The Hideaway

114 Junction Road,
London N19 5LB

All pizzas: £8-9.50

As disparaging as I am about Archway, I've had some truly delicious food there these past few weeks.  First was the roujiamo from Mama Wang's, and a few days ago I experienced the media-vaunted pizzas at The Hideaway.

Sandwiched between an off-license and a bin-lined alleyway are some of the finest pizzas that London can offer, even in these days of Franco Manca's cross-capital expansion and every louchely lit hipster market offering up gourmet slices.  The restaurant is cosy and undemanding with sofas, comfy chairs and the lights turned down low in comparison to the stark lines and lighting of the nation's favourite pizza chains.

The menu keeps it simple: fourteen pizzas, two calzones, six salads, two desserts.  All are simply done with good quality ingredients at reasonable prices.  I had the Caprino pizza, a tomato-based pizza with mozzarella, goats cheese, juicy sun-dried tomatoes and a heavy scattering of teeny-tiny capers.  The mozzarella provided a creamy background for the salty pops of the other ingredients, none of which were skimped on.  R had the Originale calzone, a meaty punch of chorizo, salami milano, roasted peppers and mozzarella that was let down by a bowl of watery tomato sauce that tasted of little more than de-canned passata.

The Hideaway is worth a visit, especially if you're hungry and in Archway.  Although the calzone's side sauce was a disappointment, every other aspect of the meal was top-notch. For an area that otherwise seems more a staging-post than a destination, Archway is swiftly proving me wrong.

Chennai Dosa, Wembley

529 High Road,
Wembley,
HA0 2DH

Special Masala Dosa: £2.99
Sambar Idli: £1.99
Masala Butter Paneer: £3.50
Chapattis: 85p apiece

Being such a fan of East Ham's plethora of South Indian restaurants and shops, I had wanted to check out for some time what Wembley, a similar area but in north-west London, had to offer.  It was a flying visit, but I will return in the future for more sampling.

Chennai Dosa is a small chain (11 outlets) of South Indian restaurants scattered mostly across the South East.  R and I went there because it was right by the bus stop, we were starving, and I had eaten an excellent meal at the one in East Ham before.  The menu is comprehensive and has a good selection of South Indian standards (dosas, oothapams, idlis etc) with a few options for each dish.

R and I chose sambar idli (steamed rice cakes in a thin vegetable curry), masala butter paneer (paneer cheese in a sauce), chapattis, and the special masala dosa.  We ordered the special masala dosa mainly because it was only 14p more than the normal masala dosa, and we wanted to see what special ingredient cost 14p.

The sambar idli was superb: the two dense rice cakes soaked up the sambar but retained their shape, and the large chunks of vegetables in the sambar made it seem healthier than it probably was.  The masala butter paneer was rich and flavoursome, pungent with a tomato acidity complemented by the creamy paneer.  We ate it with nothing-special chapattis rather than rice. The special masala dosa came as a large semi-circle with the usual complement of sauces - sambar, a cooling but spiced coconut, a red one that tasted of caramelised onions and a green one that tasted clean, peppery and hot.  The magic 14p ingredient was a heavily cinnamon-ed mashed medley of vegetables plonked on top of the curried potatoes and onions.  It did not add anything to the dosa and the heavy flavour of cinnamon compromised the other spicing in the dish.

Overall, the meal was good, although some aspects could be improved.  Eating South Indian is almost always a cheap but tasty option, and we were stuffed for the princely sum of a tenner. Wembley has a lot more to offer, including outdoor dosa stands that were deserted in this March's biting winds and snow flurries.  There will be more food forays into the northwest of the capital once the weather improves.

Dosa Deli

Various locations (info on Twitter - @dosadeli)
Prices around £5.

Thinking about it, dosas (large and crispy South Indian pancakes made from rice and lentils) make the perfect street food.  If made correctly, they hold their substantial fillings well while retaining their own texture.  They are usually stuffed with a variety of spicy vegetable fillings, whether lightly curried or fiercely hot, and can be eaten with one hand while you hold a much-needed drink in the other.  No faffing around with spoons or forks, dosas are the more challenging version of those bland stodge-fests that call themselves burritos.

