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This month sees the opening of Eneko Atxa's newest restaurant at the basement of One Aldwych hotel in the Strand. Eneko at One Aldwych is a more casual version of his three-Michelin Azurmendi restaurant in Bilbao, Spain. Azurmendi has recently been rated as one of the world's top twenty restaurants, so we were excited to dine at Eneko's newest restaurant today. The simplified menu consists of several seafood and land-based dishes, as well as vegetarian options. We had the anchovy tempura and a trio of pork consisting of  mushroom and Iberico ham, suckling pig brioche and crispy pork jowl. The anchovy tempura were served in a cute fish and chip style cone. Despite being a battered dish, I found the anchovy tempura to be light, but the trio of pork (trexxi boda pork festival) stood out for its generous portion and delicious variety of pork. For mains we had a cod bizkaina, a stew consisting of cod tripe in bizkaina sauce and deep-fried cod bites, and roasted Iberico presa. Th...

The Crooked Well is a local gastropub in Camberwell. Five minutes walk from Denmark Hill railway station, it isn't too difficult to find. Its location in a neighbourhood, rather than on busy high street of Camberwell Church Street, ensures that it has a quiet ambiance, quite unlike what you would find in most pubs. Gastropubs are not special to write about, and The Crooked Well isn't particularly special. But what they do, they do it good. We first visited on a Sunday a couple of months ago to sample their roast. We are particularity fussy about our Sunday roast, so it was delightful to find that the roast did not disappoint. The beef roast was delicious and served with appropriately thick, but not too thick gravy. In terms of my own personal Sunday roast ranking, it sits just behind Hawksmoor and Princess of Shoreditch, but The Crooked Well's take on traditional roast takes the crown for south of the river. We visited again a couple of weeks ago, this time to scout the res...

Brockley Market is a weekly food and farmer's market held on the outskirt edge of Brockley close to Deptford and Lewisham Central. We've been living in Brockley for 1 1/2 years now and visits them at least twice a month. South East London hasn't been getting plenty of love by the media, local and regional government, so it isn't like we have a high street that is worth shouting about. We do not even have a none-chain groceries shop selling fruits and veggies. So something like Brockley Market has become crucial to the community here. Brockley Market is divided into two distinctive bits - one which sells locally sourced market produce - meat, veggies, flowers, wine, cheese, fish and all sorts, an another half where street food hawkers sells hot food and drinks.You know, the kind that are despised by some top chefs in Soho because it is totally wrong to pay £5 to stand and eat something you can see cooked before your eyes, but it is totally okay to pay £40 for something p...

Hands up if you ever believed that there's no such thing as a good restaurant in the south east region of London? Yep, we've all thought about that at least once. But not only are there good restaurants down here, there are loads of hidden gems. One of them is Peckham Bazaar . Peckham Bazaar started out as a pop-up restaurant in an old pub on the boundary of Peckham and Nunhead. Its location within modest rows of Victorian terraces, low rise council flats and a Grand Design house , might not be an obvious destination for culinary fans, but trust me, it is worth trotting up here (as we so occasionally do from Brockley). They have since become a permanent fixture at the same location. Peckham Bazaar describes themselves as a pan-Balkan restaurant, and you can tell by the eastern European influences that goes into their innovative dishes, primarily cooked on the grill. The menu changes daily and seasonally, depending on what ingredients their chefs can lay their hands on. This ens...

Street food is all the rage these days, as it has always been. The quality has improved beyond anything we've had before, and often if I need my daily dose of calorie boost I would seek out a food truck. Here are my picks for some of the best street food operating in London right now, in no particular order. Bleecker St Burger (Spitalfields Market, South Bank Queen's Walk, Street Feast Dalston Feast) Bleecker St Burger won the annual London Burger Bash with their special New York style burger made out black pudding sandwiched between two patties of beef. And it tastes so darn good. Top it off with a cup of their delicious sweet potato fries. The Orange Buffalo (Old Truman Brewery) If you love American style wings dipped in tons of spicy sauce, then there's no where else to go by Orange Buffalo. Based in Ely's Yard, there are four levels of spiceness here. Start with level 2 (Woof Woof) and if you are as brave as I am - eventually graduate to the madness that is Viper ...

