Akasiro
8 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7JJ

Reviewed Monday 6 April 2009

Previous reviews can be seen at http://www.trusted-gourmet.com/2009/04/japanese-restaurant-akasiro-london-uk/ and http://www.trusted-gourmet.com/2009/04/japanese-restaurant-akasiro-chinatown-london/

I will be short as akasiro has already been reviewed twice here! The waiter remembered us and asked if we wanted the Asahi beer ( (twice £2.90). Very good. We ordered a Tonkatsu (pork loin, served with rice and miso soup – £5.90) and a Katsudon (pork cutlet with egg sauce topped on rice, served with miso soup – £6.50). The Tonkatsu came of course with the bulldog sauce and was crispy. The Katsudon was good but could not stay crispy because of the way it is cooked on top of the rice and with that egg sauce. Still, not a bad meal at all but I would probably go for something like the chicken teriyaki don or the gyudon (beef and onion topped on rice) next time to avoid having humid breadcrumbs.

Tonkatsu

Katsudon

The two lunch special menus

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.

The two pizzas

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.