Hare and Tortoise - Big Dish, Small Bill

This is the first time I have visited a Hare and Tortoise, a chain of Japanes noodle restaurants. We went to the one in the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury, which is essentially a shopping centre and so not hugely atmospheric.

The restaurant itself is cafe like, wooden tables, no frills. I have only recently acquired a taste for Japanes food and being a vegetarian I am obviously limited in the range I have had. This said the Hare and Tortoise serves good and extraordinarily cheap food. I had ramen noodles, tofu, and green leafy vegetables in broth served in a vast bowl. I also had a starter of spring rolls with a delicously tangy sauce and shared a small jug of sake.

There were 3 of us, we each had a starter and a giant main course (along the same lines as the one I have just described) a small jug of Sake and 2 cokes. The bill came to £30. £30!! Unbelievable. I felt like a student. And there was so much food none of us could eat it all. And it tasted good, the tofu was covered in a very light batter so helld its texture in the broth, the greens were not overcooked and the noodles firm and more ish.

This is great recession food, I mean surely I am not expected to eat in every night. I shall be visiting the Hare and tortoise again and seeking out similar bargain restaurants, although I suspect this may be hard to beat.

Giraffe

Giraffe is a ubiquitous chain that describes itself as both a 'family' and 'world food' restaurant. Normally all of those things would be enough to make my heart sink but I am fond of Giraffe. It is hearty, friendly (the waiting staff are almost too cheery) and the food is fresh and mostly tasty. It is a good place to go when you have seen or done something or are on the way to see or do something.

We ate here after seeing The Reader ( I liked it but then I liked the book and it meant I could waffle on about it for ages afterwards). I ordered somethign vegetarian but without the mushrooms which they then ran out of. This meant I ordered a Power food Salad and had to order chips, because you can't have salad without chips, not in winter. I was fairly disappointed ordering as it always seems like a last resort to order salad in restuarants. However I was pleasantly suprised; it was very good, with generous amounts of toasted seeds and cashews to add crunch, flavoursome but not overpowering dressing and no goat's chees, which is always a bonus. And the chips are lovely: thin, crispy and salty.

There is a good selection of wine, the atmosphere is lively and the food reasonably priced. It is the sort of place to go when you want to go somewhere nice and pretty safe, where most people will find something to eat, not high end but happy.

EV at home

So, on New YEar's eve we decided not to go to the Real Greek after all (nothing personal). Instead Joff went to the deli at EV in Waterloo, EV is a chain of Turkish restaurants that includes Tas, and EV. The main restuarant is huge, set under the railway arches in Waterloo and does reasonably priced Turkish food, particularly good for vegetarians.

Next door is a bakery and delicatessen selling much of the food served in the restuaraunt as well as bags of dried fruit, beans, herbs etc. For our New YEar's Eve feast Joff bought hummus, tabouleh, peppers and aubergines in oil, slices of a cheese and spinach pie (like borek), turkish delight and baklava. delicious. We supplemented it with other things like more aubergine and falafel but it was dleicious and fresh, if filling.

Off to Giraffe, post cinema, later and will report back tomorrow.

Christmas and New Year

We ate in over Christmas and since I don't do any of the cooking I don't really feel like I can blog about it. Although I do a lot of the eating. For the record we had Lasagne (veg) and then a Japanese style dish with rice noodles and tofu. Very nice.

As for eating out, we haven't done much of that recently but are plannign to go to the Real Greek for New year's eve, which is a little random but it is on the river, close to home and they do Gigantes beans, how could we resist?

Also, plan to have lunch in the V & A on new year's day so will report back on that too.