So imagine my pleasure when I came Dosa Deli's light, crisp and aerated dosas. They are on a par with what you'll find out in East Ham or Wembley, just more accessible because Dosa Deli is a food truck that plies its wares in Kings Cross, the City and other central locations. Their fillings are more unusual than the "masala" or "Mysore" mixes on every menu, with multiple layers constructed with chutneys, sauces and pickles on top of a toothsome, flavour-packed chana masala (chickpea curry) that sings of long-cooking and care.  They give you the option of adding paneer, but the chickpeas are a delight all by themselves.

Their new option is based on Singapore laksa, which I will be checking out shortly.  These guys are worth watching, and tasting, and will surely have notched up a full-time restaurant soon enough.  Top-quality dosas without having to schlep out to zone 3/4? Yes, please.

Lucky Fried Chicken at The Grafton

The Grafton Pub,
20 Prince of Wales Rd,
Kentish Town,
London NW5 3LG

Jumbo Box - £12.50
Potato salad - £3

The newly gastro Grafton pub in Kentish Town has decided to host pop-up and food-truck stalwarts Lucky Chip in their kitchen in the coming months.  Their first venture is Lucky Fried Chicken, which serves the dishes of an upscale chicken shop for prices that are still cheap for a filling dinner.

R and I went for the jumbo box - £12.50 for five large pieces of fried chicken, creamed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw and two rolls - and added a tub of potato salad for £3.  This box represents very good value as, even without a side, it would make a satisfying meal for two people.

Having spent almost all of my summers in South Carolina, I am familiar with the upper echelons of fried chicken: herbed and spiced flour that makes the crispy skin pop and plump chicken meat brined into tenderness.  Lucky Chip succeeded on all fronts; R was particularly happy that the batter was light rather than the main feature, as it allowed the chicken to be a flavour in itself.

The coleslaw was so more-ish I considered ordering it as a salad all by itself.  A light covering of mayonnaise lets the vegetables be the focus along with the slightly peppery dusting of herbs.  The potato salad, on the other hand, was almost all sauce, which, to me, does not a good potato salad make (obviously, this is a subjective judgement).  It might have been tangy but it overwhelmed the chunks of hard potato and slices of cornichons.  The potatoes and gravy were far too salty, which spoiled the contrast between the creamy potatoes and meaty gravy.

Despite the heavy-handed salting and saucing, the meal was one of the best I have eaten recently and should be chalked up as a success.  Apparently the Grafton's next culinary adventure (from 13th March) is into gourmet burgers.  Considering the standard of Lucky Fried Chicken, it should be well worth checking out.

Takoyaki

Takoyaki: £2.50

Takoyaki stall,
Newport Place,
Chinatown, London

Takoyaki are octopus balls.  Get your mind out of the gutter, you filthy thing.  The takoyaki man pours batter, octopus pieces and shredded cabbage into a converted waffle iron and then fiddles with them in a casually flirty manner.  After determining that everything is as it should be, he plops them into a bowl, artfully dashes Japanese mayonnaise and a sweet soy sauce around them, adds some shredded fishy bits, and hands over the food with a come-hither eyebrow.

They are piping hot and hard to eat and contain cross-sections of octopus tentacle.  The fishy, salty, punchy flavours are strong yet complementary. And even though three-quarters of the octopus is rubberier than it should be, the fourth piece is a meltingly soft delight.

As more and more street food stalls open in and around Chinatown, selling the pancakes, dumplings and waffles of various nationalities, it is worth keeping an eye out for the more unusual offerings.  There might be an abundance of low-quality high-priced food in the area, but the street stalls rarely disappoint in their cheap and cheerful offerings.

Mama Wang's

Roujiamo: £4 (small), £5 (large)

Mama Wang's Kitchen stall,
Opposite the Archway Budgens on Holloway Rd.

My friend Z reminded me that I hadn't written anything since October. Truth be told, it's because I've been on poverty rations while trying to find paying work. No luck yet, but hopefully I'll be able to wangle my budget so I can make the occasional foray into street food.

Today's visit was to Archway market. Jammed between high-class Highgate and hard-to-like Holloway, Archway is little more than a comfortably middle class junction.  Raising it from its torpor is the Saturday market (opposite Budgens....such a middle-class direction).  Here you can get hand-milled Irish breads, free-range duck eggs, salted caramels and roujiamo.

Hold up...I know you were following me until that last one, so let me explain.

