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 :-)

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.

Boom Burger - Notting Hill

272 Portobello Road, London, W10 5TY

Burgers, burgers everywhere, so let’s all stuff our face.

The relentless burger boom continues a pace into 2015, with a Byron appearing on every street corner and not a cloud in the medium-rare sky.

I like burgers, I truly do. The sweet, meaty, gooey goodness of fried minced-beef and cheese wedged within a solid white bun. It's the simple things in life that keep me going. One day, bust will follow boom though. What goes up, must come down. Etc, etc, etc. Burger vans, stands, and joints will make way for the Hawaiian grills, Bolivian rat 'n' rice balls, or whatever other cuisine next floats the hipster boat.

It'll be a shame, for their owners, but the rest of us can breath a little easier and take the belt back down a notch. Besides, we have plenty of South American rodent to eat.

Boom Burger in Notting Hill is one such 'restaurant' riding the waves (I never know whether to call a burger ‘joint’ a restaurant). Today, one place nestled under the dripping flyover of West London's A40; tomorrow, another nestled under the dripping ceiling of Brixton Village. An expansion from yesterday's hipsterville into today's.

Boom Burger is Jamaican themed. Where their standard burger is concerned, I'm not sure what that means. The burger has meat, cheese, and an onion relish. No Jamaican flavours added here, but as I’ve said before, I’m ignorant of most things Caribbean. Why, onion relish could well be a delicacy there.

Continuing my ignorance, I know not a thing about cooking plantain either. Still though, I know a slightly solid plantain lacking in sweetness when I see one. Perhaps not ripe enough? I don’t know, but I do know they weren’t great.

The burger, on the other hand, was fine. Said to be cooked medium rare, it turned up grey, but wasn't lacking for juice or flavour. The cheese and relish giving a sweet bite, on top of that soft meat. The bread, holding together well in the face of a slight liquid overload.

The premises though. Well, you can't blame the owners for the state of the flyover, the market stalls, or the piles of rubbish outside the door. You can, however, blame them for the shabby interior, the door that kept on banging, and the general untidiness of the place.

Okay, I’m buying a burger from a market in Notting Hill. I still expected a better standard though. I want to feel as if I can sit, eat, and wait to digest my food, not want to gulp ‘n’ blow out of there.

It was a real shame. I’ve wanted to visit Boom Burger for a long time. Now that I have, I don’t think I’ll be running back any time soon.

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.

Smoking Goat - Soho

7 Denmark Street, London, WC2H 8LZ

I could start any review of a restaurant in Central London talking about tourists. The throngs of visitors who line the streets of Zone 1, drawn like moths to the bright lights of every Aberdeen Angus Steakhouse.

I’m a bit bored of that now, so I won’t.

It leaves me scratching my beard as to how to start this review though. I don’t like diving straight into the food; instead, I prefer setting the scene or waffling on about something almost entirely unrelated.

So, here we go...

On the edge of the Kalahari desert in Namibia, a few miles west of the Botswana border, lies the one horse (donkey) town of Tsumkwe. Having driven for hours along Namibia’s famously straight roads, turning the wheel only to navigate a swamp, the idea of boiling pans of water over a fire and eating yet more pasta mixed with cured meats, had lost it’s charm.

Fortunately, within the barbed wire of the campsite - heavily fortified against any animal or gun-toting local that the Kalahari had to throw at us (and there were a few) - was a restaurant of sorts. A tall triangular building, built solely of thatch from floor to ceiling, housed a charcoal pit (that CANNOT be a good idea) and a kitchen that served up t-bone steaks from who-knows-what animal for about £5.

A meal of meat, these t-bones were the size of my head - and I have a very large head. Yes, they came with chips. Yes, they came with salad. But these sides were purely decorative; the focus of the meal being meat and meat alone.

Smoking Goat, on Denmark Street, is a homage to that Kalaharian barbecue. It’s not. I doubt the owners have been to Tsumkwe and they specifically say they’re offering up Thai inspired cuisine.

Anyway, waffle - tick. Segue - tick. And the job is almost done.

One thing Smoking Goat and the Tsumkwe T-Bone Emporium have in common is polite, happy, pleasant staff. The guys in Tsumkwe were probably just happy to see customers (we were the only ones dining). The guys at Smoking Goat are clearly just nice people, and they get plenty of customers if the tales of queues on the door are to be believed.

The other thing they have in common is a very limited menu. Smoking Goat has an A5 menu in font size 38 and a chalkboard that adds a couple more options: mainly giant dishes to share with 5 people.

We took the two mains: duck legs and lamb ribs. The starter of fish sauce wings was a nice intro, but after two bites the salty salty salty fish sauce was sapping every dribble of moisture from my mouth. In other words, it was too salty.

