ROBIN EDWARDS
London

Tonkotsu Soho

I absolutely adore ramen. It’s one of my favourite things in the world to eat. It’s so delicious and comforting, even thinking about it now I’m salivating. I get proper cravings for it. If you’ve got a cold or feeling a bit under the weather there’s honestly very little better than a hot steaming bowl of ramen. There’s now handily many great ramen restaurant in London to choose from, however my absolute favourite has to be Tonkotsu. I’ve tried loads of different places, but I always end up coming back here. They’re famous for their tonkotsu ramen that the restaurant is named after. They enrich their broth with extra lardo and it’s just the best. Invariably I almost always go for it, though their chicken ramen is also great. They’ve got several different branches across London now. The one in Selfridges Food Hall is particularly useful after a hard day’s shopping in the West End. I do wish they had non-mushroom gyoza on the menu there though as they have in their other branches. Also worth picking up while you’re in the restaurant is a jar of their delicious ‘Eat the bits’ chilli oil which is delicious to keep at home and used to add spice to just about anything.
London

Blacklock Soho

This was my second time at Blacklock and I’m a big fan. Annoyingly it’s another of those no reservations restaurants however if they don’t have any space they’ll put your name on a list and they give you a time to come back when they can fit you in and thankfully this being Soho there’s lots of nearby bars and pubs in which to grab a drink while you wait. Also most importantly it’s actually worth the wait. This restaurant is a meat lovers paradise. They serve great big platters of grilled meat. Though they do have vegetarian options, I would definitely say this is not really a restaurant for your vegetarian/ vegan friends. Brilliantly they’ve also done away with happy hours and have any time £5 cocktails instead, bargain.

For £20 per person (min 2 people) they do what they call an ‘All in’, which includes pre chop bites, beef, pork and lamb skinny chips all piled high on a charcoal grilled flatbread to share with a side each per person. The pre chop bites include cheese and pickle, pigs head and kimchee, and egg and anchovy. They come in bite size canapés type portions. I had two of each and JP who I was dining with had six egg and anchovy as they’re his favourite. A delicious way to start the meal off and perk up the taste buds. The massive platter of meat comes next and it’s pretty impressive, stacked high on a large serving plate for you to devour, with the flat bread at the base which soaks up all the lovely meat juices and is a delicious treat when you get down to the bottom. By that time we were completely stuffed, but if you do want dessert they do a white chocolate cheesecake which looked great. Highly recommend this place. Pretty good value for all the delicious food you get as well. Apparently they also do a mean Sunday roast as well.

 

Pre chop bites
Meat Platter

 

London

Quaglino’s

I used to got to Quaglinos a lot in the early noughties when I first moved to London, I’d not been for years though. So when my friend JP invited me for Sunday brunch with some of his friends I was delighted to return to an old favourite. We were going to their ‘Soul Sunday’ brunch which for £49 each includes a starter, main course, a pudding and unlimited wine. To start I had a lovely chicken liver parfait with compressed apple. Then for main I had roast beef and all the trimmings. Unfortunately they had completely ran out of roast beef and so gave me a ribeye steak instead, which although very nice and considerably more expensive was not exactly what I ordered or was expecting. however they did very kindly knocked it off the bill without me even asking which was very good of them. For pudding I had a lovely, if a little small, treacle tart. It was lovely and rounded the meal off very nicely though.

 

Chicken liver parfait with apples
Roast beef, yorkshire pudding
Treacle tart
London

Hoppers, Soho

Hoppers is the cheaper sister restaurant from the people behind the Michelin starred Trishna and Gymkhana. It’s named Hoppers after the traditional Sri Lakan egg pancake bowls that they serve. It’s another of those annoying no reservations restaurants. So they put your name down on a list and they give you a rough time a table will become available and then give you a buzzer that lets you know to come back when you’re table is ready. The buzzer works over quite a distance so you don’t have to stay at the restaurant, we actually went for a drink several streets away and it worked fine. We waited about an hour for a table, which given it was a Friday night we didn’t think was too bad. We had a couple of delicious Indian inspired cocktails to start and then on to the food. Obviously we had to go for the the classic Hopper which the restaurant is named after. We had it with two karis (curries) one lamb and one black pork and  a rather spicy sambal (chutney). All utterly delicious with some really unusual flavours, pretty good value for Soho as well. I will be back.