Roujiamo are Chinese sandwiches.  Specifically, northern Chinese sandwiches of long-braised pork or lamb, some lightly pickled vegetables, a slathering of piquant tomato chutney and a few crispy bits. An English muffin struggles valiantly to contain the ingredients, but fails: porky sauce covered my hands for the rest of the day while chunks of meat and veg slipped from my grasp and onto the pavement. I'd recommend a two-hand grab, plenty of napkins and a firm bite.

Enough on the logistics.  The flavours are all there: well-spiced pork lost something in having little texture, but otherwise was a pleasure to eat; the vinegar from the vegetables lends a clean undertone to what would otherwise feel like a fatty meal; the tomato sauce needs more punch, but that's probably a subjective statement; and the English muffin holds up well in the face of so much sauce and stuffing.

Archway may not be the most thrilling of suburbs, but it is developing a top-notch market.  Go there to buy the ingredients for the Guardian's latest Ottolenghi recipe, sure, but make sure you grab a cheeky roujiamo, too. It'll make even the Northern Line worth it.

Indonesia Mini Market

57 Charing Cross Road
London

Mie Bakso: £4.50
Nasi Pedang: £5
Canned drinks: 50p

It's not often you find a cheap, filling, fantastically flavoured, expertly cooked lunch slap-bang in central London. However, for lunch or dinner for a fiver or less, head up a gaudy Chinese shop's escalators, turn past the tattooist and the massage parlour, until you find shelves filled with Indonesian products.  Propped up against the counter is a list of dishes and the man behind it will explain their particulars for you. Indonesian food doesn't yet have the same cultural cognisance as Indian or Chinese, but this shop could single-handedly reverse its fortunes.

When I first went, the only dish available was Mie Bakso - a meatball soup with two kinds of noodles, various crunchy bits and a sprinkling of green leaves.  The broth is clear, flavoured to the hilt, and absorbs the complimentary spicy sambals nicely.  The meatballs are spongy - apparently this is traditional, as tapioca flour is added to stretch the meat further - and this is slightly disconcerting to a Westerner unaccustomed to Indonesian food. Overall, this is a dish that packs many surprises - from the flavours to the textures to the quantity crammed into what looks like a small bowl.

The second time was for a late Sunday lunch.  The cafe was packed with laughing Indonesian students who, according to the owner, had eaten almost everything. The only dish left was Nasi Pedang - a large-portioned taster of curries, rice, sambal and poppadoms.  The curries - a hump of curried potato, an earthy and intense beef redang and a searingly spicy chicken curry - showcased different flavours and textures and schooled us in the basics of Indonesian cuisine.  The green and tangy sambal added another layer and worked well with both meat dishes.

With such cheap, delicious and plentiful food in the heart of London, this place is a gem of a find.  As usual, thanks to Chowhound for the tip.  Most people would ignore a small sign reading "Indonesia Mini Market" or, even if they did follow it up the stairs, would be diverted by the depressing "Brazil by the kilo" restaurant next-door.  Finding and eating new cuisines at low prices is part of the joy of living in London. Let's all get out of our Indian-Chinese-Italian bubbles and open our eyes.

London - Kaosarn

Brixton Village Market 

Granville Arcade 

Brixton 

London SW9 8PR

Starters: £4-7, Mains £7-13.

Did I choose badly? The menu was a list of garden-variety Thai dishes (green curry, Massaman, tom yum) that were not as good as the rave reviews by most national newspapers and an army of London bloggers. 

The soups (tom yum and tom kha) - both powerfully lemongrassy with succulent pieces of boiled chicken in the tom kha - were excellent, full of big flavours (and also big button mushrooms - not my favourite).  Unfortunately, they were bigger than my friend's teensy tiny salad that was a small hump of beansprouts and little else.  The first time I went to Kaosarn, the portions were unexpectedly small, too, which possibly reflects either the tendency for Thais to eat less or the hipster clientele who eat birdlike portions lest they get too fat for their vintage skinny jeans.  At least the ingredients all tasted very fresh, few as they were.  Luckily for me, my Massaman curry was substantial and the lamb was succulently falling apart, but the sauce-to-rice ratio was skewed heavily towards rice.  The sauce itself was very oily, with a slick on top that I chose to mix into the sauce, although I probably should have drained it off. 

For the privilege of one of us not being full and the other facing the effects of arteriosclerosis once all that oil seeps into my veins, we were charged around £24.  If Kaosarn has a secret Thai menu, then I would love to hear about it and revisit, because it must have its fanbase for a reason.  If it doesn't, and my two visits (about nine months apart) are representative, then it is clear that there are much better Thai restaurants available in London.  Next stop, The Heron!

