Archive | February, 2012

The Duck Egg Cafe

26 Feb

address: 424 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, London, SW9 8LF

telephone:

This small cafe on Coldharbour Lane is a favourite throughout the day for those wanting a fix of a Full English. We have had breakfast and lunch at the Duck Egg Cafe and so thought it was about time for a review.

For breakfast we arrived at about 10.30 and it was already pretty busy (there was even a queue for tables at one point). It is so small that sharing tables is almost essential and you are so close to the other diners that it is very hard not to eavesdrop. However I’ve noticed this is a theme throughout restaurants in Brixton so I say embrace it. The service was very friendly and the seating comfortable.

We ordered a bacon and egg sandwich (boring choice I must confess) and the Full English (obviously had to try this!). You get a choice between hen or duck eggs and of course we went for the duck eggs as it seemed silly not to. Service was quick, big plus as my stomach rumbles were getting louder and louder. The full English came with all the trimmings, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, toast, egg (poached) and baked beans. The egg was cooked to perfection with the yolk breaking to reveal the golden runny centre which all poached eggs should have. Sausages were also a plus point, not sure if they were local or not, but they were a stand out part of the meal.

Tea, coffees and juices are the drinks of choice with the juice coming fresh. Other breakfast options include eggs Benedict, which is most definitely on the list to try on our next visit.

Breakfast was £8 for the full english and a cup of tea, while the egg and bacon sandwich was about a fiver with a coffee. Great choice for a lazy weekend brunch.

For lunch again it was a sharing experience and crowded. We had the special soup of the day but we noticed that other plates were heaving with pasta and chips. Again not a cheap meal but it was hearty and filling.  You can also choose breakfast options throughout in the day  as well as the pasta options.

We will be returning when we are very hungry to make the most of it.

Veranda

11 Feb

Address: 30 Acre Lane, London SW2

telephone: 020 7733 2335

email:  info@veranda-london.com

http://veranda-london.com/

Veranda describes itself as a restaurant, cocktail bar and art gallery – and they are right. The entrance is a small hall (so people can be stopped if they are not invited) and the first part of the long room is  the bar with small tables and some (but not much) comfortable seating. Most people cluster at the bar. At the back are the same small tables but now covered with white linen table cloths with white linen napkins. These tables are overlooked by the disc jockey who peers through an opening surrounded by a picture frame. In fact it took a couple of minutes to realise that this was not part of the art gallery on the surrounding walls.  The gallery on our visit contained paintings – some predictable – red shimmering vistas and African images – but some very interesting photographs of people and landscapes.

We usually talk about the food first but this is not in the rules and the cocktails are prolific and between 5 and 8 some are cheaper than usual (£4.50 vs £7.50)pm and luckily we arrived at 7.30. The cocktail list is actually a book. We didn’t count but there must be more than ten a page and down the margin there is a very helpful guide of how long the drink is using glass shapes. This alleviates the difficult task of trying to guess from the ingredients. We chose a rose and fresh lychee martini and a beer (hard to find at the back of the “book”). The martini was like a martini because of the shape of the glass and smelt very strongly of rose and tasted of lychee. It was also very pretty with a cherry at the bottom of the glass giving the cloudy liquid a rosy glow. I suspect it was very alcoholic (it also contains gin) – it is very difficult to tell in this alcopop. It was lovely but I doubt that I could drink too many because of the sweetness but there are lots more to choose from.

For the food we would have had several of the things on the menu as there was gourmet oxtail, jerk chicken, 3 fish curry, curry goat, and more and more. We chose a plate to share starting with ackee and saltfish parcels. There were three of them (we were warned) – small packets of fried filo pastry. We liked them but the ackee was a bit lacking but the taste of saltfish came through and it was an easy way of eating them. Our plate was the Veranda Supreme which had curry goat and ital curry both in a crispy pastry basket and jerk chicken and Escovitch fish. This all came with rice and peas, coleslaw and fried golden plantain. The fish was hot and spicy – particularly the lavish chilli. The jerk chicken was soft and the sauce was hot but not too fierce. Altogether a good tasting choice but next time I will go for the goat curry. It was complexly flavoured and not too hot so all the flavours came through. Rice and peas — well what can go wrong. The plantain was sweet and had been made sweeter by a syrup. We did share but we didn’t manage to finish the plate.

There were few desserts available – only one – apple and mango crumble. This was not like any crumble we have ever had. It was a hot and sweet sauce and covered with a biscuit crumb topping which arrived with a small portion of delicious ginger ice cream. But on the whole we wouldn’t order this again. The mango was completely lost and perhaps they should just stick to apple.

