Author: eatinbrixton

Casa Sibilla

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

Casa_sibilla08

Address: 67/68 Brixton Village, Coldharbour Lane, London, SW9 8PS

Telephone number – 077 9249 2112

http://www.casa-sibilla.com/

email: info@casa-sibilla.com

Monday: Closed, Tuesday: Closed, Wednesday: 11am-5pm, Thursday: 11am-11.30pm, Friday: 11am-11.30pm, Saturday: 11am-11.30pm, Sunday: 11am-5pm

Casa Sibilla is an authentic Italian restaurant in the heart of Brixton Village. The market used to be full of sharks and fish of varying colours with vegetables that had to be boiled for days and then still seemed uncooked. It now has Italian restaurants – not only Italian but which actually say they serve food from particular areas of Italy. Casa Sibilla serves us food from Puglia and Piedmont. We have visited on and off but had not reviewed it for some time – so here goes. We booked – yes booked – on Opentable. This is certainly more organised than they were – or anyone is – in Brixton Village. Continue reading →

Lidl, Acre Lane

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

Lidl (1)

71 Acre Ln, London SW2 5TN

I wouldn’t describe myself as a great fan of Lidl, but for some things it’s really useful. I rate their parmesan cheese and some consumer tests have given high marks to their olive oil. And it’s cheap. There’s also the entertainment value in checking out what random items they’ve got on special offer for that week. Recently I bought a weighing machine for the bathroom and a blood pressure monitor at prices that, compared to those at regular shops for such items, are ridiculously low. Their fruit and vegetables are often good quality as well and for something like gazpacho you can get a really great value meal, without any compromise on taste.

Continue reading →

Elephant

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

Elephant02Address: Brixton Village Coldharbour Lane, Brixton SW9 8PS

Telephone: 07715 439857

email: info@elephantcafe.co.uk

http://elephantcafeonline.blogspot.co.uk/

We discovered that on warm Friday evenings when Brixton Village is stuffed that there are always places to be found furthest away from the main entrance. These are a little warmer than the ones near the breezy entrance but you don’t have to wait for a table. When we came across Elephant it was almost empty with large and small tables available. It is too small to have many inside so they are all in the alleyway.

Elephant serves “authentic Pakistani street food” and has a short list on its menu but even so it is hard to choose. There are lamb or vegetable samosas which you can have with chickpea curry, a vegetable pakora and thalis vegetarian, chicken or lamb) and similarly curries.

Our favourite has been the vegetable thali so that is what we chose again. It comes as a round dish divided into spaces with dhal, rice, vegetable curry, a tomato salad and a cucumber raita. The vegetable curry is soft aubergine, sturdy potato which is not sloppy in an onion sauce. The flavours are fantastic nothing fancy like a coriander seed hitting you between the eyes but all clear and yet subtle. All the grains in the rice fell away from each other but on top it was a little crispy. The dhal was hot with chilli and with a good sprinkling of garlic. This is comfort food but was also really full of flavour – despite the sweated brow mostly caused by the ambient temperature rather than the spice.

They serve water and a variety of soft drinks including lassi and masala chai – they are BYO …but they ask for a £2.00 supplement per person if you do bring your own wine or beer. Now for an expensive bottle of wine that might …just might ..be OK but if you just bought a £1.00 bottle of beer then this is really extortionate and we did point that out.

The bill came to £17.00 without any drinks – we just stuck to the water.

The Pickled Fork at Cornercopia

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

Address: 2nd Avenue Brixton Village

http://www.thepickledfork.com/

for all bookings please email alex@thepickledfork.com‘

We don’t eat out much at the beginning of the week but this was too tempting. A pop-up in Cornercopia and their USP is rissoles. The Pickled Fork settles every Tuesday in the same spot and provides a simple array of salad and rissoles with real ale. Rissoles according to Wikipedia are  small croquettes enclosed in pastry or rolled in breadcrumbs, usually baked or deep fried. They are filled with sweet or savoury ingredients, most often minced meat or fish and is served as an entrée, main course, dessert or side dish. They are served all over the world and now in Brixton Village. At 7.00pm the restaurant is not full so make your way further back in the Village to get a seat fast and taste these little beauties. Continue reading →

Favourite Restaurant in Brixton 2014

~ eatinbrixton ~ 7 Comments

So we’ve hit three years of the blog and to celebrate we thought we would allow our readers again to choose their favourite place to eat in Brixton. We did the same thing last year to celebrate two years, check out the post here.

So, what’s happened in the past year? Well for the blog we’ve hit 97,000 views, 120 posts and accumulated a fair few Twitter followers. In terms of food in Brixton, places have changed hands and names, plenty of new faces have appeared in the market and the surrounding area. It seems there is no stopping the restaurant and foodie reputation that Brixton has accrued in the past few years.