London - Hala

29 Green Lanes 

London N4 1LG

Pide: £6.50

Kebabs: £8-11

One of my favourite things about the Green Lanes' Turkish restaurants is the amount of extra food that you get without asking for it.  No matter that the portions are already big enough to put giants into food comas, the numerous plates piled with bread, sauces, salad and dessert will keep coming.  The bread - pillowy and basted in meaty flavours - is most likely unsuitable for vegetarians.  The sauces - sour yoghurt and cucumber and a fruity and fiery chilli - pep or or cool down dishes as required.  The salad, a barely surmountable hill of chopped, shredded, chiffonaded and sliced vegetables interspersed with olives and chunks of creamy feta, makes the meal feel healthier, which is important when the plates arrive heavy with grilled meats or pide.

My friend Claire's lamb kebab was a hefty portion of chargrilled lamb that retained its sweetness when it fell apart.  It came slathered in a stewey and well-herbed tomato sauce topped with Hala's homemade yoghurt (their churn is by the counter and accounts for how fresh and thick their yoghurt tastes).  My pide (Turkish pizza) was a thin base covered in tomato sauce and strips of grilled lamb and then half-folded over. Unfortunately, Hala's pide selection is more limited than many neighbouring restaurants', and many of them come with cheddar cheese rather than anything Turkish, which is disappointing.  The free dessert, semolina gulab jamuns, provided a welcomed break from all that savoury meat.

Hala is homey and well-priced, popular with Turks and non, locals and non-Haringeyites. Their hospitality is above and beyond even the usual friendliness of Green Lanes' eateries.  For under a tenner each on food, we got what amounted to three courses thanks to the extensive freebies.  Chinese restaurants give you prawn crackers, at Indian restaurants it's poppadoms and dips, but the Turkish restaurants on Green Lanes ply you with as many extras as can be fit on the table.

Sen Viet, London

Dishes between £4 and £10

119 King's Cross Road, 
London WC1X 9NH



Yes, I know, all the Vietnamese chatter is about Dalston and Deptford, but for easily accessible food that is moreish enough to make dining with others awkward ("you can have some of my beansprouts in return for just one more slice of your char-grilled beef"), Sen Viet near Kings Cross is the place to go. Its menu is fairly comprehensive, they offer a 10% student discount, and a good meal can be had for £6. What's more, it isn't Dalston-officious, where waiters swoop in with the bill the second you take a breather.


The mains are the key at Sen Viet. The summer rolls are fairly disappointing - mostly coriander, and poky-small.  But the pho, the bun, the non-soupy noodle dishes, the banh mi, all of these are delicious.  Anything that says it's char-grilled is particularly worth having.  I'm not sure how they do it (possibly a hefty chunk of MSG), but just one taste will cause you to lick your chopsticks, your fingers, the bowl, maybe another person, in the hope of some residual sweet-and-smoky goodness.  The pho stock is meaty, with the beef sliced not too thinly, but rare enough for the blood to flavour the broth.  The bun contains other flavours than just heat, but will sort your sinuses out.  The banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) come on French bread and are a good 6" long, with hefty portions of lightly pickled carrots, mandolined mooli, and your meat of choice.  The bun thit nuong (rice vermicelli with pickled carrots and mooli, chilli sauce and meat) comes slathered in peanuts and crunchy bits - the gentle nudge of the chillies ties together all the components.


Sen Viet is in exactly the right place at the right time. It it popular with office workers, Vietnamese couples, students and German backpackers.  Despite the MSG-provoked thirst that arrives after every meal, I keep returning because the food is worth it every time.

Bao down

Meat bao: £1.50, other fillings are less.

Newport Court,
Chinatown,
London

Baozi look unappetisingly like a member of the frontbench caught with a rentboy - pale, puffy, doughy, sweaty, clammy to the touch. Of course, the resemblance is purely aesthetic, we all know that Tories taste of the babies they had for dinner last night (single mums, if they're on a diet), while baozi leak porky soup all over your hands on a cold winter's afternoon.

