This restaurant used to be Jamaican but now it has a twist to Barbados with Bajan food – all with a twist of Flava Pepper and Jason Howard. This is Caribbean food beyond just heat, although there is some scotch bonnet too. It is a cosy restaurant with wooden tables, white chairs, floral artwork, and a chalkboard menu – although we did also get our menu on paper too. On the night we went I had booked so we weren’t disappointed but we ended up as the only four people in the restaurant sharing with just a line of takeaway drivers – it was a Thursday.
There are many things on the menu – starters including soup and wings – we chose fish cakes to share. The mains include jerk and curry goat and sharing plates. On a Saturday there is also Cou-cou and Steamed fish or pudding and chicken or pickled pork. We ordered Curry goat, curry chicken and Bajan BBQ chicken. They all come with sides like rice and peas and plantain. We don’t have a picture of the plates at the end but take it from me we did our best but no-one can finish a whole plateful. They were right about the spice not heat so subtle flavours that we all enjoyed.
I must remember not to start on the plantain first! We had no space for dessert.
We drank beer – Bajan Banks – and a rum punch. The total bill for four of us was £159.75 as it includes 12.5% service charge so about £40 per person including the alcohol. We might be back on a Saturday to try the specials.
Ready for a quick review following our previous ones. You need to book if you want to sit on a low table – otherwise you take your chances on a high stool and if there are three people the person in the middle will be practicing for the stalls in Wimbledon and probably have a stiff neck by the end of the meal. The décor has changed a little but not so much as requires more description here.
The food was great as always – and we ordered the edamame. Luckily this came early so we played with that and our drinks (a beer and green tea). Then onto the main event the chicken karaage, Aubergine (delicious) Yellowtail sashimi, spicy tuna, and ceviche roll. These came in very quick succession rather haphazardly so we had loads of edamame left over as they got cold.
We followed this with mochi – green tea, tropical and mango – not homemade!
The bill came to £91.37 including the 13.6% service charge. So not cheap even for three people and we were left a bit hungry. The one criticism we had was the service and the order of the plates. We wanted to savour them and what we got was a mixture of hot and cold dishes all together so the hot ones went cold before we got to them. This was fast food – too fast food. Slow down the service or the diner should just order a couple of dishes and then order more when they are finished. We will return but use the last strategy to have a more relaxing meal.
This is a newish restaurant at the Coldharbour Lane end of Brixton Village. It has only been open for a week, so it is on its soft launch. It is part of a small south London chain and serves Asian food and is definitely a place to try with cash in your pocket, as they don’t yet have any credit card services. But this is a blessing as you get a discount on the food you buy. Sit on small tables or at a counter watching passers by.
On Saturday the menu contained – snacks, noodles, dumplings, robato (skewers), “plates” including sake seabass and fried chicken any style. There are enough vegetarian options to produce an interesting meal. We chose Dan Dan noodles (as recommended) that includes a lot of garlic, peanuts, sesame and soy sauce, skewers of pork belly, skewers of broccoli and tahini as well as grilled aubergine. We were very hungry so we tucked in before taking pictures. There could have been prettier shots – blame our appetite.
The grilled aubergine was soft and delicious and relatively easy to eat with chopsticks. The pork belly was spicy and simple to eat with the fat giving a lovely flavour. The tahini and roasted broccoli florets was a revelation – just the right crispness and sweetness and a relief from all the chilli. Noodles were spicy too but also soft and our waitress cut them up and tossed them in the delicious sauce. We stopped there – we were full and thought we will visit again very soon especially with the 20% discount as an incentive.
We washed it down with water and a glass of a passionfruit drink. The bill came to £27.00 with the 20% discount and including service.
We have visited Bistro Union a couple of times before our Sunday visit and always decided that the cost was above a general trip out on a weekday so haven’t reviewed it here. But now they do a Sunday Supper menu at £28.00 per person – an absolute bargain for the food you get. Visit soon – booking is definitely required.
