Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen - The King & Co, Clapham

100 Clapham Park Road, London, SW4 7BZ

“The only bad review you gave was to a slice of pizza you found under the couch.”

- The Simpsons, AABF21

I sometimes worry that one day I’ll run out of things to write about. Then I come to my senses and realise it’s unlikely for a loudmouth like me, who can’t resist telling everyone everything.

I mean, I once wrote about a 99p Pret coffee and today was tempted to review a bag of Wotsits. Does that sound like the behaviour of someone running out of things to say?

Given the dull subject matter, possibly is the answer -  but I’ll take it as a sign that my brain will always find something to spew out on a page. If it doesn’t, I’ll just follow the popular blogger trait of describing my dinner with ‘AMAZING!!!!!’ inserted as every sixth word.

On this lazy bank holiday that consisted of nothing more than working and staring out of the window like a bored cat (AMAZING!!!), I resolved to leave the flat at least once.

Dashing out of the door late and stepping over the mounds of rubbish that litter the streets of South London, I noticed an empty bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year old rolling about on the floor - a clearer sign as any that this area is on the up.

That’s a lie - the bottle was actually there today, but it’s as neat a segue as I can think of after a glass of that same whisky and I’ll be damned if I’m letting the truth stand in the way of a half-good half-baked story.

Another sign that a place is on the up is the number of decent eateries within a couple of tube stops (segue or what?! Boom!). The King & Co in Clapham has added itself to that list with previously excellent pop-up kitchens from Donostia Social Club and BahBah Persian Kitchen. Where DO they get these names?

Now it’s time for Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen to impress the locals of South West London - or a local and his mate who lives over East somewhere. There we sat, at the back of the pub, ciders in hand, eating our dinner over candlelight. A picturesque scene, if it weren’t for us two in it.

Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen is a proper sharing experience. Small plates cover the table and you’re forever leaning across each other’s laps, dipping your elbow into some sort of red goo. All very continental. Adam’s a vegetarian though, so I had little chance to share, instead stocking up on two meat dishes and splitting a rice.

Peanut butter stew with mutton. You’re not going to find that in many places, granted; but you should. A bowl of deep earthy flavours, the mutton fell apart into tiny strands, so small you could probably hide them in a vegetarians jollof rice and get away with it (joke!). The heat here is a builder - not the tongue flashing tang of a fresh chili, but the complex spice of an assortment of powders, cooked and left to stew - AMAZING!!!. Bring me two bowls of this and I’m done.

I wasn’t done though as the mutton was joined by a friendly pig, whose belly had been slow-roasted until it too fell into thin delicate strands. The sauce looked hot. That fiery red colour of intense spice covered in a layer of oil that burns instead of lubricates. It wasn’t though. There was heat here, yet it was another builder. Drink a pint of this and you’ll struggle; eat a single dish and even I (yes Jacki, even I) had barely broken a sweat.

I could have eaten more and more, and more, and more. For once, I was actually paying for this meal, so woah woah woah! - rein it in!

All the same the meal had to end with a pudding: banoffee pie covered in chin chin. What in God’s name that is, I don’t know. Some sort of crumbled biscuit, that they dusted across the top of my creamy, bananery, toffee goodness. I’m not sure it added much, but then I wolfed the whole thing down so fast I would never have noticed. Delicious the pudding was and not one to be eaten slowly - as if a pudding ever is.

Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen is here for a little while longer before she opens up a place in Brixton. Go here, go there, it doesn’t matter, just go - it’s AMAZING!!! And I do genuinely mean that.

Mama Lan - Brixton

Brixton Village Market, Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8PR

In January, you want to spend as little time outside as possible, especially in the cold dark evenings. However, after a run (that’s right, I have to burn these calories off somehow) the thought of cooking is equally galling.

Showered, changed, and back down to huddle in the warmth of the tube, Brixton in winter is far removed from the Caribbean heritage it so proudly boasts. A criss-cross of railway bridges and elevated walkways, almost everything in Brixton drips when it rains. There’s always a slightly disturbing smell around Electric Avenue too. The juice of the day's fish hosed down poorly maintained drains.

With three tramps huddled in an archway, shouting unintelligibly at passersby, it’s no wonder that when I first visited Brixton I was back on the tube within five minutes.