At the top of Newport Court in Chinatown, there are two places selling baozi. One is a shop with two impatient women behind the counter, the other is a stall (affiliated with Yang Guang Supermarket, according to their bags) with one impatient woman behind the counter. Impatience is their only similarity.  The stall's pork baozi are hefty, meaty things. A bite through the inch-thick dough reveals a large meatball, flavoured with ginger, garlic and chives. Hours of steaming in the stall's glass cases produce a thick, slightly fatty juice that collects at the bottom of the bun, imbuing the sticky dough with meat. When (not if) this juice gets on your fingers and around your mouth, the flavours seem to linger even after washing. The vegetable bun is the same, only minus the meat, and with a hefty dose of ginger that will perk you up no end. The red bean paste bun sinks sweetly into your stomach, obviating the need for a meal any time soon.

The baozi shop's pork buns are a different beast from those at the stall's. Rather than a meatball, their smaller buns contain chunks of pork sitting in a thick sauce of what tastes like soy, sugar, ginger and garlic. The sweetness seems extraneous, the meat too salty and in too-small chunks. The shop also sells skewers of various kinds that they will cook and then dip in a variety of sauces. The meat ones, especially, look like they are worth trying. Weirdly, the shop doesn't take coppers. Not the policeman, but the coins, which is why I tend to go to the stall - they'll gladly take my shrapnel.

Two baozi shops on one street (albeit in Chinatown) is, I hope, the first step towards pork buns becoming ubiquitous in London.

London - Yum Cha

As a student, it doesn't get better than the promise of half-price dim sum.  Yum Cha in Camden offers just that until 7pm, meaning that semi-adventurous lunches and early dinners can be had for little money.  Their dim sum menu is fairly extensive, covering the usual dumpling fare to more intriguing cold dishes such as Jellyfish and Sliced Smoked Pig's Knuckle.  They have a few nods to other parts of East and South East Asia, but the main focus is on mainland China and Hongkong.

When I went with my friend Sarah, we were both hankering after as many dumplings as we could fit in our hungry mouths (and neither of us like jellyfish).  The dim sum dinner menu is packed with different types of dumplings, and we tasted almost all of them, from the gelatinous Crystal Scallop and Prawn Dumpling to the hot and soupy Minced Pork Shanghai Siew Long Bao (normally known as xiao long bao or "xlb") to the steamed and meaty Pork and Prawn Shumai, as well as a good number of others.  With four dumplings per serving with each dish priced around the £3.80 mark, the 50% discount really makes a difference, giving penniless students the ability to eat their way around China's favourite snack foods.

Properly meaty, full of ginger and garlic flavours, their skins just the right thickness and texture to firmly hold their ingredients, the dumplings were a joy to keep popping into my mouth.  My favourite were the Siew Long Bao as there's something deliciously raffish about sucking the hot and juicy soup out of the skins.  The Panfried Shanghai Pork Dumpling were also excellent, the bottoms slightly thicker and a little charred from being fried, giving them a sticky texture that contrasted nicely with the filling.

There were two let-downs. The Honey Roast Pork Buns could have been so much better had their fillings not been so cloyingly sweet and if the puffy white shells had been freshly prepared - biting into these buns should be akin to biting into a pillow made of savoury marshmallow not like fluffy sawdust. Similarly, the ingredients of the Chinese Prawn and Chive Dumpling tasted stale.

For cheap Chinese that tastes like Chinese food in an area trying so hard to be pretentious that having a sleeve tattoo is mandatory, Yum Cha is the place to visit.  To maximise your potential for eating your way around China, it is best to go when their very generous deal is on.

London - Yasar Halim

Green Lanes is becoming my go-to destination when I don't have anything in the fridge for lunch.  Partly because of its proximity to my front door and partly because of its plethora of good restaurants, cafes and grocers mean that I always have a choice.

Yasar Halim - a double-fronted, Turkish Cypriot grocers and bakery - is my current stop-off when I'm jonesing for something either stickily sweet or salty-savoury.  The bakery offers eight tulumba (crispy, oval gulab jamuns) for a quid, a price that I can't imagine being bettered.  The warm and gooey baklava leak sugar all over your fingers and face.  Similarly good value are the boreks (rectangles of puff pastry filled with feta, spinach or lamb), either the small for 55p or the large for £1.20.  The boreks' fillings, and I have tried all of them, are consistently good - the feta is partially melted and contains strands of herbs, the spinach seems almost healthy with hints of citrus, and the lamb is nicely spiced.  My favourite baked good, however, is a bun that contains layers of cooked black olives and slices of spring onions.  The bread is dense and yeasty, the olives salty, and the onions caramalised, making this one very reasonably priced bun a perfect meal.