The night we were there we were waiting for a famous visitor – Sir John Holt – who didn’t arrive while we were there but despite the preparation needed for this from the waiters they were still charming to us. We ate from the a la carte menu but if you book in advance you can eat a mid-week feast cheap (14.50 for two courses or 17.50 for three courses). Our meal was £25.00 per person including the drinks (a cocktail and three beers). We didn’t book but t was not that busy before about 8.15 – after that time you would need to book.

KAFF

4 Feb

address:64-68 Atlantic Rd, Brixton SW9 8PY

telephone: 020 7274 5373

email:  info@kaff-bar.co.uk

http://www.kaff-bar.co.uk

Open since September this little cafe/bar offers free wifi and is open across the day and at the weekend offers live music and djs until 2am. It has comfy sofas and small tables and during the day is laid back with laptop users and buggies. It gets fuller in the evenings and particularly the weekend. The service is friendly and helpful. The food is Caribbean but they have an arrangement with Ichi-ban Sushi which is jus down the road to extend their menu at the weekend. The Caribbean food is made by Julie – who cooks off site as there is no working kitchen as yet. This is still a work in progress.

During the week its coffee and cakes (mostly Jamaican) or beer, rum and Brixton brewed ginger beer (hot and cold) and Po-Boys (filled baguettes with salad) and a select Caribbean menu. They serve all the usuals – jamaica patties, jerk chicken, goat curry, rice and peas with cabbage or callaloo in cheap “mini meals”. But we chose a meat plate to share. This is probably something that would go down well with beer rather than our choice of an Americana and banana flavoured hot chocolate but it was after exercise and 4.00pm so not really alcohol time. The plate was easily enough to share and included three different small patties (meat, fish and veggie), barbecued wings, plantain and dumplings  - all served with chilli or sweet chili sauce. All, except the dumpling, were great. There was enough sauce on the wings and they slipped easily off the bone, the plantains was sweet and the patties interesting. But It takes a lot of sauce or liquid to make a dumpling to go down. I won’t be ordering a banana flavoured hot chocolate again either.

This is a cheap place for food – not overwhelming in size or cost. On Fridays they even have two pints for a fiver. It was about £6.50 per person for our meal and drinks. We liked the ambiance and will certainly return probably still for coffee and free wifi but also for the free cake club on Sunday – just take along your own cake to compete.

Brixton Village

4 Feb

Brixton Village is the new food haven that was once a small market called Granville Arcade in the middle of Brixton. Gradually this market lost many of the shops and since the middle of last year it began growing with more and more pop-up restaurants. It is now a vibrant part of the local area attracting visitors on the way to the Ritzy or just out for the evening.

We decided to produce this introductory entry in order to help people plan a visit – although it is a place you can just wander into as it has something for everyone. The restaurants are a mixture of brand new and well established – mainly the South American ones. The new kids on the block are an eclectic mix of Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Italian, French, Caribbean, Pakistan, Middle Eastern, American, and British and we have already reviewed the majority in this blog. They are not only eclectic in their origin but also within their menus with most stretching across the country barriers.  They also specialise – so Italian food comes as pizzas (Agile Rabbit), pasta (Belantonis, Casa Sibilla) and ice cream (Lab G). They are all sizes too with some squeezing into impossibly small places where virtually everyone is eating outside and others which are more established stretching across the alleyways to other rooms to provide more inside eating space.

The Village grew exponentially last year during the late summer and early autumn when it was pleasant to sit out in the middle of the arcade but even with the cold days and nights is still attracting hungry visitors. Some restaurants now offer the odd heater and a blanket or too for those hardy enough or hungry enough to sit outside but the savvy diners now know that they need to book to get a table inside.

Brixton Village is not just restaurants there are cafes (WAG – wheat and gluten free), coffee shops (Federation Coffee) and tea shops as well as places that sell sweets, secondhand clothes (OK Vintage…) as well as delicatessens. There are also the remains of the original food stalls selling fish and meat. There are interesting greengrocers with displays of Caribbean fresh foods and African dried fish which I have rarely dared to buy and when I have were total disasters. There are also one or two stalls selling those household goods that we used to buy in Woolworths when it was in the High Street. These really add the colour with their displays of plastic bowls and flowers.