Brixton Village is a small beacon of light at the end of the dripping walkway. Quiet on a January weeknight, you have your pick of the vendors who’ve decided to open, rather than the endless queues of the summer months. Still, indoor seats are at premium in the tiny restaurants, so the cold air of the cavernous roofed market has to be braved if you want to be fed.

Mama Lan has been on the list for a long time - although I can’t think of anywhere in Brixton Village that hasn’t. Dumplings and noodles make a nice change from the fried meat of most restaurants in the area. The dumplings are small, plump, meaty bites that steam your mouth and stay hot for a lifetime. The pork and chinese leaf (the only ones I ate) had a real whack of garlic to them and a deep rich meat.

Noodles here are either a soup or a salad. The latter is slightly misleading if you’re expecting the sort of low-calorie nonsense that a stick-thin model might be hunting for. This is a large bowl of noodles, with lush green cucumber sticks laying atop spicy pieces of thoroughly tender chicken, with a sprinkling of peanuts. I’m almost guessing at the last ingredient there. I don’t take written notes when I eat and the hunger from that cold run was too distracting for me to make a mental one either.

A delicious dish, the noodles. Hearty is probably a word I use far too often in winter, but it can definitely be applied here. I left full, satisfied, and well fed for my twenty pounds (including tip). That and the drips from the walkway outside, a small price to pay for not having to cook at home or do the washing up.

When the warm weather finally returns, so will the queues in Brixton. Being so close to the Village’s door, they’ll be ten deep waiting for dumplings at Mama Lan. I won’t be joining, as I hate to queue, but I’ll definitely envy those at the front.

p.s. They also have a restaurant in Clapham.

The Canton Arms - Stockwell

177 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1XP

'And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made'

- Genesis 2:2

It was a hard week for God. He’s a divine being, so you may think nothing can be that difficult for him; but then building Ikea furniture is fairly tough and he built quite a bit more than that. Cut him some slack.

The question of what it means to be divine settled, I can safely say God must have been pretty tired from that first week of work. Not only did he work six days straight, building the heavens, the earth, and all the other add-ons, he also worked the first week of work ever. Imagine that? The first week back from holiday is bad enough, but the first week ever, with an extra day on top?! A commendable effort.

That is, of course, if it was truly the first week ever and we aren’t just another in a long line of pointless pet projects. Who knows how many other heavens and earths he might have lying around, strewn across the floor like so many unfinished Lego sets on Boxing day. An unfinished state would explain a few things - war, famine, climate change, Nigel Farage. And it’s likely that as a bachelor he can get away with leaving things unfinished and untidy - another point for the prosecution. It’s not like his pacifist of a son is going to complain either.

If we say he did work that week, if we say it was hard work, if we say he rested on the seventh day, I imagine, aside from praying (to himself) that Sky Sport’s Super Sunday wasn’t 2,000 years away, God ate. 

Religious or not, Sunday is a day for feasting. Preparing the body and mind for the week ahead by stretching your stomach beyond its limit and drinking to excess. While the house is a fairly good place to do this, eating out is better. For one thing, there’s no washing up. For another, God’s left his latest misfiring planet in pieces on the kitchen floor - cooking that roast isn’t looking so appealing.

Local pubs do a roaring trade on a Sunday. None more so than The Canton Arms. It’s an early bird that gets a table here for more than two people. Luckily, being only two of us, we managed to sneak in at the last two stools, pulled up tight against the bar. Sitting there, drinking orange juice and chewing on freshly baked bread, while sneering at the suckers in the queue, up just slightly too late to beat us to the front. They probably stayed in to help God find a new lightbulb.

I think of the Canton as the perfect pub. It lacks pretension, just a good chalkboard of specials, beer from decent sources, and everything made of old booze-soaked wood. I’m sure some purists would cry heresy that half the pub is dedicated to food, but screw them. It’s the 1530s again and we’re starting a new perfect pub religion. Besides, pubs in the wilds of South London aren’t going to survive on drinks alone; well, not if they’re also going to remain habitable. 

Another thing that makes this pub perfect is its use of round plates. That’s right, round plates. I don’t like eating from square plates, tiles, chip frying baskets, buckets, hammocks, or miniature urinal troughs. If the food is beyond excellent, then by all means waste time in Habitat buying something ‘kooky’ to serve it on. If it’s anything below that, spend my money practicing in the kitchen, not staring at a potter’s wheel.