The duck and lamb were far better. Sticky delicious meat that you could pick clean from the various bones and shovel down with a spoon of sticky rice and the spicy greens (the name of which escapes me completely).

It’s one of those meals that leaves you feeling satisfied. Nothing novel going on here. Nothing spellbinding. Nothing cutting-edge. No reduction of salmon’s foot, with a garnish of blended Yorkie bar, and a poached egg on top. Just solid meat - solid in the football pundit’s use of the word (it means good, strong, and reliable) - and a full belly to rub afterwards.

Again, it’s a bit like that meal in Tsumkwe. My introductory waffle, totally and utterly justified.

Like meat? Check out Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte.

Conrad's Beer - The Best of 2014 and other awards

Various (many London)

At this time of year every chef, restaurant manager, and restauranteur pays close attention to the broadsheets and their 'Best of 2014'. The most savvy among them keep a keen eye this way, though.

The Conrad's Beer Best of 2014 is THE make-or-break list for restaurants looking to attract my Mum as a customer. Without a good word in here, they'll never win her business.

To feature in the Best of 2014 list, the restaurant has to be one I've visited for the first time in 2014 and (for reasons I can't really explain) can't be located outside of the UK, so San Sebastián is out.

There's also one or two awards going for those who fail to make this list, for reasons both good and bad.

The Conrad's Beer Best of 2014

8. Eyre Brothers, Shoreditch

"A place like Eyre Brothers, with it’s refined dishes, crisp white napkins, and lack of craft ale shows that Shoreditch can offer cuisine above that of the half-foot burger, the bucket of diablo wings, and child-sized steak."

7. Mezcal Cantina, Dalston 
"A firm favourite on Instagram, the prawn tostadas were in the words of hipster culture, epic."

6. Carioca, Brixton

"Carioca is (a) culinary delight. Carioca serves up Brazilian delicacies, including a perfectly balanced lime-filled caipirinha."

5. Cafe Murano, Mayfair

"The food perfect, the portions a tad small, but all the more reason to order more courses. The vegetables crisp and fresh with tangy ricotta and a helping of someone else’s beef carpaccio."

4. Silk Road, Camberwell

"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."

3. The Bunk Inn, Berkshire

"With well-balanced flavours and a delightful presentation carried through every dish, you might find yourself taking a room, waiting for breakfast, and perhaps staying again for lunch."

2. Roxie Steak, Clapham Junction

"Roxie’s is...a destination for steak. A higher quality, higher value steak, you are unlikely to find in the capital."

1. House of Ho, Soho

"It's so good, we ordered more. A second helping is testament to the quality of the food, rather than any gaping hole in my stomach."

--- --- --- ---

The Conrad's Beer Alternative Awards 2014

The Plastic Basil Plant Award for the Worst Restaurant:
Yard, Shoreditch

"Halfway through the meal, we noticed a couple on one table clearly going through a break-up. It must be hugely depressing to be dumped while eating at a restaurant this bad, although if Yard is the sort of place he brings her on a regular basis, she was probably hugely relieved."

The Deer Hunter Award for the Strangest Dining Room:
Mien Tay, Bethnal Green

"The room upstairs...was empty, save for two flies circling the lightbulb, but it was definitely a room ready for something suspect, and if not roulette then storage for an ill-gotten whale or some unfortunate's bedroom. The duvet sticking out of a cupboard strongly suggested the latter.

Best Use of a Pig Product in a Drink: 

The Bayou Soul, Camden

"Cocktails at Bayou were of the more complex and refined variety. A bacon and maple syrup Old Fashioned was everything I’d expected and more - sweet, salty, smoky and sour; a well-balanced drink with a small ice-bowl of bacon pieces balanced on top."

The I Can't Believe It's Not Vodka Award:
Unnamed

An bar in Kensington, where the barman tried to pass a shot of water from a display bottle off as a shot of vodka. Apparently, this vodka is so smooth, you can't taste the 40% alcohol. Yeah...right.

--- --- --- ---

That concludes the awards for 2014. A big 'Well Done!' to the winners - and get your £10 in an envelope to the usual address asap. Cheers.

Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte

5 Throgmorton Street, London, EC2N 2AD

To my left sat four colleagues. Strangers to me, they clearly knew each other well, as why else would three of them put up with the loud noise emanating from the fourth?

Not just loud, but incessant. A constant stream of deafening drivel that suffocated all other sound from the air.

When the bill came, she left for the toilet. Now's your chance. Run. Run away before she returns. They couldn't. They were trapped by a need to pay the bill and, perhaps, the blissful relief of silence, not wishing to disturb that perfect fourth course of peace.

Before long, she was back, but thankfully coats were all on and they left quickly. The panes of glass trembled as she turned the corner and disappeared along the alleyway, into the dark night of the City.

