Eat Like Ushi

There was a Timeout deal to have a meal at Roka in Aldwych. The reviews have always been good and it was one of the few places to offer a special during the Christmas period. I am skeptical about Timeout deals because most of the time they aren't - Timeout just overinflate the perceived value to make it seem reasonable. For example this deal on Timeout costs £42 with a bellini and unlimited wine - in the restaurant it is £43 with a bellini or £59 with unlimited wine. So therefore you need to drink a lot of wine to make this actually a deal. And considering I don't drink wine and the extreme Christmas flu I had prevented me drinking anything, I just had to be content that the food was good. And to be fair, it was.

- Edamame with sea salt - standard and salty;
- Selection of vegetable pickles - decent kimchi;
- Robata vegetables with sweet yuzu miso - grilled vegetables with a nicely savoury balanced sauce;
- Soba noodle salad with kurumi dressing - cold soba salad;
- Chef's sashimi selection - one piece of salmon, tuna and kingfish per person. Quality was standard;
- Spicy mixed sashimi with cucumber & asparagus - I think this was replaced by the other maki roll;
- Vegetable maki with kampyo, cucumber, avocado - a refreshing roll with a bit of wasabi mayo;
- Japanese pumpkin & sweet potato salad - a bright orange mash that seemed a bit light in flavour;
- Chicken & sancho gyoza - small amounts of meat in the pretty parcels and nicely panfried;
- Prawn & vegetable tempura - juicy crisp prawns were the stars of the dish.

The sharing starters were all ok but paled in comparison to the mains. The robata items are all visible cooking in the middle of the open kitchen and it is impossible not to want these when selecting a main.

- Baby chicken, lemon, miso & garlic soy - outstanding chicken in flavour and tenderness;
- Beef sirloin, chilli & spring onion - requested and cooked perfectly medium-rare with reasonable tenderness but even better glazing and dipping sauce;
- Glazed baby back ribs with cashew nuts - 7 ribs per serve from a good meaty pig;
- Grilled skewer selection - chicken, lamb, pork and nicely done.

Finally the Roka dessert platter was presented to the table. The whole platter is impressive with the chocolate buddha being the most intricate. He is accompanied by various balls of fruit icecream, green tea and berry pannacotta, and some fruit. It's a fine way to finish.

Overall the food quality and presentation is excellent. The highlights are clearly the dishes cooked on the robata as expected these have great texture and strong flavours. I'm sure what the normal a la carte prices are like but I'd happily go back with another voucher - it's especially good value if you drink enough wine...

I went to Bobby Chinn's restaurant in Hanoi back in 2011 (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/restaurant-bobby-chinn-hanoi-01-2011). It was the one splurge meal in Vietnam and the glowing red lights, the quirky magnifying glasses and my partner being told "you are beautiful" throughout the night made it memorable in addition to the food which was a definite different Western take on Vietnamese food.

I read Bobby closed that restaurant to open in London and for whatever reason has now left House of Ho but left behind a similar Vietnamese legacy to continue.

For the quiet Christmas/January winter months, Timeout had a special £12 cocktail + 2 tapas offer to lure in customers. Considering a cocktail is about £10 alone, the deal isn't bad. I  the serving size of each tapas is probably about half what the full sized dish is. Therefore the retail price of the deal is probably around £18. The tapas alone wasn't enough of a meal and so generous bowls of pho were ordered additionally.

The shining light is that all cocktails in the menu are available to choose from and there's a few nice options - Pandan Ho-Lada had a mild alcohol taste with a good amount of pineapple and an aftertaste of coconut. The pandan wasn't overly discernible. Saigon Lantern was a stronger drink with sour notes.

- Crispy squid with chilli & sea salt - tasty but very salty. The coriander and sweet chilli sauce helped to balance it out (as did the cocktails);
- Duck bun bao - a little disappointing to have one small bao. The flavour was similar to the standard char siu and it wasn't obvious by flavour or texture that it was upgraded from pork to duck;
- Sea bass & prawn dumplings - definite strong fish and prawn flavours within the dumpling;
- Hanoi duck spring roll - lots of shredded duck fried in a soft pastry with a light hoisin sauce;
- Beef pho £11 and Chicken pho £9.5 - identical mildly spiced soups topped with beef brisket (no sirloin) or chicken breast. The meats were ok without being outstandingly tender and it was nice to have beanshoots and mint (but no Thai basil). It was served with fish sauce and soy sauce (oddly) and also the standard chilli sauce.