Next door in the grocery side of the shop is every conceivable type of fruit and vegetable, along with a wide range of Turkish and Greek products, a thousand or so types of yoghurt, and a very cheap meat selection.  I regularly pop in to grab whatever's seasonal in Cyprus - figs (five for £1!) and giant pomegranates last month, juicy oranges at the moment.

Even without the rest of Green Lanes, including the Antepliler mini-empire, the local Turkish community would be well-served with just Yasar Halim.  I know that I need to break my habit and go elsewhere, but it's just so convenient and always delicious.

London - Petek

Mains: £10-16

94-96 Stroud Green Road,
Finsbury Park
London N4 3EN

The Finsbury Park/Green Lanes area is stuffed to the gills with Turkish and Kurdish restaurants, cafes and groceries.  I am making it my personal mission to experience all of them.  I have been to Petek's, a two-room, be-lanterned, mid-scale Turkish joint on Stroud Green Rd twice now, and both times the food has been top-class.

Petek's owners clearly love meat in all its forms, as long as it's grilled.  You can choose one of their fish or vegetarian options if you want, and the vegetarian moussaka is delicious, but the succulence and flavour of their lamb and chicken dishes should be ordered by everyone apart from the most vegetarian of vegetarians.  Most dishes are served with a mound of spiced and fluffy rice, green salad, and a thick and sour yoghurt that is perfect for slathering onto the juicy meat.  Due to a mix-up with their wine delivery, their house red is currently much better than you would expect for the price, which I can attest to after drinking a lot of it.

Before you order, citrus-y olives, a fresh salsa of pureed tomatoes and chillies, and generous slabs of pillowy bread are brought to the table gratis.  The trick is to avoid filling yourself with the moreish bread, as hard as that is.  Scoffing down various combinations of bread, olives and salsa really slows down the ordering process - just as you settle on what you want to eat, you feel the urge to tear off yet another hunk and you forget everything but the salsa's sparky tang.

Although more expensive than the school-table kebabis lining Green Lanes or Blackstock Road, Petek's portions are plentiful and they compose high-standard ingredients into dishes that will satisfy both your tastebuds and your stomach.

Moving down to London town

...well, actually, I've already moved down. I'm here doing an MA for a year, so am on a serious budget (under £50 a week). Luckily, I'm game for trying to eat my way around the world without leaving the capital's confines or busting my budget. I'll happily walk everywhere I can in order to put less money on my Oyster and thus have enough for another bowl of pho, or a gozleme (Turkish pancake), or a Trinidadian roti wrap, or a pork baozi (puffy dumpling), or an artisanal ice cream, or some baklava from a specialist baklava bakery, or....well, the list is endless.  So while I might be irregular in my updates, know that I'm still out there finding you (and me) the cheapest, tastiest food I possibly can.

London - The Lido Cafe

Lunch dishes: £4-9

Brockwell Lido
Dulwich Rd
Herne Hill
London SE24 0PA

There is little better than open-air swimming on one of the few sunny days of the summer (well, September, but we have to take what we get).  In fact, I love Brockwell Lido in south-east London so much that I went twice in a weekend, and both times ate at the Lido Cafe, which serves up decent-sized portions of interesting food to hungry swimmers and locals.

Sitting on the canopied terrace, the service is frustratingly slow, but it is a very pleasant way to pass an afternoon. Or a morning. Or an evening. The cafe serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, although the kitchen tends to get overwhelmed towards the end of each service and shut down early.

The best value for money is probably in the salads - decent-sized plates piled almost-high with various combinations of veg and starch that you can mix and match should you so want.  The burgers - hefty, meaty blocks, are served with chips that practically crackle at you, so crispy are they.  The ratatouille tart has all the right vegetables in all the right places, although my friends and I couldn't place the filling - egg, cream, cheese, or some combination thereof? Its drink selection is comprehensive and fun, they have got you sorted from milkshakes to small-production beers.

Overall, the Lido Cafe should be a destination if you are near Brockwell Park and are too hungry to take the bus to Brixton.

London - Master's Superfish

191 Waterloo Road,
London,SE1 8UX


I wanted an American friend (we'll call him Jacob because that's his name) to experience the most English of English things while he was visiting England. We went to the British Museum (mostly full of non-English things pillaged by English men), to an old pub where we drank cider, we walked around the City's confusing labyrinth of streets (no grid system here, hah!).  And, of course, we also went for fish and chips.