Brixton Village is still evolving and by the warmer months is likely to be much busier and may then be self-sustaining. This will depend on the rents which are going up for those who remain open in the evening. Below we have tried to give some seasonal information to provide readers with an idea of what to expect now that the village is so popular. We welcome any comments that can help smooth people’s visit to this vibrant culinary destination.

Vital information

We have tried to make this blog informative but it is very difficult to keep up with two aspects of the restaurants in Brixton Village – opening times and licenses to sell alcohol.

Alcohol – About half the restaurants have a  license and those that don’t are happy to provide glasses. If you arrive without any alcohol then your two best bets are (i) go to Sainsbury’s local near the tube station for wine or (ii) go to one the off licenses on Coldharbour Lane for beer –  either should only take ten minutes. Alternatively they all sell interesting mixed juices and soft drinks – although some of the ginger beers are anything but soft.

Opening times – As a general rule most restaurants are open during the evening later in the week – Thursday onwards. Nearly all are open for lunch from Wednesday to Sunday and a few open during the day on Monday and Tuesday but rarely in the evening. The websites are not that informative as things are moving swiftly so if you are making a long journey just to come here rather than any of the other great restaurants in Brixton then telephone beforehand.

Getting a seat – if you want to take pot luck and haven’t booked then choosing when to go is essential unless you are prepared to wait. There is a rush between 7.00pm and 8.15pm. We assume this is for those heading to the Ritzy. If you time your arrival before or after these times you will usually be in luck and get a seat really quickly. Don’t be put off by long queues such as at Honest Burger as they do turnover pretty quickly and most of the waiters will give you a pretty good idea of how long you will need to wait and often provide some seating. But if you are keen to try those restaurants that always seem to have a queue then just go for lunch at the time they open. If you want to try the best burger in London – and everyone should – then visit Honest Burger shortly after it opens (12.20) on Monday and it will be empty for at least 20 minutes after that. As a last resort some fo the restaurants also do takeaways of sandwiches and substantial wraps that you can take while you wander round.

What to wear - this is not the beginning of a fashion guide as this place is laid back and casual. But we want to remind people that it is cold outside and Brixton Village is like the outside despite the fact that it is under cover. The wind sweeps up the long corridors and most people keep their coats on when outside and if you intend to eat more comfortably then layers are essential.

O Cantinho de Portugal

3 Feb

Address: 137 Stockwell Road SW9 9TN

telephone: 020 7924 0218
The largest Portuguese community in London is near Brixton so it is obvious that some of the best Portuguese and Madeiran food  would be right here – it is  - but not in the new pop-ups in Brixton Village. The best Portuguese food is found in a well established restaurant on Stockwell Road. It is also genuine – the main language is Portuguese, the TV is switched to Portuguese game shows and news channels (we assume there was no football that evening) and the tables in the restaurant are covered in clean white cloth with the ubiquitous wooden chairs with turned tops.

 You enter the restaurant through the bar which has finger food and salads. The ambience is friendly as well as formal enough to make it a special occasion. Our only complaint is that the mobile phone connections are not good enough to quickly search for the Portuguese words on the TV News. But we did in the end learn about the movement of parish boundaries currently being discussed in parliament!

The food is divided into the usual starters, mains and desserts with a long list of meat dishes (mainly pork), half a page of bacalau dishes and then other fish. We chose “porco Alentejana” – pork cubes, fried potatoes and clams with a sprinkling of chilli and pepper which was unusual, enormous and delicious – and “bacalau con natas” which is dried salted cod, potatoes and onions in a cream sauce which was also enormous and delicate with none of the over saltiness that usually comes with such dishes. We liked it although we could understan
We washed it all down with water and half a bottle of red wine – Casa de Santar which was very dry but grew on us. We finished off (despite our tight waists and in the spirit of curiosity) with two of their desserts that are on display just beneath one of the two TVs. We had “molotov” a caramel souffle  with a caramel sauce – again huge -which was an Italian meringue which had been lightly cooked. It was probably a mistake and certainly is not something I would choose again unless I hankered after burnt sugar. We also ordered “leite creme” which was a pleasant creme brulee.d if people complained about the undifferentiated flavour. Did we mention they were enormous portions? Even after we had stopped eating we easily had enough for another meal or two or three.

As we sat down we were presented with basket of bread and butter and a bowl of olives. We were charged for the bread (very Portuguese) but not the olives which was a good thing as we certainly would have complained. The olives were not at all interesting and, as we have said several times in this blog, there is a very good delicatessen in Brixton under the arches which sells very good and well flavoured olives.

Per person price is about “20 per person including the most expensive wine on the menu – so clearly a bargain.

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