Address: Brixton Blend, 19 Tulse Hill, Brixton, London SW2 2TH
Reservations: maxandtaffs@gmail.com
On Thursday and Friday (6.30 to 10.30 pm) but only until the end of July there’s this pop-up at Brixton blend. It describes itself as South London’s premier Vegan, Asian Fusian, Pasta Makers. Really hard to live up to but THEY DO. Interesting food, not expensive and great wine. Oops not much to write about now … but I’ll try. .
The menu is short, organised and requires little regret, as everyone can choose something. There are two starters – crunchy red cabbage slaw (with sesame and other seeds) and smacked cucumber (with chilli and other bits) – we chose both. They were definitely crunchy and the smacked cucumber is spicy but not blowing your head off hot. They woke up our sleepy tastebuds.
Then there are two two types of pasta as mains. The first is Cavatelli (small pasta shells from eggless semolina dough) with two toppings: sweet tomato, Chinese cabbage and sichuan pepper or squash, miso and pumpkin seeds. The second pasta is hand pulled noodles with either kale, spring onion and chilli oil or, the less daring, aubergine, cherry tomato and basil.
Max, the chef, makes everything fresh, so the dishes come one by one. So you get to share. The first to arrive was the pulled noodle with aubergine followed by the cavatelli with tomato, cabbage and pepper. In this restaurant pasta is definitely al dente. But the aubergine was comforting and the cavatelli with pepper gave a punch, but not as big a one as the chilli oil on the table.
We finished it all off with a chocolate truffle each – orange and chilli (there is a theme). Both were the size of rocks.
The wine list has two whites and one red – we had the red, Pinot Nero – the most expensive at £32.50 a bottle. The bill came to 52.50 including the wine and without a tip so you can see the teetotaller would get a bargain. Go now before they close down for the summer.
Address: 85 Acre Lane, Brixton, London SW2 5TN
It was all very great value, as the bill came to only £17, including a cup of tea and a Coca Cola. Next time we go we will order a bacon sandwich – see our review 
We chose Railway Lamb curry, which had lamb that was really well cooked and layers of flavour in the sauce. Ghuggni chickpeas (black chickpeas braised in onion and mango powder), which was not as spiced or flavoursome as we hoped, compared to the khatte baigan-aubergine (baby aubergines spiced with tamarind and cumin), which was a definite hit. Both these small plates were vegan dishes. Then we ordered the chicken biryani (braised basmati rice cooked with chicken morsels in aromatic spices and rose water). This was a disappointment – the chicken was dry and the rose flavour a bit overpowering. To finish off the main dishes we had a chapatti which lived up to its description of wholemeal unleavened bread by being pretty heavy.
address: – 18 Market Row, 
EATINBRIXTON 