It was a decent flavoured meal and I'd be happy to eat there again. It is on the more expensive side particularly for what looks like the signature dishes in shaking beef £23.5 or Chilean sea bass £32. I may wait until a deal is on again...

Cay Tre probably has a stronger flavour pho in my opinion but that may be due to some MSG.

Next to the persistent queue of the bubble wrap place (although I've actually seen times with no customers during the winter) was the shiny electric very typically Japanese manga pachinko-looking place of Ichibuns. It's a strange name that seems to draw influence on the ichi-ban meaning number 1 in Japanese, buns in that it may serve hirata buns (it doesn't) but instead has burgers, and that sometimes you may just have an itch you need to scratch.

A 6:30pm date at Picturehouse Central (the best non-Imax cinema in London) with Blade Runner 2049 meant an easy entry and seat downstairs.

The decor is hipster Asian with cool Japanese touches that overall do work for me. For some reason I expected a food court style selection of places to get street food when instead it's table service surrounding bars.

The peanut crunch ichi shake (sesame icecream, crunchy peanut butter, salted peanuts, maple syrup) £5 ensured I wouldn't need any form of dessert.

- Salmon & avocado maki (salmon, avocado, lime, tempura crumb, wasabi tobiko) £5 - an inside out roll with the typical ingredients with crumbs of tempura and a very mild wasabi caviar dip. Refreshing way to start the meal;
- King crab ramen (king crab, shiitake mushrooms, roast onions, beansprouts, spring onion, mizuna leaves, chili oil, soya marinated egg) £11 - crab claw meat with ramen that retained spring but sadly only half an egg. It was quite a salty savoury broth;
- Wagyu beef (slow-cooked wagyu beef, shiitake mushrooms, roast onions, beansprouts, spring onion, mizuna leaves, chili oil, soya marinated egg) £11 - essentially soy-flavoured pulled beef with the identical same as above. Do they use the same meat broth for both the ramens?

Overall it was a nice meal and adds ramen to the Chinatown armoury. I do prefer the thick pork tonkotsu that is available at nearby Kanada-Ya or Bone Daddies. But it's good to mix things up a bit.

This is probably the highest rising restaurant in town at the moment complete with a recent Michelin star. London has generally been quite poor in Asian food for me however the high end places seem to have good offerings. The now closed HKK was my first taste of this finer cuisine in London many years ago and I hoped A. Wong would be the second.

Bookings were essential on Thursday night at 5.30pm before watching Big Fish The Musical closeby. Unbooked hopers were turned away even at that early time. It was an excuse to explore the dining scene of Victoria which I'm sure benefits from shows like this and Wicked and Hamilton bringing crowds nearly every day.

- A. Wong dim sum basket £6 - the signature selection of har kau (topped with a prawn foam), sui mai and xiao long bao. Each morsel was small and tasty and just not enough. The flavours were a little more refined than standard but you really are paying for presentation;
- Xian city "lamb burger" with sesame, coriander & chilli £12 - the first sharing dish was a winner. Again a bit expensive but you create your own little sweet bun burgers with lamb and condiments. There's enough filling for 4 buns and it would be much better if they provided this as such;
- Crispy duck: Mrs. Chow's pancakes & plum sauce £12.95 - the second sharing dish was a bigger winner. A duck leg is mashed up and provides the typical fillings for peking duck with five spice salt and pickles. There were 6 pancakes (from memory) and a brush to paint the flavours on. Another table received a second helping of pancakes but I'm sure if this is to order or not. We certainly didn't have any extra brought to us and had enough ingredients to fill another 2-4;
- Dong Po slow braised Blyth burgh pork belly £10 - strong flavours but overall a bit too fatty for me. The thin shreds of meat in between the fat were very soft but the amount of wasted fat (I have my limits) was a bit sore. The sauce was excellent with the rice;
- Yunnan wild mushroom, truffles & red date casserole £10 - another dish of flavoursome sauce (was there a tiny bit of truffle flavour?) with a tofu skin cracked over the top;
- Crab & seafood filled in braised leaves, shallot powder, cockles £10 - a Chinese cabbage leaf was circled and topped with a collection of seafood and crab meat. It made it difficult to eat as once you bite through the base, the toppings all fall away. It was mild and clearly flavoured by fish and cockles;
- Egg fried rice £3.5 - a generous serve of fried rice to mop up all the sauces. Adding the salty chilli oils lifted this to another level and a dish on its own.

