Andina - Shoreditch

1 Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London, E2 7DJ

Every cuisine seems to get its fifteen minutes of fame. I'm sure I've said that many times before, but it's true. Peruvian had it's spell of glory last year and/or the year before. It's on the wane now - or at least it is based on anecdotal Twitter evidence.

Andina is a Peruvian restaurant that appeared at the height of the glory. A very sensible thing to do: strike while the iron is hot, way before ASDA start selling Peruvian microwave meals and the hipsters flee faster than Lib Dem voters on polling day.

If I wanted to be a proper food blogger, I should go to these place when they're at their hippest, queue in the wind, rain, and boiling-hot sun just to get some pics up on Instagram way before anyone else.

But I'm not, so I didn't.

By the time I finally visited, the wave of euphoria had swept through and most people I know had been and gone.

That's probably for the best.

Perhaps during the height of the hype these guys were on fire - or that hype was so great everyone was blinded to any issues. Regardless, I was fairly disappointed by Andina.

For a start, the staff seemed a little clueless - not for the first time in a Peruvian restaurant, I might add. Our waitress either couldn't hear us or couldn't understand us, we were bombarded with drinks and dishes that weren't ours, and getting hold of water was like trying to squeeze it from a stone.

Not great really, on what was a reasonable quiet Tuesday night.

The food wasn't fantastic either. I expected some flare to the dishes - something to really set them apart and justify the wealth of praise. I didn't find much.

The duck ceviche sounded interesting, but it could have been any meat really - the delicate taste overwhelmed by whatever the sauce was.

The octopus delivered some wow. Served as a whole tentacle on a small plate, it captured that look of an alien that only an octopus can manage. Impressive and tasty. Is that too much to ask from the other dishes?

I didn't photograph much of the rest and I'm not going to write about it either. Meh sums it up pretty well. The Pisco sour was very good - the best I've had, in fact - but I'd recommend anyone visiting to stick to the drink and skip the food.

Do I have to summarise? I'm not sure. I'm suppose I do for those one or two who scrolled to the bottom of the article. Overall, Andina was average at best - and I really really wanted to like this place, especially after all I heard. Parking was ample.

The Manor - Clapham

148 Clapham Manor Street, London, SW4 6BX

Now, I have to be very careful with this one. Firstly, my girlfriend brought me here for my birthday. Secondly, they gave us a free glass of something fizzy.

Well, freebies have never swayed me before - if they did, this blog would have joined the 'fantastic!!!!' crowd a long time ago - but my girlfriend's choice can't be criticised. Not if I want to keep both my relationship and my large nose intact.

So......what do I write?

The Manor is a restaurant in South London's Clapham area. It serves hot food and a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. It has tables. It has chairs. It has lighting that's a little too dim for my ageing eyes.

Ah damn. That's definitely a criticism. But honestly, it'll be the only one!

The Manor specialises in the sort of food that you might describe as gourmet hipster. It's not burgers and double-milk-glazed free range chicken, but it is that fennel-seed-this and whipped-fish-eyes-that type of menu, where every dish is one you won't have eaten before. Guaranteed.

To list the food is pointless - I can't remember it all. To show you a photo is equally pointless - it was too dark and it was my birthday, so I wasn't working. Not that I often am, some might argue.

Let's just say the food is fun. Interesting ingredients in interesting combinations, served on a range of interesting ceramics (God, I am officially old). Plates are around £7-8 and you're going to need at least four or five each to fill a hole. It's best to share too, otherwise one of you will have to eat a plate of BBQ'd kale, while staring longingly at your dining partner's dish.

Vegetables are a key feature at The Manor; in fact, you could say there's a definite oversupply. I'm not complaining too much - I'm on a sort of half-arsed health drive - it's just that, on occasions, the meat advertised on the menu was lost in a sea of green shoots and leaves.