I made my choice almost immediately. The Canton serves up a slim menu of ‘traditional’ roasts. Beef for one, duck for two, and lamb shoulder for five. Arrgh, is the noise I make when I read the word lamb on their chalkboard. I never visit with enough people to tackle that monster though, so fish it was. That’s right, fish. I’ve had the beef before. It’s pink, moist, tender, delicious, and filling. Today, I wanted three courses, so beef wasn’t an option. Instead, a whole lemon sole, drowned in butter, and hollandaise sauce. So delicate, so sweet, so fresh, so perfect. I’m going to make that noise again. Arrgh.

The fish followed a portobello mushroom, baked with spinach cheese and breadcrumbs. It’s good food for a cold day. Smokey and sticky, a cheese not too heavy on the nose, but lacking salt. With a mushroom that size, you’re going to need a fair amount to seem adequate once cooked.

The fish preceded a flourless chocolate cake darker than the night and twice as bitter. It’s a trick this dessert. Like a dwarf wrestler, it might not look tough, but it is. A deep richness and condensed calorie content that makes the accompanying honey and yoghurt ice-cream look healthy by comparison. Following the beef with this dish would be an error. Following the lamb with this dish would be fatal.

Three courses, bread, and no beer. As we left, the sun shone through the almost ornate original windows that line the perfect pubs front wall, illuminating the queue of would-be-diners still waiting for their loaves and fishes. Clearly, God had found his torch and if this demand continues, The Canton Arms might have to employ his son in the kitchen.

Silk Road - Camberwell

49 Camberwell Church Street, London, SE5 8TR

Another day, another meal. Sometimes it's hard living this middle-class dream of visiting restaurant after restaurant after restaurant. Of course, no-one wants to do the washing up, but sometimes you tire of yet more rich food, yet more fried meat, yet more time spent analysing rather than just enjoying a dish.

As the sound of tiny violins subsidies, I have to say, it's not all bad. The reason my Sainsbury's bill is so low each week is for the love of food and the search for a great eating experience. Silk Road in Camberwell proved one such delight, a reason to lift my chin and keep on eating.

I'm not knowledgable when it comes to food in London. I don't really follow trends or read endless copies of TimeOut and Observer Food Monthly. I'm lazy and rely on spoon feeding via a combination of Twitter and friends. Silk Road has won many plaudits and awards, but I'd never heard of it. Instead, adhering strictly to the rules of Supper Club, I headed out through the dank, dark drizzle to a pub I'd not been before, knowing not what I was about to eat. This is the best way to dine. No expectation really. Just the excitement of stumbling across a gem, without any of the legwork in researching the restaurant and booking the table.

Silk Road is a small-fronted, condensation covered Chinese restaurant in the heart of Camberwell, a place that seems to have more pubs, restaurants, and eateries than transport links. As a rule, Chinese restaurants are styled in one of two ways: overly ornate opium dens from the 1920s, where the menu is expensive, and the chairs are carved from the bones of pandas; white-washed rooms, with cheap laminate flooring, even cheaper food, and benches and tables stolen from a 1950s primary school. The latter is always the best and it's exact description of Silk Road. No airs, no graces, just staff in t-shirts taking orders, delivering food, and telling people they'll have to wait half-an-hour for a table.

A table of three, we ordered quickly and were delivered a conveyor belt of food within minutes. Cold roast belly pork, smothered in garlic and chilli was both first and my favourite. It was real roast pork, that tasted like leftover Sunday roast, chopped, and added to a marinade long after it was cooked. Lamb skewers, chilli covered aubergine and pak choi followed. The real winner was yet more pork, this time with black fungus, served in a light broth with greens included. So fresh and so moreish.

Finally, a medium chicken with noodles landed on the table. Who knows how big the large version is. Jay Rayner said it could feed two, the waitress was adamant that the large dish was overkill. To be honest, regardless of it's size, I couldn't quite grasp the fuss - and that wasn't the only thing. It's a tasty, spicy sea, with chicken, potato, and noodles floating in it. A frustrating dish, the noodles seem to come as one long entrail, leaving you fighting with chopsticks to make them small enough to extract from the pot. The chicken, with the bone, required too much fiddling and picking to make sure the small splinters were all removed. The potato was just filler. Again, a tasty dish, but not quite the hyped dish I'd read about and certainly not something I'd be fighting my way onto the number 36 bus for.