This is a sister restaurant to Trinity in Clapham Old Town which is seriously good and seriously expensive – but you are in for a treat whenever you visit. Back to Bistro Union. During the week they serve a choice of snacks, small and large plates as well as some to share. On Sunday for lunch it is similar but with a roast. Sunday supper is a fixed menu – blessed relief not to have to choose – and when we visited there were three courses and an optional one. Snacks were cheese goujons – light an fluffy. An optional course – a tomato salad with fragrant dressing that we chose and shared. The main course was a deconstructed Caesar salad – the salad plus four pieces of chicken and the desert a berry pavlova that was more like an Eton mess when it arrived but no problem – we wolfed it down.
We were a party of three with a mother who is hard to please. So we took no photos, just in case. But we hit the jackpot with her thumbs up. The chicken skin was seasoned really well and the salad just crispy enough. We had a piece of chicken left over which was immediately wrapped for us to take away for a further supper the next day.
Wine comes in carafes as well as bottles and is a bit more expensive than your local – but that’s because it is really good. Not drinking too much before the hurly burly of Monday was also a blessing – as we were not tempted to dive into more than a glass and a half.
We will definitely go back for another go as the menus change.
It isn’t often that we wander round Brixton Village and find space in any of the food outlets but on this occasion we were lucky. Then we discovered that we were not really lucky as House of Momo is open 7 days a week – so no baked bean Mondays. The restaurant is inside and outside. We chose inside, one of the few tables available, as it was a bit cool in the Village corridor. Decor is limited – wooden benches and tables but little on the walls as most is window.
A Momo is a steamed and filled dumpling from Nepal or Tibet. It is usually served with a sauce called Achar. They offer steamed and steamed and fried momos filled with Chicken, Veg, Cheese & veg or Beef, but also there are Thalis, curry, fried rice and noodles or a combination (Combo) of rice or chow mein together with momos.
We chose two “combos” – fried rice and chicken steamed momos covered with sweet, hot and spicy sauce and steamed and fried momos filled with beef on top of chow mein with that same sauce.
We liked the steamed dumplings but the fried ones when cooler were a bit tough so we recommend sticking to the steamed ones – alternatively order the fried ones separately as a starter, so you can definitely eat them while they’re hot. We liked the noodles and the fried rice – both were very big portions and spicy, the rice a little more than the noodles. The veg additions gave them some texture and a bit of a bite.
They were very large portions, so we were too full for dessert.
There were soft drinks, juices, beers, wine, whiskey (Hibiki and Nikka!) and mixers like gin and tonic as well as a tea selection. We washed everything down with water, a mango lassi and a beer.
The bill was £36.00 and we were full. Service was fast and we could easily have made it to the Ritzy for a later show, but we returned to lolling on the sofa while we digested all this food. We will return when we are not on a calorie-controlled diet.
Llewelyn’s has been through many iterations but is still going strong as shown by the clientele on Friday lunchtime. This was a business/pleasure luncheon, so we were prepared to do some serious eating and drinking. We ate inside as the weather was inclement and to cheer ourselves up had a cocktail. Both of us chose a blackberry martini which was small and sweet with hidden depths (no idea what they were but it was definitely alcoholic).
Despite the reviews about the speed of the service (too fast) ours wasn’t slow but was not at the breakneck speed others have commented on. It was also not too loud, but there were no big groups celebrating on Friday lunchtime. We were able to have a civilized conversation and swap gossip! The lunchtime menu is not long, which is a blessing. It has vegetarian options, but we are omnivores. We chose a couple of the nibbles to share – boquerones (anchovies in oil and vinegar) and coppa (dry cured pork neck fillet, similar to prosciutto but that comes from the hind leg). Given the relatively small offering, the coppa was expensive but delicious.
Then we missed the starter section which has three vegetarian offers as well as chicken livers and sardines and all looked interesting. There were five mains on the menu with one veggie option, two fish and two meat. Again, we headed into the carnivore section with pork belly (with boudin noir (black pudding), celeriac and apple sauce) and the roast mallard (with quince, water cress and bread sauce). We had a side order of crispy potatoes and aoli. The pork belly looked very inviting, crispy skin and a delicious centre. This dish had an additional part not mentioned on the menu – roasted red cabbage. Some was left on the plate as it was a little hard to cut and chew on.
