Cay Tre, Soho

London's 'phô mile' has sprawled west and now diners in Soho can sample what is considered to be the finest Vietnamese food London has to offer. A branch of Cay Tre has opened on Dean Street.

I went one lunchtime a week or so after the launch and found the restaurant fairly quiet and the food excellent.

Their prawn summer rolls, Goûi cuoán, are the best I've sampled, served with toasted peanuts and chicken liver sauce. A generous serving for £4.50, alternative fillings are pork, beef or mackerel.


The honey and five spice roast chicken, Gaø roâ ti, was succulent, as meat cooked on the bone tends to be. The meat was a little scarce but the marinade delicious and the skin perfectly crisp from the roasting. Again, reasonably priced at £9.


The Goûi boø ñu ñuû thòt boø khoâ, sesame cured beef and papaya salad was hot and fresh as only Vietnamese dishes can be. A salad that leaves you feeling like you've eaten a decent meal whilst still being light and healthy and only £7.


One regrettable negative in that I found the service somewhat lacklustre. Our order of rice was forgotten and food, drinks and bill were all very slow to materialize. It was still early days though and I'll certainly return regularly from here on regardless. The menu is full of gems and consists of exciting dishes with many varied ingredients, you could dine out here for weeks and not get bored. Also, I need my regular fill of phô and now won't have to travel more than 5 minutes from the office to find the best in town!

Cay Tre
44 Dean Street
Soho
7/10

Kikuchi

Sushi sushi sushi! My blog has had a substantial bias towards Japanese cuisine over the last month. Continuing the theme I recently dined at Kikichi, repeatedly praised by bloggers, I was keen to try for myself. I walk by the place literally everyday but prices are not cheap. The restaurant was full of business men mid week, we chose to sit at the bar overlooking the sushi master at work.


We started with salmon and fatty tuna sashimi. This was without doubt the finest sushi I had ever eaten, the tuna (not even the highest grade tuna on offer here, I must go back to try the very fatty variety) was unbelievably amazing. So soft and delicate that the merest of nudges with a chopstick forced it to break up. We had to have seconds. Seriously incredible stuff.

But it don't come cheap. House rules are minimum order £25 per person, not including drinks so my hopes of returning just to scoff down a serving of that tuna are dashed. Though it is certainly worth it. We also had some salted edamame, marinated tofu and miso. All very nice.


Other main dishes sampled were the pork belly with baby leeks and onions, I confess I was slightly disappointed by this dish, though I fear anything following the sashimi would have suffered the same fate. Kikuchi is really all about the sushi.

Similarly, chicken teriyaki was good, sizzling and smoky with bean sprouts, sesame and skin (yay!) but I was still daydreaming about the tuna.


The service is adorable and the atmosphere fun. I'll be back on occasion for sure as at these prices it could become a dangerous habit, I may well have to change my route home. We had a beer and a wine and the total spend was £94 for a modest amount of food but oh my, that fatty tuna.....

Kikuchi
14 Hanway St
W1
8/10

Satuma, Kentish Town

I've found another local gem and I'm sharing. Satuma is a mere 5 minutes from my house and they deliver, hurrah!

I've been meaning to visit for a while, last weekend I arrived half an hour before they opened for dinner - they close between lunch and dinner - and actually got egged whilst waiting outside (long story), so I sloped off and decided to return mid week.


Main event for me was the seafood bibimbap, diced raw salmon and prawns (cooked) sitting on top of rice and salad in the sizzling hot clay pot. Fantastic fresh ingredients and crunchy rice with chilli sauce on the side to mix in. Best version I've tried.

Starter of prawn tempura was a fine example, the batter lovely and light as it should be with not a hint of an oily taste as is so often the case.


Then salmon and tuna sashimi, not the finest I've ever had but certainly the best in this area, supplied by the reliable Japan Centre, according to Time Out. The usual accompaniments didn't disappoint and as ever with sashimi I was left wanting at least twice the amount we'd ordered!