The food is well executed and the presentation and art are clearly designed to be different and a more interactive experience than the standard mess of Chinese restaurants or the other end of high end expensive versions. This is food designed to be cool with decent flavours (and prices) to match. Similar to many of these institutes more skewed towards the Western palate, the chilli needs a better kick. But it'll do for now for a special occasion. I wouldn't necessarily advocate it before 7.30pm theatre starts as you may feel a bit rushed even with a 5.30pm dinner, but if you are comfortable ordering and eating fast and don't expect to wait in line to pickup tickets (they are all pretty fast these days to enter anyway) then give it a shot.

After successfully avoiding eating at Bao for the past couple of years due to not wanting to wait in line and finding other things to eat at Netil Market, I instead made it to Xu. I wanted yum cha and several Sundays ago discovered Xu isn't open that day of the week. The nicely coloured green and brown do make it look nicer than what could be construed as a tacky faux-Chinese interior, and it is helped by the food and attentive service. Interestingly I didn't see any Chinese wait staff despite being in Chinatown and a Taiwanese brand.

My disappointment was slight when I realised the menu is far from yum cha. But at least allayed quickly by the quality of the food.

- Tomato & smoked eel (with soy dried daikon) £5.5 - sweet tomato with a tiny amount of eel in chilli oil;
- Xian bing pan fried dumpling (pork, chilli vinegar dip) £6 - a large fried dumpling with mild savoury mince inside;
- Taro dumpling (Taiwanese sausage) £6 - beautiful thick gelatinous textured skin was the most exciting feature and so good I don't quite remember the filling;
- Chilli egg drop crab (white & brown crab meat with salmon roe, egg drop sauce, red chilli, fermented shrimp & garlic) £16.5 - a refined version of chilli crab with strings of meat mixed in a chilli tomato egg sauce that would be perfect with any kind of noodles or rice;
- Xu's mapo tofu (silken tofu with mapo sauce made using green Sichuan peppercorns from Yunnan) £11.5 - silken tofu on top of regular tofu with a sauce that was more reminscent of salty XO sauce. Different to the usual versions and excellent;
- Mushroom glutinous rice (wrapped in magnolia leaf, salted duck egg yolk) £7 - a surprisingly mild mushroom flavoured rice with a thick stick-in-your-teeth duck egg that wasn't very salty;
- Lardo lard onion rice £3.75 - good flavoured rice with strips of pork fat adding extra savouriness.

The Iberico pork char siu looked fantastic and I would be certain to order that next time.

This was a refined (and more expensive) version of classic dishes spanning the cuisines of China. The cooking and flavours are excellent. You just have to be prepared to pay for the experience.

The bright neon pink sign of Rascals is a new addition to Shoreditch and I was lucky enough to take advantage of the 50% soft opening. It's an interesting sounding menu with dishes and ingredients spanning many continents.

The Japanese-inspired cocktails £11 have fun names such as Yuzu Pretty (delicious, sweet and quite strong) or Shiso Fine. The expresso Speedtini sounds like a great version before a long night out.

- Tempura Squid Spirals (with apple aioli, Thai dressing) £9 - the ink disc was impressive but the squid itself was remarkably plain and unflavoured;
- Cauli Cod Waves (burnt cauliflower, crispy cod) £9 - well cooked and not dry at all;
- Sticky Pork Belly (mezcal glaze, pickles, fennel) £10 - soft pork belly, mildly seasoned with a sweet coating;
- Slow Cooked Lamb Rump (anchovy lamb, potato, cauliflower) £10 - very tender pink lamb with a potato stack and excellent anchovy and capers bringing strong umami. More lamb would have been appreciated if this is the same £10 serving size;
- Sprouts & Romanesco (saffron, pickled blueberries) £8 - interestingly enough this vegan option one of the best dishes with delicious kale sprouts, brussel sprouts and pickly cauliflower roasted and seasoned perfectly;
- Ballie's Chocolate £8 - a chocolate sphere has caramel sauce poured onto it until it collapses in a heap. Nice but too sweet for my savoury tooth.