I loved the accompaniments to the duck – the bread sauce and quince. I was warned about “shot” appearing in the mallard and to be careful when chewing. In the end shot was absent. I would have liked the duck to have been rested as blood ran out and it was a bit tough, but I almost finished it, so it was clearly tasty.
The crispy potatoes were crispy and the aoili delicious – we didn’t finish them all – a sacrilege but I was leaving room for pudding.
There are three desserts to choose from and I had the Clementine Choux bun with sea buckthorn. I still don’t really know what the sea buckthorn tastes of – I guess it is tart, but the orange flavour either overwhelmed or complimented the cream and the choux. Anyway, we were so engaged in our conversation that I ate it (with help) before we realised that we hadn’t taken a photo. I would order again as it was delicious and not too sweet. My lunch companion had a sweet wine to finish – Szlachetny Zbior which he reported was good. We think it is Polish.
We were both full and not hassled about the table (despite the information on their website), so had a leisurely lunch with alcohol. As well as the cocktail and the sweet wine, we also had a bottle of Bergerac rouge and a single small glass of Cauzon Tinto – neither were the most but certainly not the least expensive on the menu. This is not a cheap restaurant but we did spend £83 on alcohol so you could make the bill much lower – ours came to £211.39 including 12.5% service. The food only came to £105.00. We may go again when we have made our New Year resolutions and will try to stick to them.
This new stall is an added new choice to the culinary variety and vibrance of Pop Brixton. This is a challenge not only for the appetite but is also a trial for thinking speed. Most people have heard of Korean fried chicken – delicious but this is far away from that. Think lollipop. First you need to know that a K-dog is a Korean specialty popular in the night markets of Seoul. But that explanation doesn’t prepare you for the “sausage” wrapped in dough and covered in whatever you like. Options are numerous and one is sugar – yes sugar.
They do try to make your choice as easy as possible by dividing it into three. 1. Choose your “dog” – turkey, corn, vegetarian or vegan. 2. choose the wrapping – the dough is impregnated with a wide variety of things you didn’t associate with a hot dog like Ramen. 3. choose your sauces – up to three some of which we had heard of like tomato ketchup and garlic mayonaise.
We chose the French Fries K-dog with a vegetarian sausage and tomato ketchup and sriracha (couldn’t be asked to choose three) and a classic (right) with a chicken/turkey sausage and garlic mayo and parmesan. We also had one carton of fries and ate the feast in front of a football match with a bottle of water.
So what did we think – well it was quite exciting. It is relatively fast food as it takes 8 minutes in the fryer and they do warn you. It is a messy meal but fun too. Although we finished the classic and the fries we only had two thirds of the French Fries K-Dog. It isn’t a meal to share and most of the sauce didn’t go down the front of us but that required concentrated effort – two sauces is definitely enough. It was £19.00 for the two K-dogs and something for the water and fires on top. So not a cheap fast meal though very filling. We will return when we are completely unconcerned about calories or need our stomach lined for a long night.
Open everyday from 12.30 pm to 11 pm: except Tuesday 6-11 pm
This is not the first time we have visited Franzina Trattoria; you can find our other reviews here when we ate in and here for when we had a home delivery. On this occasion, we went with two friends, so we could try more dishes. We went on a Tuesday after the bank holiday for the Queen’s funeral and it was relatively empty, as were all the restaurants down Coldharbour Lane. The decor has not changed, stripped back and with most tables not too rocky – a perennial problem across Brixton. There is a reasonable menu on one side of the table mat and on the other side is the drinks, making it possible to re-check what you were eating. There is also an extra menu of specials which is also on the blackboard. This Sicilian-style trattoria serves small plates (some not so small) and homemade pasta with various sauces.
We do hope that you will not end up in a local hospital as an inpatient, but if you or a relative do then this is a review for you. One of us ended up last year in St Thomas’s and recently one was admitted to King’s. Neither admission was for a life-threatening illness and the current one at King’s is a broken bone (tourist-related injury from a notorious fracture black spot in Sicily). My advice is to look at your feet and not the fantastic view when descending from the Juno Temple. But back to the menus.
