Restaurant Review: Polpetto

Hype is a funny thing, so are bandwagons.  They can stop you judging somewhere on its own merit and this happened to me at Polpetto.  Even though I enjoyed my meal, I was expecting fireworks and that's because Polpetto and its bigger brother Polpo have been the object of an exceptional amount of praise - Time Out is admirably exempt from this, though the underlying reason that with two other similar establishments this is not requisitely trendy enough is predictably obnoxious as ever.  I was thinking about the hype surrounding this place and trying to pin down the reasons behind it.  Firstly I suppose is the location, the same room above the French House that the sainted Fergus Henderson started at.  More than that though is that it provides a very strong, balanced and homely Italian menu that was once difficult to find.  In doing this it replicates the formula from Polpo and Boca de Lupo of providing this food in small and shareable portions so you can eat through a decent amount of the menu on one visit.  Obviously this also means slightly less food for slightly more money, but variety is after all the spice of life.  Without all the hype this would be a great place to have a good glass of wine and well prepared Venetian food with the odd stand out dish thrown in.

Restaurant Review: Leong's Legends II

I used to love going to Chinatown.  When I was little I used to go their for dim sum with my dad.  Sadly Chinatown often gets a pretty poor rap.  This is often deserved, with a lot of places serving up fairly poor gloopy food.  Just as often, however, reviewers will say that if you stick to a particular set of regional specialities which reflect where the chef's are from you can eat very well.  Leong's Legends  (II was built later to cater for demand) is just one of those places.  Leong's specialises in Taiwanese food, though  looking at the menu gives little initial indication of this as it spans the gamut of regional Chinese cuisines There is for instance a heavy focus on Sichuanese, which is perhaps unsuprising given the success of places such as Bar Shu.  However, the Taiwanese items are easy to spot as they correspond to the recommended starred items and we stuck almost completely to these.

Restaurant Review: Arbutus

We had a pre-theatre dinner booked, though I had no idea where it was, having failed to spoil the surprise (something that is a real hobby, I hate surprises). It turned out we were going to Arbutus in Soho, a modern, brightly lit restaurant that's won lots of awards. Excellent!

The idea was to have the pre/post-theatre menu at £18.50, except my greed got the better of me. Although for the purposes of this I will say that I thought it would be more interesting to compare the a la carte to the set menu.