Well it HAS been some time, hasn't it

A lot has changed in the last two years since I posted here. The market has been redeveloped, the famous kiosks in the market have sadly been bulldozed. In their place are a wide range of new restaurants and eateries. Some of them are good, some are not so good. There are some chains (which I'm not too happy about), though, that said, some are worth going to.

My eating habits have become a bit mundane. I hate to admit it, but I am frequenting EAT a lot (I don't think it had opened whilst I was blogging before), so I do need to get out more!

I hope to gradually get the blog up to date - I have some gems to tell you about.

Watch this space!

Café le Jardin, 21 August 2007

I had been told about this cafe a week or so ago, when I saw a bunch of colleagues leaving together at lunch time, and I heard good reports from them about it. The café is about 250m on the left down Crispin Street, which is off Brushfield Street, by the Gun Public House.

An unassuming café which does sandwiches - the menu board lists sandwiches, toasties, omlettes, salads etc. I had heard about their fry-ups, but couldn't see any on the menu. My dining companion and I unoriginally both had the same - ham, cheese and mushroom omlette and chips. Once ordered, we noticed someone on another table eating bacon egg and chips, so there must be more than what is on the board above the counter.

The omlettes did not take long to appear, and were good: not too greasy and there was enough cheese to give a good flavour. I was expecting pieces of ham, but in fact there was a slice insde the folded omlette, which was a bit of a surprise. The chips were also good; light and crisp.

Then came the good thing - the bill. For omlette and chips for two, plus two cans of coke, the total came to £9.40, which is incredibly good value. I suppose this is the benefit of being on the edge of the east end, you will get places like this with good, honest food at down to earth prices. I will be going back - next time to try the all day breakfast.

Al Volo, 10 August 2007

I know, two days running - just like London Buses, you wait for ages and then two turn up at the same time!

I saw this yesterday when going to Story Deli in the Truman Brewery complex. This is on the way, and is in the brewery car park - well the outside tables are. The actual restaurant is a shop unit bordering the car park. You go in, order your pizza or pasta (it's Italian, you see) and drink, pay and then sit down with your number. Very soon the food comes out.

I had Linguine Alla Alfredo - pasta with chicken and bacon in a creamy sauce; my dining companions both had pizzas, one a calzone (folded pizza in case you were wondering), the other a normal one. Unfortunately there was a miscommunication, and the wrong pizza was served, however, the correct replacement arrived just over two minutes later - good recovery from an incident with potential to score the restaurant badly! The pasta was cooked just right with good chunks of chicken and loads of pieces of ham, and a decent portion to boot. I am told the pizzas were good - the pepperoni in the calzone was nicely spiced.

The big difference from yesterday was the price - £5.50 to £6.00 for a pizza. Absolutely amazing value, choice and quality. Will definitely go back. Here's a link to their website: www.alvolo.co.uk

Story Deli, 9 August 2007

It's been a while since I tried somewhere new, so you've had to wait for this new entry.

I first saw this place about two years ago when out one evening with friends for a curry. It is in Dray Walk, which is a little lane off Brick Lane and part of the Truman Brewery complex. It looks very boho, with a large table and cardboard stools around in the middle of the room, with the kitchen on a mezzanine at the back. The menu is entirely Pizza, but given that, extensive and eclectic - I had spicy sausage, and my dinner guest had a mushroom type of thing with added parma ham. While we were waiting, the chef came down and asked us to try a new pizza he was trying out - pear and blue cheese. That was nice, but I'm not too keen on pears - there was a nice sweetness to the taste, which finely off-set the tang of the blue cheese.

The pizzas are as rustic as the decor and furniture - simple, crusty bases, almost like a slightly thick filo pastry. The topping was fairly sparse on mine, a bit more on my companions, but then she had an extra ingredient. Awkward to eat - you had to fold the centre of a slice towards the crusty outer part, and it was difficult to leave topping behind once a bite had been taken. The spicy sausage was nicely spiced, and the sample I tried of the mushroom thingy was ok as well.

Then we come to the bad news - the price. My pizza was £9. The markup must be astronomical. I will not go back.

