The Garrison

The Garrison, which I have mentioned previously as being one of my favourites, is a gastro pub on Bermondsey street. It is still beautifully decorated and retains a good atmosphere, it is still a great place for a drink if you can get a table. However, having eaten there a couple of times recently, I think that the quality has slipped. Twice food has arrived cold and the cold dish has been taken away while Joff had either to eat his or wait for mine and leave his to go cold(i have to say that both times it was taken off the bill). The most recent visit was better, but even then the food was not quite as hot as it should have been and was ok rather than delicious. It all gives the appearance of having been assembled and heated up rather than actually having been cooked, if you see what I mean. Anyway, sadly, I will not be going back for a while and will instead be going to the superior Bermondsey Kitchen.

Royal Festival Hall

Company of Cooks have installed themselves in the terrace cafe area at the Royal Festival Hall and have made it an excellent place for lunch. There is plenty of space, much of it with a riverside view, and the place has a light and airy feel to it. It is not really a formal lunching kind of place but a good lazy Sunday or
Saturday destination. Excellent sandwiches on good, dense, seedy bread or focaccia with hummus and roasted courgettes. The cake is excellent and unusual, including a lavender cake with a wonderfully subtle flavour or, for Easter, a good rich, fruity simnel cake with generous amounts of marzipan. They also do seasonal salads and soups. Well made coffee and quick service make it one of my current favourites.

Nordic Bakery

The Nordic Bakery in Golden Square, is a relatively new Scandinavian bakery and coffee shop. It serves open sandwiches on dark rye bread (salmon tartare, egg and anchovy, cheese and gherkins) and, the real draw, warm, fresh and deeply enticing cinnamon buns. The interior, as you might expect, is clean and modern looking and yet, mainly because of the comforting and drool inducing smell of cinnamon and baking when you enter, it also immensely comforting. We escaped the hailstorm there and had tea in retro looking and oversized cups. The tea was perfectly brewed and reasonably priced, the smell was deeply delicious and the service friendly and efficient. In this part of London, tucked behind the generally overpriced and tacky Piccadilly, this is a rare find and i strongly you pay it a visit.

Red Fort

Red Fort is an Indian restaurant on Dean Street. Sounds nice and simple, well it's a posh Indian restaurant on Dean street. One with a slightly intimidating but smart exterior and a man on the door. Starting to sound more complicated? Good. There is a bar downstairs that serves good cocktails and has slightly worryingly efficient service. But back to the restaurant, for an Indian restaurant it has a small selection of vegetarian food, no mains, but all vegetable dishes can be eaten as mains, fair enough. In fact I found it hard to tell whether the vegetable dishes were sides or mains and, when they came, what the difference was. And this is where the trouble starts, the food tasted good and the service was brisk and friendly enough but by the end of the meal, although we had all had a good time, one look at the bill left me feeling thoroughly ripped off. Joff had a mushroom dish as his main but it was served in the same dish as the side dishes and put on the table without an explanation, was it part of the table's side dishes or his main? As a result he had to grab it quickly before it was snaffled by someone else. My aubergines were good, spicy and stuffed with paneer and cashews, but absolutely tiny ( I guess I should have paid more attention the descriptor 'baby' on the menu). A selection of starters for everyone translated as everyone getting a plate each containing all of the starters - an expensive an unnecessary way of doing it as we had to give away all of our fish and meat starters and were left with a tiny patty and a mini veg kebab. with rice and bread for the table, again, (the table was very well fed) and water brought without the choice of tap, the bill came to an astounding £60 a head! i have been to a fair few expensive restaurants but this was undoubtedly the most expensive when you take into consideration what we actually got for our money. Oh and the bill for the water alone came to £ 40. We managed to have a good evening despite this and the bill was met with disbelief and good humour. However I will not be going back and I would advise others not to unless they are feeling extraordinarily flush. Next time i might try Amaya or Veeraswamy.