The meat that was on show shone, mind you. Tender octopus, bright pink pigeon, soft melt-in-the-mouth beef. And, as much as it pains me to say it, sometimes an over-supply of meat is unnecessary. Better to get your calories from carbs and vegetables, every doctor will tell you.

The same quack will probably say that a small pudding is a good thing too. Well, The Manor don't do small puddings; instead, I had a half-plate of crumble, steaming with ice. Does ice steam? Maybe. Whatever, it was an impressive delivery and there's some photos on Facebook of me looking like a happy fool shortly before tucking in.

I say shortly before, as after all that visual drama, I expected something a lot tastier. This was really just a pile of sweet crumble. I'm not averse to that, but it just slightly boring for a restaurant that offers up such adventurous dishes as BBQ crispy chicken skins & kimchi (I've bothered to read the menu now).

So there we have it, a review which promised no criticism and probably ended up delivering three. That's pretty good and The Manor shouldn't be judged on these alone. Perhaps a little less drink and a little more focus would have led to a stellar review - but it was my birthday!

If I were to be asked for a recommendation in South London, The Manor would certainly be towards the top of that list - and you can't say fairer than that!

p.s. A massive thanks to my girlfriend for such a brilliant choice of birthday meal - and for scoring us some free drinks :-)

Pachamama - Marylebone

18 Thayer Street, W1U 3JY

Maybe I'm a soothsayer. No sooner do I write about the importance of good service then life provides a perfect demonstration. If it's true, screw food, I'll write about the lottery instead.

Dinner at Pachamama seemed a little high-brow for our standard Wednesday dinner club - which happens any day except Wednesday. It's a well-raved-about Central London hot-spot in the swankier part of town. So good, I was going to be gracing them with my presence for a birthday meal, according to the organiser.

It's not that we're a slovenly bunch, it's just a Tuesday, not really the day for fine (read expensive) dining. Oh well, when in Rome...or in this case Lima.

Opening the menu, I was surprised. Barely a dish above £10!

Then they arrived.

Ah. I see. It's small plates (note: I rarely research anywhere before I go, once being surprised that Iceland only serves frozen food) . Octopus for £10 did seem remarkably cheap, although at least with that dish it was two solid skewers of octopus, gone in three bites each. The beef was pushing the trade descriptions act: it contained beef - and very delicious it was too - but the plate was mainly vegetable. The crab though. Wow. A strong draught from a passing waiter and you can wave goodbye to your seven strands of crab flesh perched atop the potatoes.

So, the food at Pachamama is small, but it is good. Very good. The lamb belly, the ceviche, the aubergine, the asparagus - I could go on - each and every dish, stellar. There were a couple of complaints, mind you. The broccoli was disappointingly crunchy, as if they'd rush it through the kitchen, and the veal heart was, well...absent.

Yes, an absent veal heart. Absent, as we'd cancelled it. There's only so long you can wait for food and when your hunger starts to take control again, it's time to throw in the towel and leave.

I don't know what went wrong. Pachamama wasn't busy, nor was our order complex - just three extra dishes alongside three puddings.

At the time, the waiter blamed the chef. Later on, the restaurant blamed the waiter. I don't really care. All I know is, we left hungry, pit-stopping on the way home for a pudding.

It was a real shame and I'm not encouraging a witch hunt, but perhaps poor service is to blame. The little things brought into sharper focus following the debacle with the extra dishes. The waiter rarely wrote anything down. Only one drinks menu was ever handed out. Another waiter didn't understand my request for water and couldn't pronounce the word 'sprouts' - the latter isn't a problem, just funny, so I thought I'd mention it.

Ultimately, it was the failure to deliver those extra dishes in a timely fashion that let Pachamama down. The rough edges could easily have been overlooked with the quality of the food on offer - although, the quantity of some of the key ingredients was also a disappointment. Once one card falls, they all do (or something like that), and the long long wait was a big card (the analogy makes no sense now) that couldn't be righted with a round of pisco sours.

I'll be back to give them another try, maybe. Some wounds heal with time and that lamb belly would definitely make a good plaster.