It was a shame to note that we were given an old menu which didn't have the grilled lobster on it. It was only at the end of the meal did we see someone else get it and realised the food envy. Shame. Shame. Shame.

Overall the food quality is good and obviously at half price a great deal. I'm not sure if I would specifically go back given the relatively high prices especially when drinks and service are incorporated. The larger share dishes are also a big step up in price so they would have to be very substantial for the cost. If I do find myself there again (which I wouldn't be disappointed with at all) then I would surely get the lamb rump, sprouts & romaneso and a larger share of seabass washed down with a Speedtini. Otherwise the lamb shoulder large share would have to be very significant in size but sounds good.

Eating out around town is relatively expensive (with the exception of fried chicken and curry) and so I've been keen to try places with soft opening and weekday discounts. Sager + Wilde is a wine bar that is hidden off the main streets of Bethnal Green by a huge and ugly construction site of assumably apartments.

Luckily the weekday deal from 5-7pm of pasta + house wine for £10 is there to make it worth my while going to try. The insides are warm and cosy looking.

- Pappardelle with aged beef ragu + whipped ricotta - quite al dente fat pasta with a excellent meaty flavoured ragu;
- Spaghetti with brown crab + cacio e pepe - (not fully pictured) quite al dente in a thick cheese/oil sauce;
- Buttered greens £3.5 - simple flavoursome vegetables;
- Fried potatoes + tonnato sauce £4 - excellent crisp potatoes topped with mayonnaise, anchovy bits and capers. Really delicious.

An excellent deal for £10 with the sides adding different flavours and filling up the stomach. Would happily go back.

After drinking on a canal boat for a 30th, the party wandered for Saturday afternoon drinks in the courtyard of the pub. I think they also had some kind of shoddy Eurovision style karaoke going on in the back, but we kept outselves to the modest sunshine and cool breeze in the front.

The veggie burger had a vegetable sausage cut up into portions to replace the patty. It was surprisingly tasty and worked perfectly as a meat substitute. The OG Kush £10 had a thin but deliciously seasoned beef patty with bacon, cheese, avocado, jalapeños and jalapeño/lime cream.

Fries with jalapeño mayo added to the salt and overall happiness.

Surprisingly good burgers. Would happily go back if in the area.

After trying a few of the local pubs with mixed results, I found another one this time on the western side of Mile End/Bow border. Actually I didn't realise it was a pub from my brief look online but it's pretty apparent when you see the outside. I went on a Wednesday and they had just started a burger + drink £10 deal.

This is great considering the burgers are normally £12 alone and add £2-3 for a cider/wine. Unfortunately teething issues with the computer systems meant there was a 75min wait even though I checked after 50mins (and it took them another 15mins to realise). The burgers were served with some alright fries and tiny amount of token baby gem lettuce salad.

- Old spot pork & chorizo burger, picked fennel - a nice juicy porky patty of medium thickness;
- Courgette & halloumi burger, tzatziki - a decent vegetarian patty that was heavily spiced with cumin.

It's an excellent deal for £10. The menu has a little more creativity than the standard pub fare and it's cheaper than Morgan Arms. I'll go back and try it again.

After taking the Eurostar back to St. Pancras, a heavily flavoured Chinese meal was beckoning. Szechuan is probably my favourite Chinese sub-cuisine and so it was time I tried one in London.

It's a dingy looking place very typical of Chinese cheap diners. Funnily enough there was a non-Chinese speaking English waitress too. She did seem a little left out whilst the others were gossiping.

- Mapo tofu with minced pork £7.5 - a thick hearty warming gelatinous (and probably MSG) version. Still good;
- Stirfried lamb with chilli & cumin £9.8 - lots of chillies but not too much heat. The salt flavouring was strong in this one with some cumin coming through;
- Aubergine with fresh chopped chilli £7.2 - braised in a vinegar sauce.

It's reasonably priced and a short walk from St. Pancras making it convenient for trips based around the area. Why not?