The London Restaurant Review

Nobu was Fantastic!

Rarely do I give a restaurant top marks but Nobu, on Old Park Lane, London, deserves it.  We went there for the wife's birthday and had excellent food and excellent service.

You can read the full review on The London Restaurant Review just here.

We didn't see any celebs although there were a lot of people there pretending to be celebs and talking very loudly.  But it all makes for a great atmosphere and you are very well looked after - we must have had at least 8 different waiting staff throughout our meal and all of them are highly competent.

We stuck to beer and green tea which helped keep the overall cost of the meal down.  It ended up being £136 including a 15% tip (they must think they are in New York still) but I did have a vodka tonic to start and a brandy to finish, which added another £14 to the bill.

What did we eat?  Thanks to the print out of the bill I can tell you (memory like a sieve)!

Lobster ceviche, £12.50 - 5/5
Beef Tataki, £12.50 - 4/5
Asparagus Tempura, £2.00 - 4/5
Squid Tempura, £4.00 - 5/5
King Crab Claw, £18.50 - 5/5
Beef Toban, £15.00 - 5/5
Various sushi & sashimi, £21.50 - 5/5
3 scoops of Ice Vream, £7.00 - 4/5
Donation? Not sure to what but it's there on the bill, £1.00

Highly recommended!  We will return another day I am sure!

The Wolseley

Just down the road from The Ritz, you will find The Wolseley, now one of the most popular meeting and eating venues in central London.

It re-creates the Paris salon experience and does a very good job at it.  Go there for brunch, lunch or cream teas. Dinner will probably be good too but I don't know anyone that has been there for dinner yet.

The wife and I went for brunch just before Xmas and managed to get a table without booking to escape the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly.

You can read the full review here.

Chez Bruce at Xmas

We live just round the corner from Chez Bruce, so it was the obvious choice for our twosome Xmas dinner, which we usually have on Xmas Eve, but because CB was shut then (it was a Sunday), we went on the Saturday instead.

Despite booking a month in advance (the furthest ahead you can book), we could only get a table for 9.45pm, and the place was buzzing when we arrived on a cold, foggy night.

We had a good table, centre of restaurant, on the far wall.  Set menu was £37.50 and the food was delicious as always - the best ingredients, cooked to perfection and displayed beautifully.

My one gripe this time around was the fact that the service seems to be going downhill as the majority of the waiting staff speak less and less English.  I think the influx of cheap Eastern European labour is having a detrimental effect.  Don't get me wrong, the staff and lovely and eager to please, but if they lack the required training for a Michelin starred restaurant, it reflects badly on them and the establishment.

I know I am over-nitty - picking up on the slightest problem, and I try to not let the little things bother me BUT THEY DO!  When you pay top dollar you expect top notch service.  We asked three times for a new bottle of water and were left waterless for about 15 mins - not a huge faux-pax in the grand scheme of things but grating never the less.  The wrong bottle of wine was brought over - same vintage and region, just a different producer - it's the little things that bug me.

Anyway, it's Xmas, so I didn't moan at the maitre-d.  Just a request CB - please improve your training programme in 2007.

Dates Added to Reviews

Having received quite a few email requests from readers wanting us to add dates to our reviews...we have!

All reviews in the last 12 months will now be dated.  Those older than 12 months will not be dated.

Check it out at The London Restaurant Review.

Thomas Cubitt GastroPub

London really has some fantastic gastropubs nowadays.  One of my (new) favourites is The Thomas Cubitt in Belgravia (very close to Victoria station), which operates a traditional boozy, smokey pub downstairs and a beautiful dining room upstairs.  Upstairs on the other side of the building is a private dining room, perfect for a dinner with friends for up to 16 people.

Six of us dined in the restaurant and had a fabulous time.  You can read the full review here.

The only sad thing about this place is that unless you knew the restaurant was upstairs, you wouldn't go it - the set up means that they will get no passing restaurant trade.  Anyone peering through the steamed up windows will see a cosy looking smokey pub downstairs, but no-one eating.  This means that, just like on the Saturday we went, once the first lot of diners have paid up, the restaurant goes quiet.  Fortunately our table of six was boisterous enough to keep the atmosphere lively, but I would not want to be the only table for two eating in that grand dining room alone!

