Peckham Bazaar and Kimchinary [CLOSED]

Truffle hunting in Alba

It's been a little while since I booted Blogger up and got anything down on e-paper. I can't lie, the time away from the blog has been refreshing and I've spent a lot of it visiting other places including Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and a great trip out to Italy, taking in Alba and Florence. Travelling aside, I've also begun to enjoy eating out again, which was a great relief. London is full of great restaurants and dining experiences but sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with the choice and mostly, the expectation and fear of wasting my hard earned cash. One thing I've started to learn is if you look hard enough for it, the next great eat is just around the corner.

The Clove Club - The end product

I've been thinking of how to open this post about The Clove Club. About how it all started 3 years ago with three very talented chefs, and how I've intently followed their progress through a variety of popups that they have done. It would be an understatement to say that I've been a fan of their work. I feel a little sad that there is just Isaac McHale left of the original three Young Turks, but thankfully the food is as great as ever. Partnering up with co-collaborators of their stint at the Ten Bells, the Clove Club was born.

Those American Burgers - Five Guys and Shake Shack

Right, I know everyone is bored of talk about burgers. Hell, I know that I am. But the truth is, I was just a little bit excited when I heard Five Guys and Shake Shack were both London bound. Two American heavy weights, ready to duke it out on the streets of Covent Garden, one I had heard little of, the other, responsible for one of my food eureka moments. It was going to be pretty interesting how these emotions translated into foodie fact.

My very own Five Guys hat. Scant reward for rude staff and a ridiculous queuing system.

Breathing fresh air into Fifteen [CLOSED]

Cured Middlewhite Pork and Pickled Fennel

Bird of Smithfield abridged and in pictures

Bird

Move over "Dude Food", Modern British seems to be taking over the London restaurant landscape. With a glut of chefs seemingly moving on from the old school British institutions such as the Ivy and St John, we see them trying to reinvent themselves and embrace what they love most. This can only be a good thing. At Bird, an ex Soho House alumni, expect the best of British produce updated in it's elegant upstairs dining room.

Salon - A truly British affair

One of my favourite places in London is the Granville arcade, better known as Brixton Market, leading into the hotbed of great little food restaurants, Brixton Village. I have spent many hours wandering these hallways trying bites of food at the many food stalls lining the arcade, generally getting lost in the feeding frenzy as others swarm around you with similar ideas. This group of restaurateurs continues to grow, and one of the newer additions is Salon, a small dining room located above Cannon & Cannon (a British deli) cooking up food with a very fresh and mostly British focus.

Food and Tech - Playing with the Nokia at the Social Eating House

When it comes to keeping me happy, I'm pretty easy. Throw me some gadgets, feed me some food and I'm as happy as a pig in muck. When the PR for Windows Phone came knocking asking if I wanted to play with their new phone and eat at the not-yet-open Social Eating House, I jumped at the chance. I've been on iPhone since the beginning but have been seriously been considering a move away to the newer, more innovative platforms. As for Social Eating House, it's basically yet another brasserie with a British twist, but it is the newest opening from Jason Atherton so always worth checking out.

Ramen, the London Trio - Tonkotsu, Bone Daddies and Shoryu

Before we start, I'm going to lay it out there, I am NOT a ramen expert just a man who has eaten and loved a lot of noodles in his life and can consider myself a noodle fan. Over the last 6 months, London has seen a sudden influx of ramen bars with a focus on the noodle soup, as opposed to relegating this to just another item on the menu. If you aren't acquainted, it is a combination of noodles, rich broth and an array of toppings normally and can be the most wonderful of dishes when executed perfectly. Here is my rundown of three of the Londons finest:

Bone Daddies Ramen Bar

I guess you can say that Bonedaddies isn't your average ramen bar. Pumping out rock and roll (at a very acceptable decible level), it's all high tables, stools and shared dining space. The menu itself consists of eight variations, with two core broth varieties, pork and chicken. I've gone through most of the menu here and I normally opt for the Soy Ramen with some add ons (the chashu pork is delicious, but two meat ramen is always better than one meat).

The Mall Tavern: A quirky classic

The London restaurant scene is growing up at an alarming rate, but even with these new openings every week, I find it hard to be drawn in by many of them. You have the burgeoning junk food scene, for example. Let's not try to tart it up as anything else, it's simply delicious filthy food like burgers, hot dogs and fried chicken but not really something I can cope with eating every day. You have the new wave of brasseries, which have strangely ballooned over the last few months (do we really need more than a few brasserie places?). Sadly, I find these astonishingly dull in principle. You have the new wave, trying to put their own stamp on their food, but normally only either offering expensive tasting menus or bar food.

The American Invasion continues: The Electric Diner, Portobello

It seems there is no stopping the American invasion. It's been a juggernaut since last year where parts of the London restaurant scene are starting to resemble New York, from Wolfgang Puck (Cut) and Serge Becker (La Bodega Negra) who opened last year to Keith McNally (Balthazar) and Brendan Sodikoff of the Electric Diner who have been more recent additions. Whisper it, we still have David Meyer and his Shake Shack looming over Covent Garden in the very near future.