Silence.

The sounds of the restaurant drifted back into focus. The clink of metal on plate, subtle laughter, murmured conversations, a few in French - a good sign. We were in Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte, a name I'm glad not to pronounce. Red booths, wooden panels, and Mr Creosote sat in the corner. The bedrock of a good French meal.

L’Entrecôte serves food in that most traditional of French ways: a small table, not large enough for the smallest of orders; fast, well drilled staff; and no concern to the preference of the customer.

It's good. One menu, one meal. Green salad, again served in that traditional French way - swimming in a bath of dressing - followed by steak and chips. That's chips, not frites. We're in England, dontcha know.

Okay, there is one choice. The steak can be cooked how you like, from the choices of either medium or rare. No chargrilled coal for my Mother then. If you're mad, you can also choose not to have a second helping of steak and chips; but, they probably ask you to leave if you did.

I have absolutely no problem with L’Entrecôte. I'm sick of choice. There are too many options on most menus, and a lot of them I discount anyway. No, let someone else choose for me and I'm a happy man. Besides, if the chef thinks he's best sticking to one thing he knows well and cooks well, who am I to complain? And it's steak, after all - thinly sliced, pink tinged steak, drowned (again) in a green garlic-herb-butter sauce. Who needs anything else?

The complete meal of 5 courses - I added a creme brûlée and very French it was too; although, almost £6 for burnt custard is a little cheeky - with a bottle of wine, came to a nice £70-odd quid. Simple to split with the person sitting opposite you and one of the best value meals you're likely to find in the City, without barging through the crowd at a Wetherspoons.

As the creme brûlée arrived, so too did another table of guests. Two men this time, sitting even closer, talking even louder. Girlfriends, wives, weddings, and infidelity - a conversation of such City-stereotypes, it was hard to gauge if this wasn't just put on as part of the experience. My ears began to ring, had I not scraped that pot of custard clean in record time, they'd have started to bleed.

Time to leave. That brief window of enjoyment, over. The food at L’Entrecôte cannot be faulted, especially at that price. The company on neighbouring tables, most certainly can. Go, please go, just take a pair of earplugs.

Paesan - Exmouth Market

2 Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4PX

I don't like the term food blogger. It's meaning seems to be changing - evolving into a phrase that implies knowledge, understanding, and qualification to talk on the subject of food. I know and follow some food bloggers to whom that description fits, but the standard of their writing is so high they really should be known as food writers.

'Writer' is a step up, in my hierarchy, although perhaps you have to be paid to achieve that status. I don't know, it's all too confusing.

Needless to say, I'm not a expert on food. Far from it. I don't know what half the words on the menu mean, while the other half I struggle to spell. When it comes to reviewing restaurants, I have no direction, no editorial calendar. I go where I'm invited, I go where I'm taken, I go to places that take my fancy. I don't chase the latest craze. I don't chase the latest fad. My Instagram isn't curated. My reviews are generally just a collection of anecdotes and ramblings, with an opinion of the food left until the very end.

(So far, this piece is fitting the bill perfectly)

That's the point though. I'm not setting out to win Best Read Food Blog of 2014 or cover every single burger vendor in London. I'm not looking to sweep my cape up and down the street, destroying restaurants with a single utterance, while the maître d' lies in a puddle to stop my feet getting wet. If I achieve the latter, that's just a 'nice to have' really, not something I'm actually aiming for.

I write this, sat with a fictional glass of whisky at midnight on a Friday, as I enjoy doing it. That's it. And, if anyone enjoys reading it - that's good. Thanks, and I hope it's helpful the next time you eat out.

This is the best way to write. No pressure, no deadlines, no cares. So, on to another glass of fictional whisky and a quick mention of Paesan, on London's Exmouth Market (which is confusingly a street, not a market). Go there, it's very good!

Although, perhaps more than a three word review is needed this time...

They must put something in the water in Exmouth Market - the street has more top eateries than you could shake a fat bloated belly at. If I lived within a five minutes walk of the place, I'd be close to death. And what an incredibly well-fed, big-smile-on-my-face death that would be.

The problem is, with so much fantastic choice, expectations are high before you've even read the menu. Anyone dining at Paesan for the first time needn't worry though. As I said, it's very good!

A starter of burrata - a cheese filled with cream, that can cause an artery to harden from sight alone - with a sweet, spicy caponata, and cracker like flat bread, is a dish that has you questioning your attraction to your date. Do you really like them enough to share this fairly? What is fair anyway? The government say a man needs 2,500 calories vs. 1,500 for a woman. Technically, fair is a 62.5% share of this burrata in my favour. Gimme gimme gimme!

Best to go to Paesan with someone you don't really like, who doesn't eat a lot. Or just eat alone. I wouldn't judge you. Again, it's very good.