Nasi Lemak Roti King is a Malaysian cafe/restaurant located close to London Euston railway station. Formerly located in Charring Cross, they moved there earlier this year. Good and cheap Malaysian food are hard to come by in London. There are a couple - for example Malaysian Hall in Bayswater area is run by the Malaysian government, and Malaysian Deli in our very own Brockley. But Roti King does something that neither of those does - proper roti canai. Roti canai is a type of fluffy flat bread sold in Malaysia, an is normally eaten as a side with curry or dhal (lentil) sauce. It is a versatile dish, and can be combined with other ingredients like eggs and meat, but the best is still the plain ol kind. It is light and fluffier that the kind of flatbread that are normally served in Indian restaurants in this country. When I used to live in Malaysia, I would have it for breakfast, lunch an occasionally, dinner. The best roti canai in London In addition to roti canai, Roti King also serves...

Today marks the launch of the Lewisham chapter of Street Feast. Hosted at the derelict abandoned 1950s Model Market just off Lewisham High Street, the organisers has used to opportunity to inject some much needed vibe into the local scene. Foodies who lives in Lewisham has one less reason to make the trek to East London. A good thing too as I personally find East London to be a victim of its own success. Argument about the march of gentrification aside, the feeling that I've got from speaking with some longer term residents as well as newer residents like us, is that Lewisham has been waiting for something like this to happen to their beloved by often neglected town centre.  After all, Lewisham (and by extension, South East London) has long been a laughing stock of inner London (fun fact: Lewisham is the only inner London borough that isn't connected to the London Underground). Rum Shack Loosely modeled after the successful Dalson Yard Street Feast (and its various iterations b...

I have a confession. When I was first introduced to Brockley, the area we now live in, it was through the wonder of London's specialty coffee scene. Brockley is an odd place to visit for coffee, but it was how it was. In any case, our chance visit to this part of Lewisham opened our eyes to its lovely Victorian housing stock, many of which were largely ignored, but so many potential. The rest was history. Browns is located conventionality in a row of terrace opposite Brockley railway station, making it an ideal spot to hang out in the wee morning when a train breaks down somewhere down the line. The shop is small and unassuming from the outside, and neutral and unpretentious on the inside. Delicious cakes and bagels greet you as you enter the shop. Oh, and the sweet smell of good coffee. Being a rather tiny shop, you will not escape the sound of the grinder grinding the Square Mile beans and the La Marzocco espresso machine doing its best to pump out delicious black caffeine. And w...

This morning the news reached me that almost made me gag over my bowl of instant noddles. Pho Holdings Ltd, the London-based restaurant chain, appears to believe they own the word 'pho' and threatened legal action against Mo Pho , an independent Vietnamese restaurant in Brockley, London. Ignoring the simple common sense that one can't possibly confuse the brand Pho (logo+Pho) and Mo Pho (geddit?), it is disturbing that IPO would have allowed Pho cafe to trademark the generic term pho, used to describe the popular Vietnamese noodle dish , in the first place. Imagine if Burger King were allowed to sue every burger restaurants with 'burger' in it or Pizza Express taking on Pizza East. It is that ridiculous. After that huge PR blunder, Pho has back tracked this evening by 'allowing' Mo Pho to keep their name. A huge win for the little people, one who I will be supporting when we move to South East London. But this sorry episode does leave me with a nasty opinio...

Flesh & Buns is the newest venture from Ross Shonhan, the brains behind the brilliance that is Bone Daddies , one of London's finest Ramen noodle bars. Located in Seven Dials, Covent Garden, the restaurant is described as a Izakaya-style restaurant (a drinking den that serves food). Not surprisingly, the venue of the restaurant is at the basement of the Thomas Neal's Centre. Naturally, the drinks menu, populated with choice of sake, whisky, shochu, beer, wine, champagne, cocktails and anything in between, is even more expensive than the food menu. Still this is not what I want to write about. In addition to the usual appetisers and starters (including sashimi), Flesh & Buns serves Chinese-style steamed buns (also known as hirata buns). These buns originated from China or Taiwan or Korea depending on who you speak to. The buns served here are modeled after the Taiwanese version and made at a Chinese bakery in London so as they are more suited to the British palate. Still...

The last couple of years has seen the rise of good burger joints. The surprising thing is it has took so long for people and restaurateurs to realise that people want good quality burgers with proper meat than the bland we've grown used to from either fast food or pub chains like Weatherspoon. And we are willing to pay for it. We in the South East are blessed as fine burger joints in the form of Meat Liquor, Lucky Chip, Patty & Bun, Mother Flipper, Honest Burger and many others open shop around London serving their own style of awesome burger. You will never have a bad burger at either joints but they are all different enough to have their own band of burger fans. Just don't ask me which is my favourite as I love them all equally (okay, some more than others but hush now!). Last week saw the opening of two new burger joints in London. Both are established American chains operating on the upper end of the fast food burger market. Will these two big name burger chains be enou...

