polish community in the city; Polish shops and restaurants have been around since shortly after the second world war. (Daquise, in South Kensington, claims to be London’s oldest.) But while the number of shops (and shop aisles) dedicated to Polish food has undoubtedly mushroomed in recent years, the restaurants have been slower to spread.

I heard about London’s newest, Tatra, from my father, who heard about it through the Polish version of Friends Reunited. It opened very recently—you can still smell the sawdust in places—and falls into the upmarket bracket of Polish restaurants abroad, like Patio Restaurant down the road, and very unlike the traditional Polanka in Hammersmith. The décor is modern rather than cosy, and one gets the feeling the restaurant is trying to appeal not just to Poles. If the other diners were anything to go by, it is succeeding.

The limited menu left me a little apprehensive, especially as some staples were conspicuous by their absence: for example, placki (potato pancakes), kopytka (potato dumplings), and kisiel (a unique dessert somewhere between jelly and custard in consistency). Pierogi, the most famous Polish dumplings, are only available as a starter. But the quality of the food more than made up for this; that it was attractively served did not go unnoticed either.

From what I’ve read in the British media, it seems impossible to write about Polish cuisine without using the words “stodgy” and “hearty”. With those out of the way, I can go on to say something less hackneyed about what we ate.

Before ordering, we received a plate of rye bread and smalec (a spread made of pig’s fat and pork) on the house, which would have disappeared much more quickly had we not kept some aside for the latecomer. I was glad that health was not a concern at the front of any of our minds.

We each picked a different starter. My rosół (chicken soup) was good but nothing special, while Matthew’s marinated herring with apple and beetroot salad was a little better received; Andrea and Alex shared pierogi z kapustą (dumplings filled with sauerkraut and mushrooms), and kluski leniwe (cheese and potato dumplings). The pierogi—large, and fried, rather than boiled—and leniwe, were so good that Andrea declared she could eat another portion as a main course. Little did she know what her actual main course had in store for her.

The roast duck, to Matthew’s and my disappointment, was off, so we ordered leczo and trout, respectively. Leczo (described on the menu as “goulash”) is a spicy beef stew, served with yet another kind of dumpling. The Polish-style trout—fried with almonds—was served on a bed of delicious and very Polish-tasting salad (dill is the flavour I most identify with eastern European cuisine). Andrea and Alex warmed themselves up with bigos, a “hunters’ stew” of sauerkraut, mushrooms and plenty of smoked meat with potatoes. Andrea and Matt are very keen sharers, but I dare say the liking they had for their respective dishes made them regret the decision to share even a little bit. I think it’s fair to say that all four of us were happy with our choices, and in some cases, with each other’s.

Full though we all were, the desserts looked far too good to pass up—with the unusual result that everyone ordered one. Alex enjoyed some fusion cuisine in the form of crème brûlée with vodka-soaked cherries; I was torn between this and the pancakes filled with cream cheese and raisins. in the end both Andrea and I went for the latter. Matthew’s disappointment that his poached pear with chocolate sauce did not contain vodka goes to show how much we were expecting after all we’d eaten thus far.

I hope Tatra stays around and does not go the same way as Zamoyska, an upmarket Polish restaurant in Hampstead that closed a few years ago. An encouraging sign was how busy Tatra got towards the end of our meal. It is not necessarily the most traditional, and certainly does not have the widest selection, but it is well worth trying, especially for newcomers to the cuisine.

Our meal complete, the waitress recommended home-flavoured vodkas, but we decided to let the food go down before drinking. After hopping on the tube (a gross exaggeration, in the circumstances) to Holborn, we spent a few hours in Bar Polski, a specialist vodka bar. As well as some 40 varieties of vodka, the bar offers a selection of Polish beers and food. However, a write-up of our Saturday night at a West End bar may be better suited to another kind of blog.

In summary

Tatra
24 Goldhawk Rd, Shepherd’s Bush, London, W12 8DH
020 8749 8193
Open 11am to 4pm, 6pm to 11pm Monday to Friday, 11am to 11pm Saturday, and 11am to 10pm Sunday.