Next, pappardelle with beef shin ragu. Long strands of slurpingly good fresh egg pasta, covered in a sweet tomato sauce and beef cooked for so long, tender doesn't begin to describe it. Seriously, this meat had been boiled down to a plate of DNA, or whatever it becomes when meat has broken into strands thinner than, well, strands. Do I really need to say it? 

It's very good.

Then we hit the pudding and, perhaps, that three word review doesn't quite hold true.

I'm just never sure about Italian restaurants and pudding. It might be heresy to say, but there must be more to Italian desserts than panna cotta and tiramisu. Both dishes are usually a pile of cream, shoved in a glass with as much care, attention, and love as a parent gives a dead hamster. It's then left at the back of the fridge until someone hears the scratching and realises there's still life left in the damn thing.

Not that Paesan's pudding had any trace of rodent, you understand. It's just a bit dull. I blame myself for ordering the panna cotta. Perhaps it's a 'must have' for the English on an Italian menu, but it's their choice to put it on the menu and having followed the preceding two courses, it should light up my mouth like a marshmallow on a sparkler, not have all the excitement of a pot of Elmlea...or that dead hamster.

I'll throw down the gauntlet then, to all Italians (or Italian restaurateurs) who may never read this review - please point me in the direction of a good Italian pudding!

In summary, issues with Italian puddings aside...Paesan - it's very good.

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.

Tower - Cooking Under Pressure

London Borough of Lambeth

Marge: Goodbye, Homie.

Homer: Goodbye? Where's my clean underwear?

Marge: Check the dryer!

Homer: How often should I change Maggie?

Marge: Whenever she needs it!

Homer: Marge, Marge! How do I use the pressure cooker?!

Marge: Don't!

- The Simpsons, 8F14 - Homer Alone

The pressure cooker sat on the hob, silent. The only noise, a faint hiss of gas. The yellow flame tickled the base of the pan, warming the stainless steel and the water within. Slowly, at first, steam crept from the pan's lid, increasing in volume and increasing in sound - a momentum that began as a trickle, but soon erupted into the deafening rush of escaping vapour. 

I stood at the kitchen door, one hand clutching the broken handle, one hand clutching a limp tea-towel, feet twitching, ready to turn and sprint. For ten minutes, this stand-off continued. My watch buzzed. It was time. Approaching the evil spirit inside the boiler, I switched off the heat and cautiously turned the regulator, leaping back as the remaining steam rushed from the pan in a great mushroom cloud.

As the mist cleared and the lid eased from the body, eyes stared eagerly inside. A miracle. Not ten minutes had elapsed, yet there lay golden-skinned chicken, with flesh - white as an angel - falling from the bone.

A pressure cooker, it seems, is not the thirsty, vengeful, and dangerous kitchen appliance that hastily Googled cultural references would have you believe. Negative connotations must come from the name and the fact that they're no longer a common sight in the kitchen. The words 'pressure' and 'cooker', suggests something stressful and large, while a more accurate and less alarming name would be 'fast cooking saucepan' - catchy, I know.

Keen for me to learn the truth about pressure cookers, Tower Housewares equipped me with a 6 litre model to try out at home. Here was a chance to free an evening from restaurant reservations, roll my sleeves up, and invite some friends to chance their health with my cooking.

With rum on the menu and Brixton only a ten minute walk away, jerk chicken seemed the most appropriate option. Free range chicken thighs and legs, rubbed with a mixture of oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and jerk chicken mix, then placed in the fridge for 8 hours. 

Then came the pressure cooker. I was nervous. This isn't something I've done before and those old stereotypes came flooding back. It really is very simple though. Three inches of water placed in the base of the pan, brought to a boil, then the chicken added (on top of a steaming tray), and the lid locked-shut. The intensity of the cooker is regulated by a small dial on the handle. The tighter it's turned, the less steam comes out and the quicker the food cooks - or such is my understanding.

When cooking with a pressure cooker, you have to have faith in the clock. It said ten minutes for the chicken, it was ten minutes for the chicken; but, you can't check during cooking, as you can't see inside, and once under pressure the lid can't be removed until all the steam has vented. It's like cooking a cake though. Just trust the appliance and sit there tweeting for as long as the thing takes to cook. Simple.

Served with spiced cabbage and rice and peas, the meal was on the better side of edible. I should have cooked more chicken and I should have browned the skin in a pan first. Neither points the fault of the cooker, clearly.

As the night wore on and rum drained down, the conversation turned to pressure cookers and the revelation of the range of dishes that could be cooked. A whole chicken in under twenty minutes? Pasta in sauce in under six? This is a new faster culinary world for me, albeit one that's been around for a couple of hundred years. It's time to curtail the meals out, protect the bank balance, and eat in a little more often.

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’.