My expectation of hospital food really relates to school dinners, soggy veg and prunes every other day so read this with a view to my very low expectations. But King’s has a fantastic menu. It extends to six A4 pages – see a couple of examples below. Lots of options, including surprising vegan ones like apple crumble and custard. The choice is pretty overwhelming at first until you get the hang of it. There are sections for starters, fish, pork, chicken, beef and vegetarian or vegan. In comparison, St Thomas’s has a much narrower choice with much less detail.
Back to King’s where the food is cook-chill (most hospitals have this system) run by key workers who provide an essential ingredient to NHS care. Cook-chill means it is cooked, off-site usually, and reheated on the ward. This method does have an effect on the make-up and taste of the dish. Fish and chips for instance are not battered fish, it is breaded. The chips are mostly flabby as you might expect as they get steamed like all those Deliveroo orders from fast food outlets (see here as an example). You always get a vegetable – peas with the fish and chips – and luckily you get a spoon to chase them around the plate.
My favourite dish so far is the fish mornay – steamed fish, root vegetable mash and mashed potato (a particular favourite of mine) with a cheesy custard over the fish. The fish is fine – occasionally overcooked, but the cheese adds seasoning. I would like a bowlful of the mashed veg – carrots, swede and other roots. The mashed potato is not stuffed with butter, but it is smooth and generally not like wallpaper paste. My fellow patients also recommended the tomato pasta and beef curry.
There are lots of desserts including fresh fruit. For a tried and tested and really delicious one try the apple crumble and custard. The apples are caramelised just right, but not too flabby, and the crumble has a bit of a bite – I suspect some fibre to keep you regular. Although the custard is a bit thin it makes the pudding much easier to eat.
For those who want lighter fare try the tomato soup. It is real tomato soup like you might make from scratch at home, and although I am partial to Heinz (my go-to when under the weather), this was tastier, not as sweet, and felt a lot healthier as it wasn’t as smooth.
Breakfast is a bit of a mystery as I was nil-by-mouth on several days until the clinicians worked out that they couldn’t fit me into the theatre, so I had limited opportunities for early morning eating. Porridge and black coffee were passable. The porridge a bit on the sloppy side and the coffee a step up from conference coffee, but a long way from Costa. But this is a minor quibble as on the whole everything was much better than I thought King’s would be. As meals break up the day, it was a pleasant surprise that they tasted good too.
The catering staff are really helpful in making a choice and will dig something out if you missed the ordering time. All this food was at no cost, although I still hope none of our readers get to sample it.
We visited this restaurant shortly after it opened as there was a buzz in Brixton Village. It is a simple, very understated venue with an open kitchen and tables and stool (you might be very lucky to get a chair). Seating is limited inside, so we sat in the alleyway. No blankets are provided, so in chilly weather wear a coat. The place was crowded with people waiting for tables or takeaway, but we managed to arrive at just the right time and slid onto a two-person table. Be prepared to wait, but waiting just means looking at what others have ordered, so it is a benefit and people didn’t have to wait long. This is part of a chain (3 locations) and Brixton does have a slightly different menu, but not much. It describes itself as providing traditional Cantonese roast meats, lo mein (tossed or stirred noodles) and dim sum. Meat runs throughout the menu with varied forms of duck, chicken or pork. These can be served alone or combined with noodle soup, preserved vegetables or variations of noodles. You can also choose wontons, dumplings, fishballs or bao. They have a few vegetables, and I mean a few, so vegetarians should probably shy away.
We chose what was described as a Brixton Special – the Three Treasures platter (Duck, Char Siu, and Crispy Pork) with jasmine rice and pak choi – washed down with Brixton lager
The meat (and we are not big meat eaters) was fantastic. The duck (in the middle) was crisp and unctuous (always wanted to use that word), the pork (on the left) was indeed crispy and the char siu (on the right) was slightly sweet and aromatic. Rice and pak choi were added to make it to the status of a meal and helped to soak up some of the juices on the platter. The pak choi was crispy but not too difficult to eat with chopsticks.
The bill came to £40 including a 10% service charge and included two beers (£9.00). It provided what it says on the menu and was really tasty. We definitely will visit again to try some of the other offerings with less of a meat content, now we know they are all tasty. We also might visit for a late lunch, which will allow more lingering without the guilt of seeing hungry people hanging around.
EATINBRIXTON 