At £20, including beer and tip, Silk Road is a crazy steal. Try as you might, you couldn't spend more than £30 there, nor could you come away hungry. The dishes are cheap and generous and the service fast. The fact that's it's full of Chinese diners and trendy South Londoners is fairly revealing - they're clearly a restaurant appreciated by all. Just be a little careful on the spice rating, however. The one chilli seemed hot enough to melt my mouth (which doesn't take a lot, to be fair), who knows what the three chilli would do.

Satay - Brixton

447 Coldharbour Lane, London, SW9 8LP

There are certain conversations you should steer clear of at the dinner table, especially when eating out. Kidneys, for instance - the human kind, not those found on the menu - are a subject best avoided, yet that didn’t stop two fellow diners at Satay talking at length about various issues and disorders, with a particular focus on the symptoms. And yes, those symptoms weren’t pleasant. The issue with a conversation such as this - aside from the subject matter - is that it hooks the ear, each and every stomach churning word heard with absolute clarity and imagined in crystal-clear definition. Were this a discussion on interest rates, a cricket match, or tomorrow’s weather, my ears wouldn’t have twitched once. 

While the conversation of diners in a restaurant can’t possibly be taken as a comment on the restaurant, the proximity of those diners can. Satay, on Coldharbour Lane, is clearly a popular place. Attempts to book before for a Friday evening have been met with laughter - not actual laughter, but the sort of reaction which suggests the request is a strange one - and even on a Monday night, most tables were rubbing shoulders with their neighbour. Feeling slightly befuddled from a birthday weekend, the noisy, busy atmosphere was not appreciated and the dim lights made my eyelids droop. Again, hardly the fault of the establishment, but an indication that this isn’t a venue for ‘all seasons’. The service was quick and pleasant though, with some advice given when a selection dilemma arose; although the suggestion that two bowls of rice were required for two people was way off the mark - there was another left to serve to the next table, providing their kidneys could take it.

Satay serves up South-East Asian cuisine: Thai, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, and more. There’s a lot of overlap with these cuisines, certainly; but there’s also enough of a difference to create confusion when they’re brought together in one place. I think of Thai as simple and fresh, with scattered sliced chillies; Chinese focusing more on dry spice and sauces; while Japanese is an abundance of raw fish. Satay was more of a mix of everything, together, on one plate. There really is a distinct lack here of the refinement found in the upmarket South-East Asian restaurants of Central London. That said, at £12 a meal (once rice has been added), Satay aren’t competing in the same market.

Starting with edamame and prawn crackers, there isn’t anything that can go wrong. Again, the portion size was impressive. The prawn crackers lasted well into the meal and wouldn’t have looked out of place at a party for twelve. The main was a left-field choice, chosen purely to satisfy a strange craving of the past few weeks. A whole sea bass sat on a bed of stir-fried vegetables, and seemingly stuffed with a handful more. The plate the fish arrived on was grossly undersized making more difficult the already intricate process of extracting the flesh. Needless to say, the table and floor were quickly strewn with mushrooms and peppers, although being with such low lighting no-one could have noticed. Unfortunately, the star of the dish was disappointing. The delicate flavour of the sea bass lost amongst some over-sauced, over-flavoured, and pretty much unnecessary vegetables. It’s instances like this that immediately bring to mind the overused adage about good ingredients - let them do the talking. Completely accurate though; a good sea bass can sing for itself and needs only hints of tampering - excellent examples are on offer at Etta’s Seafood Kitchen in Brixton Village and Mien Tay in Shoreditch.

Desserts in Asian restaurants are usually not something to stay for and given the nature of the conversation wafting over, that remained the case. The menu at Satay is tempting though, even after a dose of spice. English desserts - well, the sort found in the pub - were on offer, sticky toffee pudding, cheesecake, and brownie. Again, a chef that spends their life cooking with lemongrass, chilli, and a variety of spices, I would wager isn’t the most adept at producing these more post-Sunday dinner puddings, but I could be wrong and wouldn’t pass judgement until I’d tried.

With so much on offer in Brixton, including a couple of entries in the Good Food Guide 2014, Satay wouldn’t be a choice placed high on the ‘must eat’ list. It’s perhaps wiser to stick with the less adventurous dishes of green curry, pad thai, and Singapore noodles if you do visit, or make use of their bar and near endless cocktail list - especially during ‘happy hour’.