The Attendant in Fitzrovia, London, was recently brought to my attention by the budding London coffee snob community. This lovely new coffee shop's rise to fame is its venue - a refurbished Victorian public toilet, built in the 1890s and closed since the 1960s. For all we know, George Bernard Shaw and George Orwell, who both lived in Fitzrovia once, probably frequented this establishment - so there's a lot history in this place. Now, the idea of turning an old Victorian loo into usable modern space isn't exactly new. Cellar Door, a cocktail bar in Aldwych is one such example. But The Attendant takes it further by retaining many of the original features. Things reserved  includes the cistern towering above two Hector BTC lamps, porcelain urinals since repurposed into bar tables, where you can have your coffee at; and even the original attendant's office, which now houses a kitchen. Have a flat white on an old Victorian porcelain urinal You might be tempted t...

I have found the holy grail of pizza. And it's in Hackney Wick. Crate Brewery resides in an old disused building called the White Building . It is, you can guess, white in colour so you won't miss it. Despite it's rather pretentious and grandeur name, the White Building is just an average sized building that happens to house a pizzeria and brewery, it also houses a creative lab with studio spaces for hipster East London artists. The building can be found right by the western side of Hertford Union canal, happily on the other side of Stratford. You can also just about see that ugly towering monument known as the Orbit sticking out somewhere from the Olympic Park. As evident from their name, Crate Brewery also brew their own goddamned beers. Now I don't pretend to be a beer expert, but I do know that craft beer is supposed to be all the rage these days, as if it confirms your cred - so I guess that is rather impressive (they taste good actually). Oh and they also make piz...

Ramen is making a come back splash in London. After Tonkotsu, we sample out the latest in Soho ramen scene, Bone Daddies. Opened last year, each of our visit to Ross Shonhan's newest noodle bar continues to stun our palette. Alongside Tonkotsu  at nearby Dean Street and Shoryu on lower Regent Street, Bone Daddies is the ramen joint to visit in London. With all the rage of tonkotsu-style ramen, perhaps the biggest surprise with Bone Daddies is the T22 chicken ramen. The soy-based ramen, which is made up of a bowl of delicious chicken bone broth, slices of chicken and out of this world cock scratchings. Now, there is something about these cock scratchings that get to me each time I visit. It destroys everything else on their menu. Utterly delicious and brilliant. And the soft boiled Clarence Court eggs? Mind blowing. This deadly combination? A snip at £9. Chicken ramen for the enlightened soul Still, if you are here for some tonkotsu ramen, then you won't find yourself disappoint...

Duck & Waffle is a new experimental fusion restaurant on the 40th floor of Heron Tower in Bishopsgate, London. One of the few venues in London that offers even us plebs a chance to dine 180 metres above ground, it is also surprisingly good value. In other countries, we may scoff at the idea of dining more than 50 metres above sea level as anything special. No thanks to London's archaic planning permission law, you get very few choices here. Despite being opened 24 hours a day, booking is recommended, particularly for peak times (lunch and dinner). Duck & Waffle offers four menus throughout the day. These menus also changes on a regular basis. Their signature dish, if you haven't guessed already, is their namesake duck 'n' waffle, which consists of... a leg of crispy duck confit, waffle and fried duck egg. Simple, and rather neat as well. They also offer traditional English breakfast, though I am not quite convinced by the trotter braised beans. For the price, th...

Food trucks are all the rage these days. Having been to quite a few, many are pretty dodgy, but you do find the odd gem once in a while. One such example, Pitt Cue Co. formerly trading in a cart under Hungerford Bridge, is so renowned for their pulled pork, they can get away with charging 'restaurant prices'. They have since opened a restaurant in Soho, where punters would regularly queue for an hour just to have a sit at their tiny basement room. But it is worth it. (If you haven't figured it out, Pitt Cue Co. - do it!) Anyway, The Orange Buffalo is another such food joint that is destined to be remembered with equal greatness. Found on the Ely's Yard carpark in The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, the food cart sells New York style buffalo wings. Now, I have never been to New York, so I can't vouch for its authenticity. But having been to the Orange Buffalo four times, all I can say is that the wings are flippin fantastic, authentic or not. There are a couple of ...