I had done some research beforehand (thanks, unemployment) and it was a toss-up between new venture Poppies or old venture Master's Superfish.  We were closer to Waterloo, so Master's it was, and it turned out to be an excellent choice.


Unprepossessing, Master's Superfish has a definite air of granny about it, from the black and white photos of long-faded stars on the walls to the lack of pretension in presentation.  Upon ordering, free baguette and three bright pink prawns are brought to your table, and there's always a wandering waiter laden with gherkins and pickled onions should you be so inclined.  The food appears in no-nonsense portions, too.  You get a forearm's-worth of battered cod sitting atop a hill of fat, non-greasy, skins-still-on-in-places chips for £7.25.  While I wouldn't pay that sort of money back home, I would pay if for a hearty meal of fresh food in London.


The cod is perfect - white, firm, still moist, breaking easily with each prod of your fork, it comes away in nice chunks encased in a light yet sturdy batter.  Getting the fish right is the hard part, and I would say that this fish is on par with that of my local chippy.  The chips are spot-on, too, although there are no crispy bits hiding amongst the great big fat ones.


Master's Superfish is worth a visit even when you aren't toting an American tourist.  Good fish and chips are hard to find and places like this should be treasured as cultural artefacts.

London - Mooli's

50 Frith St
Westminster, 
London W1 DSQ



Mooli's, a roti-wrap take-out in the heart of Soho, markets itself as hip and fresh, serving "zingy and delicious" food to central London's huddled masses.  For around a fiver for a wrap, they do well to provide you with unusual ingredients and combinations, although the flavouring lacks punch.  The paneer wrap was a lot of salad and not much paneer, although the sauce covering the paneer worked well with both components.  The roti was nothing special, although perfectly passable, and retained its stretch despite contending with a not-inconsiderable amount of sauce.  Considering the lip-smacking heard from the man next to me, the goat roti is the way forward.

For interesting and well-priced food in central London, Mooli's does a good job.  It could do with knocking about 50p off its prices in order to maintain its cheap-and-cheerful-and-quality image, but it won't break your bank, especially because it will keep you filled until your next meal.

London - Guyanese Roti Truck

Brixton Market comes up trumps again.  While its international array of acclaimed cafes and restaurants get all the press, delicious food can be had in the streets surrounding the covered market, too. The Guyanese roti truck is green and parked up alongside a couple of other carts down Brixton Station Road. The lady inside - her regulars call her Aunty - is brusquely friendly, and makes everything she sells.

Out of the choices of curried goat, jerk chicken, chickpea curry or potato curry, I chose the potato curry roti, partially because it was £2.50 and partially because the man in front of me was ordering four of them.  He had good reason to be that keen.  The curry is heated up in the microwave (there isn't enough room for an oven in the van, although there is a stove top for making the rotis), before being wrapped up burrito-style in a fresh roti.  Chunks of potato are covered in a thick paste-sauce flavoured with your typical curry spicing (garam masala, ginger, cumin).  The roti is toothsome and, while tasting slightly of oil, is not oily or greasy.  The roti also easily holds the amount of curried potatoes, so there is no spillage as you are walking around, and the excess sauce is soaked into the bread at the bottom.  One potato roti kept me going for eight hours, a marvel for only £2.50.

When in Brixton and looking for very cheap and deliciously cheerful food, avoid the Guardian-acclaimed Kaosan or the chi-chi coffee shops in the arcade.  Head outside, along Pope's Road and Brixton Station Road, where Brixtonians get their fixes, for a better deal and no yummy-mummies and hipsters ruining your lunch.

London - ICCo Pizza

46 Goodge St,
Fitzrovia,
London W1T 4LU

Pizzas from £3.50



Little needs to be said about ICCo Pizza on Goodge Street. It's a student-on-a-budget fave, with cheap and large pizzas served up at speed.  They aren't the best pizza you will ever taste, they certainly aren't Franco Manca, but £4 for an 11 inch margherita in central London is a deal that the hungry will grasp eagerly with both hands.  A little grease, an unhealthy amount of pooling cheese, and tomato-y sauce atop a dense crust, and you're full for the next eight hours or so while your digestive system curses you and your taste buds roll over in happy submission.