Belgo's and Yauatcha

It's been a good food week! Tuesday night I met up with Chewie, Suong and Chris to try out Belgos near Covent Garden. After about 20 minutes of wandering lost around the roundabout on Monmouth St I noticed the huge sign next to the Chicago theatre and found it ... had never heard of it before but was impressed with my first Belgian Beer Cafe experience in London.

The decor is stainless steel, oaky wood and dim lighting, and of course the thing to order is moules frites. We sampled these, some fine beers (including one by Mongozo that tasted of coconut and very Bounty-like - who knew that was even possible!) and very yummy desserts (I can never walk past a creme brulee and this one was pretty good if formulaic). I'm not sure if the mussels are better than the ones at Bungalow 8 but for this neck of the world they're not bad :)

Last night, went to Yauatcha for a colleague's birthday. I didn't know what to expect - all I knew it was a Chinese restaurant that is the sister of Hakkasan and would have a funky blue aquarium feature. Basically it was an extrapolation of the popular London theme of night-out yum cha / dim sum (aka Ping Pong and Drunkey Monkey) but in a much classier setting. The cocktails were yummy, and our French colleagues chose a sancerre that lightly complemented our numerous dishes.

And when I say numerous - we went to town - food never stopped arriving at our table! The highlights included mushroom dumplings, jasmine champagne basted ribs (I think that was the most amazing dish of the night! very very very tasty), honey baked cod and cheung fan with pork. As it was a birthday, we also sampled the desserts - chilli chocolate souffle with raspberry sorbet infused with red chillies was amazing - the souffle could have been a little more true to form in texture but the fusion of flavours was exceptional. In fact - that's what I'd say about Yauatcha overall - it is yumcha, but it is done uniquely and innovatively with someone who definitely knows how to blend flavours in the kitchen.

New Yawkers and Sydneysiders hit London!

This is one mass post as Sarah, Niki and Mike visited London meaning a whole barrage of new restaurants/bars to try out :) I might expand them out into individual comments later ...

T Palace in between Bayswater/Notting Hill has very very yummy high tea - the scones and clotted cream were delicious. And the range of teas they had! Must have been over 200 types of tea - I had blue sky which was very yummy. Kate Moss drinks there.

Roast is the restaurant above London Borough markets - huge huge roasts (unfortunately no Yorkshire pudding!) where we had pheasant, chicken with good English bread sauce, apple crumble and custard. Absolutely stuffed at the end of the meal!

The Volunteer is a lovely little pub near Baker St - old school comfortable couches and landlord on tap! (altho Mike did think it was a little bitter)

Ruby Lo is a bar right behind Selfridges - downstairs and funky hip hop beats, lots of comfy lounges and decent cocktails - nice place to catch up with people (you can actually hear each other talk!)

Jerusalem is a bar near Tottenham Court Rd with live bands - a bit noisy to talk but the dance floor was grooving and it reminded me of being at a Krill gig in Sydney.