Carluccios, 25 May 2007

Well that was a mistake! I was stuck for where to go - so many places to choose from - I finally decided to get a take away from Carluccio.

I was drawn to the salad bar, and chose a spicy sausage and lentil dish, and a separate tub with a chickpea salad and a cous cous salad in. I was also tempted to buy a lemon tart, which was just crying out "buy me!". The assistant served the salads whch were then professionally weighed. The sausage dish was 0.218kg and cost £3.92, the salad 0.296kg costing £4.14. I was staggered. These, added to the cost of the lemon tart came to a whopping £10.80.

Back at base, the sausage dish was nice and spicy, but with only a couple of small sausages (but I suppose if there were any more, it would have increased the cost......). The salads were OK, but the lemon tart lived up to its alluring charms and was just divine - creamy, rich and tangy.

I will buy a lemon tart again (I really like the genre, anyway), but I will not be getting a salad from Antonio's establishment......

Sweet Basil, 15 May 2007

Sweet Basil is on the southern side of the market on the outside, facing the London Wool and Fruit Exchange. I heard about it around a month ago, and reports were that it was ok - a change from Carluccios. My companion and I went to the pizzaria, which is in the basement, rather than the ground floor restaurant. The restaurant menu on the website http://www.sweetbasilrestaurant.co.uk/ seemed a bit pricey for a normal lunch (obviously not on expenses!).

The basement seemed full of bustle and life, and then we realised the cause of it was two large tables forming a hen party (at least I assume it was that - one woman had a white veil on her head with a plastic silver coronet, so a fairly safe bet.....). We were easily found a table - there were a number of empty tables, so that it would not have been busy at all if not for the wedding party. The menu is on their website, but there was also a special menu, of which at least three of the dishes appealed, so I didn't even bother to look at the normal list. As a shared starter, we went for the Antipasta. This comprised some Parma ham, salami, normal ham, a few strips of roasted peppers, about four large green olives and scattered capers. I was a bit disappointed with this - Parma ham was good, but the rest was not particularly special.

For main course, I had rigatoni (grooved tubes of pasta) with a sausage, mushroom and tomato sauce, my companion went for the lasagne. Because the hen party were being served before us, we had to wait for 15 pizzas and eight pasta dishes to be delivered to the two large tables. As a result, our main was delayed. When it arrived, though, we were both impressed by the quantity. The lasagne was twice what you might expect from Carluccio's, and, by virtue of the size of the rigatoni pasta, that was significantly larger than the equivalent at Antonio's empire. I found the sausage to be bland to taste - the mushrooms had more flavour! That said, in terms of value for money (as you know, a key feature in this blog!), it was good (it cost about £8). My companion enjoyed her lasagne.

Having said the quantities were large, and that it represented value for money, I was disappointed with the size of the bill - it was, as near as damn it, £17 each including imposed tip, broken down as a £6 starter, two £8 mains, and erm...., well, two one litre bottles of still water. The water must have been expensive. In any event, I should have checked the bill, as I have only now realised the true cost of it.

All in all, I prefer Carluccio's. Lighter, brighter, more lively (apart from the hen party), and you know what you are getting.

Verde & Co - update

Since my quest finished, I have been back to Verde twice for sandwiches and been provided with salad.

The salads are just superb - I had chicken and guacamole. There was a large pile of the "filling" and loads of lettuce and beef tomatoes. There was a dressing which I really didn't notice - it was definitely there, but it did not overpower what was in the box, which is what a dressing should do. There was pepper, and that added a nice spiciness to the whole thing. V impressed.

I recently had the chorizo and mozzarella with sweet chilli sauce, having heard someone downstairs order it on the phone. This just has to be the tastiest sandwich I have had in years (previously date and banana on brown in 1979 from a sandwich bar in Bognor Regis......Don’t ask!). The sweet chilli sauce added a sweetness that merged all the other flavours together. A colleague mentioned that he was not keen on mozzarella - that doesn't matter, as you don't get that specific taste. Absolutely fantastic!

I have said before that the queue at the Thai Hut says it all for that establishment. The number of Verde boxes I see on desks in the office says it all for Verde. This must be the sandwich shop of choice for our company.