The other main on the night was beef bulgogi, marinated beef with stir fried vegetables and a side of rice. Very good quality beef but there was a lack of sauce.


This cute little restaurant, seating 10 people max, is efficiently run with a regular turnover of loyal patrons. We snagged a loyalty card and I'm really looking forward to returning and trying all the other dishes on offer, especially more sushi, soft shell crab and the noodle dishes.


2 beers, green tea plus all the above came to £47, an unequivocal bargain. I'm very excited about this place.

Satuma
8 Fortess Road
Kentish Town
NW5

7.5/10

Kulu Kulu Sushi

Continuing on the sushi theme, I recently lunched at Kulu Kulu on Brewer Street. I had to wait for a seat to free up for about 10 minutes, this conveyor belt style restaurant is very popular with Soho workers.


It is worth a wait though, fresh sushi is skillfully created in the centre of the belt before being sent on it's journey to the eagerly awaiting hands. I enjoyed the agedashi tofu, both the salmon sashimi and california rolls I sampled were delicious and the edamame were great, I'm of the opinion that you can't really go wrong with edamame though.


There are plenty of dishes that you won't find doing the rounds at your larger chain sushi joints such as soft shell crab and soba noodles (cooked to order). And unlike a certain larger chain, you won't have to pay £1.20 for tap water here. Kulu Kulu is also a chain with other restaurants in Covent Garden and South Ken.

It's very small and no nonsense but I loved it here and had my fill for a mere £17. Don't go expecting a long lingering graze, it's yet another trusted quick stop lunch venue in Soho.

Kulu Kulu Sushi
76 Brewer Street
Soho
6/10

Nara

I'm in another sushi phase, come 1 o'clock nothing else will do. By far the best value selection I've found is at Nara on D'Arblay St. For £6 you can order a lunch special, they have a pretty vast selection of Korean hot dishes and a couple of sushi selections up for grabs.

I've tried the bibimbap - fine example of the dish but not as good as the sushi platter, prawn, salmon, tuna and octopus.


I've also tried the beef and pork dumplings which are seriously good but my favourite dish yet has to be the silken tofu in a hot and spicy broth topped with spring onion served with sticky rice.


As part of the lunch special, all main dishes are served with miso soup and salad and are all under £8. You also get a cleverly dissected orange for afters.
A bargain lunch just across the road from the office. Service is slightly vacant but sufficient. Watch your knees when you sit down, there's a cacophany of 'ow's' when newcomers are seated, the fittings for the grills are boxed under the tables for their Korean BBQ dishes, cooked at the table which I have yet to try.

Naro
9 D'Arblay Street
Soho
W1F 8DR
6.5/10

Pollen Street Social

Jason Atherton's new venture Pollen Street Social opened in April to mixed reviews. Reminiscent of my visit to Atherton's previous haunt, Gordon Ramsey's Maze, I went with something of an open mind having considered both the good and the so so reviews and, naturally, investigating in advance what the menu has to offer.

The room itself, as the name implies, is a buzzy, relaxed space with a large bar area and that famed dessert bar encouraging a more laid back approach to dining. Our table was in the left hand side of the building which I found to be a little chilly in temperature. The chef himself roamed the floor at various points throughout the evening, checking on how things were going out front which was nice to see.


We were presented with a choice of bread before we'd even been given a menu or a drink. Something to eat first, an unusual but very welcome order to proceedings! The bread was excellent, there was a choice of sliced wholemeal and sourdough with a salt cod spread as well as some unsalted butter. We ordered an Eastside, a pink lady and some tap water to get us started.

To start I had the cauliflower & squid in a clear roasted squid juice. A very pretty dish, the broth poured out at the table. The squid had an incredible softness and the broth was wonderfully rich. The whole dish was slightly colder than I'd expected, perhaps because the plate was cold, I don't recall.


Thomas' starter of smoked foie gras with black sesame and smoked golden raisins was less successful with the fruit overpowering the foie gras.

