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.