The Fish Club 189 St Johns Hill, Clapham Junction, SW11 1TH Tuesday-Sunday from 12 to 10pm.
Reviewed Sunday 5 April 2009.
The Fish Club in Battersea
Some art for sale
Another nice fish in papier mache and mosaic for sale.
The menu is displayed on a black dashboard on the wall with all the currently available fish, starters, side, drinks… The menu may vary because they only use fresh produce – which is very welcome. The staff were nice to suggest some fish and to describe them and we decided for the red gurnard (£9.95) and the whole royal bream with chilli and garlic (£12.95). Sides were the chips (£2) and the roasted veg (£4.50). I was surprised to see we could get the Japanese beer Asahi there but we chose a bottle of Australian wine Willowglen (£12.95).
An easy to drink wine
The red gurnard on top before...
The red gurnard after...
The royal bream
Overview of the table
Chips and roast veg
The two fish were cooked chargrilled for the royal bream and ovenbaked for the red gurnard. Both were fresh and firm. The royal bream with chilli and garlic was tasty and fortunately the chilli, which was not hot at all but sweet, was not too sweet. The skin was nicely crispy. The red gurnard was nicely cooked, with a crispy skin. The flesh was firm and with a nice delicate flavour (neither fishy nor bland). Nicely enhanced with just a touch of lemon. The chips were excellent and certainly the best chips we have ever eaten in the UK. Usually they are quite boring, suffocating and look boiled. Here, they are cooked twice like they do in Belgium (which is the country of frites) so they were crispy despite being pretty thick. The roasted vegetables were good, soaked in olive oil and well roasted. The wine was very drinkable.
For dessert, we ordered a chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream (£4.95) and Jude’s Ice Cream (£3.95) with butterscotch flavour. No bad surprise, they were good too! The brownie was not too sweet and the butterscotch ice cream was fine (very similar to “hokey pokey” ice cream that you get in New Zealand).
Chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream
Cost and conclusion: for the two fish, two desserts and the bottle of red wine the total cost was £54.25. The food was great and while what we ordered was not the ordinary cheap fish & chips (a haddock costs £6.95 for example) the setting was like a fish & chips place so I find the place a little overpriced.
Limoncello 169-171 Mitcham road, tooting, London SW17 9PG
Reviewed Saturday 4 April 2009 lunch time.
View to the street from our table
I do not know this part of London well, but as I was looking for a vacuum cleaner spare part during lunch time, I discovered this restaurant. It was a great, totally unexpected discovery! The restaurant is fairly big and I liked the space between the tables. The windows were open to the street which was welcome for this great sunny day. Finally some decent spring weather.
Drinks: they have a nice choice of drinks: white wines, red wines, rose wines, sparkling wines, champagne, aperitifs, brandies, dessert wine, beer… The price range for their red wine goes from £10.90 (the bottle of their house red) to £29.90 (Amarone Doc). A Chianti DOCG costs £15.90 for example. We chose the Cannonau Di Sardegna DOC 14% ( £19.50) described as “This wine has a vinous bouquet with a dry full bodied. And persistent taste. Excellent Sardinian wine”. Well, we agree with their description and it was a very good accompanient to both the pizzas and the desserts. It was nice to have a waiter who knew enough to check the cork after opening the bottle and to provide the right type of wine glasses for the wine we’d chosen. Most do not bother and it is sad.
They have all kind of meals (antipasti, secondi, paste…) but we went for the pizzas The price range for the pizza goes from £5.90 (the Margherita with tomato, mozzarella and basil) to £8.50 (the Limoncello, made of tomato, mozzarella, pancetta, mushrooms and chicken). All pizzas are sprinkled with oregano and parmesan. We chose the Calzone which is a folded pizza with tomato, mozzarella, mushrooms, ham and salami (£7.90) and the Pavarotti made of tomato, mozzarella, parma ham, rucola and shaved parmesan (£8.20). Both were quite large and excellent. The Calzone was nice and light, reasonably crispy. It could perhaps have just a little more tomato sauce and I would encourage the chef to be a little braver and singe the edges. Compared to the Rustica’s Calzone, this one is better with the filling better blended and the base crispier so so far this is the best Calzone I have met in the UK . The Pavarotti was good too, with a crispy base and everything as it should be. No pizza is complete without chilli oil and Limoncello’s chilli oil was excellent (very fresh and spicy with a touch of garlic). My only complaint is that the waiter pourred the chilli oil on our pizzas whereas I would have prefered to control the quantity myself (I would have had more!).
Pizza Pavarotti
The two pizzas
For desserts, we had an almond panna cotta and a cup of coffee ice cream with Sambuca. The panna cotta was good, not too sweet and much less heavy than many panna cotta. The coffee ice cream with Sambuca was great, with a very nice coffee flavour and the liquor was not overpowering. We also had two coffee espresso which were good, slightly burnt.
