I spent a week in London while my partner was on a business trip in Kigali. I normally accompany her, but the flights were expensive and miserably-timed, and the city itself did not seem to merit much time (I did not want to bother gorillas). So I took the Eurostar from Brussels (the origin of the best direct flight for her) for the first time in my life.
I’ll be posting gradually in this topic. I tend to eat more in the spirit of the original Chowhound (modest, under the radar), though that is increasingly harder these days. For those who don’t have the patience to wade through a whole thread, the first meal I had was probably the most interesting and recommendable. I arrived at St. Pancras about 9am on a Saturday, secured my (quite lovely) Airbnb in Stepney, did a bit of food shopping for in-house breakfasts, and then set off for a reservation at Mambow, in Clapton. This is the first place mentioned in Timeout’s most recent list of the however-many best restaurants currently, and while their recommendations always have to be viewed with a critical eye, this one worked out.
The storefront is very low-key, secured after at least one pop-up location. The high counter in the front window is for walk-ins, I think; I was given a time limit on sitting down at a regular table, of which there are not many. There is a sample menu on their website but “new menu” scrawled on the one taped to the front window, so here it is:
I asked their guidance on how to proceed as a solo diner, and the perhaps too slick server (one of three I interacted with) suggested one dish from each category, which would have fed partner and I, had she been present. I opted for the Kerabu Sotong and the Double Roasted Pork. I was warned, “The pork is a main, but it’s a small one,” and I said that was fine. Also some rice – I balked a bit at paying £3.50 for a bowl of rice, but as it turned out (1) it was great rice and (2) £4 was the standard charge at several other restaurants I ate at.
The executive chef was not cooking at this point, but I appreciated the woman-dominated scene (there was one man preparing salads, and one server).
Notice the additions to the wine list on the chalkboard, especially the eye-popping prices. This seemed typical of the London restaurants I ate at. Living in a place where I can get a phenomenal wine for 10€ at my local supermarket, this caused me to gaze with a jaundiced eye on anyone I saw ordering wine by the bottle in a restaurant.
Here’s what arrived (not all at once):
Tap water was provided in a former Grand Marnier bottle (such a nice change from the continent, especially Belgium). In order of impact, here are the dishes, close up:
This was pork belly, roasted until crisp; I don’t know if it was cut before roasting or after (my guess is after), but it was then finished in a wok with dark soy sauce and Malaysian caramel cooking sauce, among other things. I might have this as my last meal as a condemned prisoner. I dreamed about it for the next week, and contemplated the long haul north to try having it in again on one of those walk-in stools by the window. Maybe it’s an obvious crowd pleaser, but it certainly ticked all of my boxes.
This humble dish of rice was a revelation. The blue colour comes from pea flowers (I think it is dried and powdered here). But you can see makrut lime leaves, plus a more shrivelled herb I couldn’t identify at lower left, and I could taste lemongrass, which was probably picked out before serving. I could have eaten this bowl of rice by itself.
It’s maybe unfair to put this dish third, and perhaps I shouldn’t rank them at all, because this was quite good. I watched the chef de cuisine grill the cuttlefish, and then the salad assembler take his time with the composition and plating, even as the server was demanding the dish from him. More subtle than the pork, but also more complex. I alternated bites from my three dishes (yes, the rice counts as a dish), taking my time. There was no need for anything more.
The bill came to £32. I had read up on current tipping practices, and was prepared to tip 10-15%, but I needn’t have bothered; almost every place added a service charge (here it was 12.5%). Sometimes it was listed on the bill as “optional”, but they presented a machine with the charge already included, and I was going to do something like that anyway, so, okay. Still, I much prefer the Continental practice of (for the most part) including everything in the menu price.
Although this was, in retrospect, the culinary high point, I still did pretty well in the meals to follow.