Onto the mains and my Cotswold lamb, braised belly and artichoke with sheep’s milk curd was an interesting plate. I found the lamb rack itself not as tender as I would have liked but I loved the curd and the belly had an excellent flavour. It was beautifully presented with a scattering of flowers.


The most memorable dish of the night was Thomas' roasted dingley dell pork belly with beetroot, hops, seeds and grains. Claims that this is the finest dish Thomas has ever had made me grin from ear to ear. It was indeed a tremendous combination of textures and flavours and look at that crackling, puffed up like popcorn!


Onto dessert and for me a traditional English rice pudding with hay ice cream and lime jelly. This was spectacular. I've never eaten hay so was unsure what to expect but there was a malty note to the ice cream. The lime was perfect with the rich creamy vanilla flecked rice pudding. My favourite course of the night.


The rhubarb, ginger and vanilla cheesecake with rhubarb sorbet and nut crumble was less memorable. We had wine by the glass, the pollen street social selection is lovely. The damage, for 3 courses and 3 drinks each, was £150, not bad at all and interesting to note we were both perfectly full, it's not necessary to order more than one starter per person as was the case in the first couple of weeks of opening. Though multiple starters can be ordered to create a tasting menu as the menu suggests, I'd love to come back and do just that.


Upon arrival each table is presented with a key which, when exiting, is exchanged for a gift. This was 'tea on us' comprising of a teabag and 2 friands. I enjoyed mine as soon as I got home, what a nice touch.

Pollen Street Social
8-10 Pollen Street
W1S 1NQ
8.5/10

Gilak, Archway

Foodie hot spot (pah!) Archway is just down the road from my digs so it warms my heart to see any venue based there reaping praise from the big guns for the quality and good value of their offerings. Late last year Time Out gave Gilak, a small Northern Iranian restaurant, the nod by way of inclusion in their Best Cheap Eats in North London and they've more recently followed up with a further glowing review

Many have raved about the starter dips, in particular the aubergine based ones so for our first course we opted for the boorani-e-aubergine (smoked and mixed with garlic and yogurt) and boorani-e-esfenaj (yogurt with spinach and garlic) with some flatbreads for scooping.


The aubergine was as good as expected though we didn't detect much spinach in the 2nd dip. The flatbreads were great, though we were less sure about the sir torshi, pickled garlic (pictured top of post). They're very bitter and something of an acquired taste.


Moving on to mains the menu is broken down into Persian stews and Persian grills. I opted for khoresht anarbij. The picture really doesn't do this dish justice, it was fantastic. A stew of lamb meatballs in a walnut, onion and sour pomegranate sauce, I've never tasted anything like it before and absolutely loved it. Very earthy and grainy, I've thought about this dish a lot since the meal and would struggle to return and order anything else. It was served alongside an enormous plateful of rice, plain and saffron, beautifully golden grains scattered atop the fluffy white pile.


I was pleased when my companion ordered chellow kabab momtaz from the grill section giving me a chance to sample the marinated chicken and minced lamb skewers. This dish was really pretty, the vibrant yellow marinade, from the saffron, giving the chicken that golden hue. Again the flavours here were quite unfamiliar to me and this was a really unusual dining experience, in a good way. The meat was all so succulent and the portion size very generous, the place was full with a varied and eclectic bunch of diners, families with children, couples, groups of friends, I see why Gilak's earned the reputation as a bit of a local gem.


I couldn't resist the bastani, Persian ice cream with saffron and pistachios. Once again my taste buds were completely unprepared for the flavours, the saffron is very strong, almost perfumed but quite savoury. The pistachios adding crunch to the creaminess, the dish was perfect with some Persian tea sweetened with plenty of sugar.


For all this we paid less than £40 and we left happy and very full. I would very much recommend visiting, even if it's slightly further than you would normally trek, it's really close to Archway tube station.

Gilak
663 Holloway Rd,
N19 5SE

7/10