Continue reading →

Nanban at Market House

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

Nanban (1)

address: Market House, 443 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, London, SW9 8LN

Telephone: 020 7095 9443

email: info@market-house.co.uk

http://www.market-house.co.uk/

This month the 2011 the Masterchef winner Tim Anderson is visiting Brixton and so your intrepid reviewers sneaked in (incognito as usual) to provide a review to urge … yes we say urge (which is about as strong as it gets) to make a booking. And try, if you can, to go with a party of at least four, for reasons that will become clear. The restaurant for the month is now called Nanban – southern Japanese cooking. But first about Market House. This is just a canvas with a large room, various wooden tables, space outside and noise just on the edge of providing a sore throat the next day. You are greeted by the most divine waiter (his description not ours) who shows you to your table and keeps you entertained throughout the meal. Continue reading →

Brixton Night Market

~ eatinbrixton ~ 1 Comment

bnm13

Windrush Square, Brixton (outside The Ritzy)

http://www.brixtonnightmarket.co.uk/

Important – It happens on the last weekend in the month – Friday and Saturday, 5.00pm to 11.00pm. 

We always meant to eat at the monthly Night Market since it started last year but we either forget it was on until after we have eaten, or the rain and cold has kept us away. But this time we remembered on the Friday … the rain looked likely but it only came in short bursts and sheer hunger made us more courageous. We went again on the Saturday, when the weather was better, and across the weekend we managed to eat or drink at five establishments.

Continue reading →

French and Grace

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

French_Graceaddress: Unit 9 First Avenue, Brixton Village SW9 8PR

telephone  0207 274 2816

email info@frenchandgrace.co.uk

http://www.frenchandgrace.co.uk/

This a trip down memory lane, as French and Grace was one of our initial posts. We went for lunch and here we are again … lunchtime … and on a strict timetable. The restaurant is one of the minority that are open on Tuesday and, even so, was sparsely furnished with customers although this is fast food, so there is a quick turnover.  The eponymous owners used to run a supper club and then opened this restaurant in 2011 serving wraps. This remains their core business and we are pleased to see it survive in the now crowded food market of Brixton Village. Others have not been as lucky or have made it in a big way and now have extra outlets (e.g. Honest Burger and Mama Lan). French and Grace just have a travelling wrap shack (see http://www.frenchandgrace.co.uk/the-streets/ for their  locations this summer).  Continue reading →

Jalisco

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

address: 1 Glanville Arcade, Brixton Village, London SW9 8PR

telephone: 0207 326 1690

After the cool days with plenty of rain on the first Tuesday when you could throw off your thick layers and sit outside Brixton Village was full to bursting and with a guest from the far north, we explored Brixton Village. Our guest was amazed. After having lived in Brixton for 10 years she had eventually ended up back in Scotland and now 10 more years later she was faced with trendy Brixton – a concept we had forgotten was novel as we were now used to seeing adverts in travel books as essential to include Brixton Village to get the cool Britain feel. Continue reading →

Lambeth Country Show – a culinary cornucopia

~ eatinbrixton ~ Leave a comment

The Lambeth Country Show is in its 40th year and is on this weekend, if you hadn’t noticed. We never miss it, even if we are in our wellies trying to traverse the acres of mud. This sunny year (with showers) we discovered the amusing vegetable sculptures (how do they come up with the ideas), homemade cakes, worthy tents about health and community groups you might join or support which are all the usual fodder. But this year we also found a wealth of food and drink tents to tempt us even though we thought we were feeling too hot to eat.

We passed by French and Grace and the Koi Ramen tents as we have already reviewed them and tried the Food Hall which had many cupcake stalls, a sprinkling of mango juices as well as sauces to add to anything to make a boring meal sparkle. Mango spicy sauces in various heat strengths, lime coriander and chilli sauce, and many others …. too many to recount here just visit them on the three stalls in this tent.

I stopped at a stall selling hot Caribbean food – Dreens – who have curry goat, jerk chicken and fried fish – all with sides (rice and peas, festival coleslaw), corn on the cob and fruit salad. I chose the meal deal – goat curry, rice and peas and coleslaw. A hearty amount too. The goat was really well cooked, still on the bone but very easy to eat with a flimsy, plastic fork. It was really well spiced and not so hot that there was no subtlety to the individual flavours which included fresh thyme. The meal deal was £7.00 reduced from the menu price of £7.50 and well worth it – we shared it between two people.

lcs1lcs3

Dreens also serve beetroot, carrot and ginger juice, or apple, celery and kale but I chose some freshly made mango juice – from Senegal – Ecopeace. It was thick and very sweet and more a pudding than a refreshing drink but you feel worthwhile providing the support to this group who we have seen before at LCS. It also cost £3.50 a cup so not for the short of change. lcs2

We are writing this post-haste so you can all get down tomorrow (Sunday) and try the delicious options. There are a lot of jerk chicken stalls reflecting our Lambeth culture and so any that are great please let us know – especially if they are to appear again in Brixton.

But also take a walk around the country show – do see the Big Stage and the camels in the arena but also stop and provide some support for the Lambeth Time to Change campaign which is working to reduce discrimination and the stigma of mental ill health.