Panna cotta
Coffee ice cream with Sambuca
Cost and conclusion: for £47.50 (with service to add) the value for money was good. The service was efficient and the owner was nice too, asking us for some feedback about the colours of the rooms that are going to be updated. We will be back!
Pizza Express Wandsworth – Trinity, London SW17 7HR Reviewed on Friday 3 April 2009 lunch time.
Pizza Express at Wandsworth Common
Peroni beer
The two pizzas were the pizza La Reine (prosciutto cotto ham, olives and mushrooms for £7.55) and the pizza Soho (an olive and garlic pizza with fresh rocket and shaved grana padano added once it is out of the oven for £7.55 also). The pizza La Reine was average, a bit too much tomato sauce which made the pizza go a bit soggy, and a bit stingy on the cheese and ham. No complaint with the olives, that was the right amount. The pizza Soho was good and light compared to the pizza La Reine. Its base was crispy and the fresh rocket was giving a good flavour to the pizza. The chilli oil was very mild but still nice.
Pizza Soho
Pizza La Reine
Chilli oil
Cost and conclusion: For £23.80 (plus service to add) it was fine for me who took the pizza Soho. I tried a little the pizza La Reine and I thought there was way too much tomato sauce making it bad. So overall it depends on the pizza you choose. There are usually vouchers with Pizza Express (do a search online) where you can take two pizzas for the price of one or get starters for free etc. With them the value for money would be good but I didn’t use them and for about the same the price you can eat much better at Rustica in Richmond, which isn’t located next door I agree. Still, if you have a big family, it is a good place to take your kids there. They even have baby changing facilities.
Akasiro 8 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7JJ Monday to Saturday from 12 to 11:30pm (last order) Sunday from 12 to 11pm (last order)
Reviewed on Thursday 2 April 2009
As I wrote in my conclusion yesterday about akasiro, we had to come back to try some other meals
We went again for lunch and today we ordered the Dolsot Bibimbab (£6.50) and a Yaki Udon (5.90) and of course the mandatory Asahi beer (twice £2.90).
The Yaki Udon is a meal made of fried thick noodle with seafood. It was very tasty. Nice crispy bean sprouts, good range of seafood (mussels, shrimps, calamari…). See the photo below, taken this time with a real compact camera 😉
Yaki Udon
Dolsot Bibimbab
Cost and conclusion: same as yesterday! Great value for money and good food. The service was provided by the same friendly Japanese guy.
Reviewed on Wednesday 1 April 2009
Japanese restaurant Akasiro
It has been a long time since I have been to Leicester Square area because I was mostly in France lately (most of November, a week in December, three weeks in January, three weeks in February) and I lost a little bit track of old habits. I wanted to go back to the Japanese restaurant Zipangu next to Chinatown and instead there was the Akasiro! There was a change of owner and the menu changed a little too. The Bento boxes disappeared, same for the tempura set which had a miso soup, three pieces of sashimi and a tempura of three prawns and a selection of vegetable (carrot, aubergine, green pepper…) for £10.50. I often used to take that tempura set and had to replace it by something new this time. Overall I found the new menu easier to read and the lunch special menu (from 12 to 4 pm every day) is extremely well priced. They are divided in 5 categories: Main dishes, Furai dishes, Sushi and sashimi, Donburi and Noodles. Most of them are served with rice and miso soup and the price range goes from £5.90 for most of them to £6.50 with an exception for the Unaju at £8.50.
There are of course appetisers like hiya yakko (cold tofu with spicy sauce – £4.50), yakitori (£4), plenty of tempuras (a mixed tempura costs £6.50 for two shrimps, two fish and four vegetable), sushi/sashimi (around £3 – 3.50), sushi rolls (6 pieces from £3.00 to £7.50), sashimi or sushi set (£11.50), noodles, katsudon etc!
We decided to go with the chicken teriyaki (served with rice and miso soup – £6.50) and the hot tempura udon (thick noodle with shrimps and vegetable tempura – £5.90). For drinks we got two Asahi beer (twice £2.90).
A nice Asahi beer
The Asahi beer was great and it was nicely served chilled, something not that common when I think about some other Japanese restaurants like the Hazuki not too far from the Akasiro or the Toku where the beer has been too warm to the point we were taking wine or tea instead. Sorry for the photo, it was taken with a Blackberry cellphone.
The hot tempura udon was yummy. It was hot, tasty and spicy. They provide some chilli powder so you can adjust to your own taste. There were two prawns and several sort of vegetable for the tempura. Not that easy to eat with chopsticks even with the spoon but delicious. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. Same cellphone.
The hot tempura udon
The chicken teriyaki was great too. It was not too sweet, as is sometimes the case with teriyaki and the chicken tasted very good. The bean sprouts were fresh and crispy. Excellent miso soup.
Chicken teriyaki with rice and miso soup
Cost and conclusion: for a little over £18 (service not included) I think it was a very good value for money. We found the lunch excellent and cannot wait to come back to try some other meals The service, just one Japanese man serving where we were there, was efficient, polite and friendly.