For more pub information, you can always check out our friends at www.fancyapint.com

Their review of The Thomas Cubitt can be found here.

Mosaico in Mayfair

Snooty waiters, snooty Managers, either one gets up my nose.

In this case it was a very snooty Restaurant Manager when a colleague and I dined at Mosaico, an otherwise very upmarket Italian restaurant in the heart of Mayfair.

You can read the full review here.

It was nice to see that unlike most restaurants in London nowadays, Mosaico does not automatically add a service charge to the bill.  Instead, the customer can choose to add whatever they feel to be appropriate when they are handed the payment terminal.  I added 10% (despite most places auto-adding 12.5% as standard nowadays).  I felt this was suitable based on the service we had received.

As I handed it back to the Manager, he sneered and did not say thank you.  He gave me a derisory look.  It is a shame since it has put me off every going back.

Clos Rene Pomerol 98

Given this bottle by brother for birthday.  We opened it at a dinner party for friends in Nov 06.  It had a few hours to breathe and was pretty smooth, although probably could have done with a few more years in the bottle to really mellow it out.

Overall 7/10 - a good wine, especially with a decent cut of meat, but still slightly too tannic to enjoy on its own.

Shanghai BoyBand Blue

We went for our office Xmas party to Shanghai Blues - am upmarket Chinese restaurant on High Holborn.  We had a great time and the atmosphere was fantastic. You can read the full review here.

There is quite a nice bar area at the restaurant that stays open pretty late and attracts some minor celebs.  Lee, one of the members of boy band Blue was there dining with his mother and some friends and enjoying a cocktail or three at the bar.

Alisan Xmas Menu

Alisan Restaurant Announces 3 Christmas Menus and 2-for-1 happy hour

Alisan, the smart new modern Cantonese and dim sum flagship restaurant in the Aroma Group, has introduced three Christmas menus and announced a 2-for-1 happy hour on all drinks consumed in its striking mezzanine bar.

The four-course X’mas Banquet Menu at £28 offers, Crispy Duck Roll, Prawn & Date Dumplings, Barbecued Spare Ribs in Wine & Garlic Sauce and Crispy Seaweed as starters, followed by Honey Oak Jumbo Prawn.  The main course is comprised of Stir Fried Turkey in XO Sauce, Sword Fish Fillet in Black Pepper Sauce, Sweet & Sour Pork, Fresh Asparagus with Lily Bulbs in Garlic Sauce and Turkey Fried Rice with Fresh Pineapple.  Pudding is Mixed Berries & Champagne Sorbet Alaska.

The £22 X’mas Special Menu consists of Taro Prawn Cake, Spring Roll, Crispy Seaweed, and Barbecued Spare Ribs in Wine & Garlic Sauce with an entrée of Crispy Aromatic Duck.  The mains are Turkey with Black Pepper in Wine Sauce, Sea Bass Fillets in Spicy Sauce Lamb with Ginger & Spring Onion, Four Vegetables in Abalone Sauce and Special Fried Rice with Logan & Mango Puff Pastry with Vanilla Ice Cream to finish.

The X’mas Vegetarian Menu (£22) is comprised of Crispy Golden Vegetables Parcel, Salt & Pepper Vegetables with Chilli, Pan Fried Vegetarian Dumplings and Crispy Seaweed, with a Vegetarian Lettuce Wrap to follow. The main course dishes are Supreme Monk’s Vegetables, Spicy Szechuan Vegetarian ‘Prawns’ Vegetarian ‘Turkey’ in Black Pepper with Red Wine Sauce and Three Mushrooms Fried Rice.  The dessert is a Logan & Mango Puff Pastry with Vanilla Ice Cream

These menus, for a minimum of 2 persons, are available now to 24th December.

All drinks are on two-for-one offer between 6pm and 7pm in a chic cocktail lounge bar on the first floor mezzanine until the end of March 2007.

A discrete function room is available for private hire, complete with karaoke facilities with over 20,000 stored tunes.

Alisan, The Junction Wembley Retail Park, Engineers Way, Wembley, HA9 0EG
T:  020 8903 3888
F:  020 8903 1188
W: www.alisan.co.uk