Misato, 11 Wardour Street, London, W1D 6PG

We were talking about this place even before we moved to London. Back in the days when we were students, and the main criteria on where to eat was the price, this was recommended to us by a friend. That criteria remains the same today, but with alot more experience along the way, we now know which places are reasonably cheap, but also good.

So, one day, when we were in central London not knowing what to eat, and without much preference to help us make up our minds, we decided to visit the old favourite that is Misato. It’s by no means fine dining, ambience consists of having space for your coat, and there is usually a half an hour queue before getting to your table, but hey, when you come to Misato, you know what you’re coming for.

The main reasons I can see for coming to Misato are the prices (low) and the portions (gigantic). The menu is made from one of those clear binder file things, with printed A4 sheets, and the things served here are what I would call, cafe-style, fast and convenient Japanese one-plate meals. The fish is definitely not the freshest in London, but good enough to sit alongside the conveyor belt stuff. Most of the people eating here don’t come for the fish, but zoom straight for the good value, portion-friendly, pocket friendly meat with rice dishes.

Two portions of Japanese tea came in separate little pots (not necessary) but were disappointingly lukewarm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no tea connoisseur and probably can’t tell the difference between a £500-per-glass type tea to, say, hot water with some colouring, but all I was asking for was for hot tea. There’s something about lukewarm tea that puts me off it.

Mixed sushi £7

We started off with the mixed sushi, despite knowing full well (as I said above) that the fish here wouldn’t be that fresh, but we were just on full eating mode that dinnertime, and wanted to order everything and so we did. Surprisingly moist and flavourful rice here, as there are so many sushi places that serve rice without any flavouring whatsoever. To me, that denies the fish of the platform to which it deserves, because while the fish may be fresh and sweet, if it’s going to be served with rice, that rice should be moist, slightly vinegary, slightly salty, and just perfectly chewy.

Katsudon £6.80 – deep fried breaded pork cutlet and vegetables with egg sauce on a bed of rice

This was one of my first loves in Japanese cuisine. When I was younger and could afford those calories, I used to order this everytime I went to a Japanese restaurant. The comfortable feeling I had after I finished an entire serving of this, accompanied by the less comfortable feeling of not being able to stand up straight from being too full, was always an indicator that the katsudon I had was just so nice.

The best thing about this dish in Misato is the fact that they get the egg just right; slightly runny, just so soft and wobbly, and very umami. The pork cutlet could have been slightly more juicy, as the version I had either was very lean to begin with, or had been deep fried so long that whatever moisture was in it to begin with had gone out the window.

Katsu curry £6.20 – deep fried pork cutlet with curry sauce on rice

The sausage and mash of Japanese cuisine, in my opinion; perfect comfort food. What’s not to like about this dish? Deep fried pork, with a sweet, thick, slightly spice curry sauce drenched over it, making it just that bit slightly soggy. Eaten with steamed Japanese rice, perfect for a rainy London day. The version here was good, but could have been more moist.

Despite what some people might say about Misato (long queues, large unsophisticated portions, etc.) it is always consistent here. There is always a consistently long queue outside the restaurant, everyone consistently stares at you and your dinner while queuing, the portions are consistently big, and the prices are consistently reassuring. Would I recommend this place? Sure, just expect big portions and a takeaway bag.

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Beef roast – The only roast worth making

We’d been wanting to make a roast for a while now. Not just any roast, but a beef roast, also known as The Only Roast Worth Making. Chicken fits in this category too, and so does lamb, and pretty much anything else that tastes nice roasted, but for the purpose of this post, let’s just imagine for a minute that roast beef is the only roast worth making. Otherwise, it won’t seem as spectacular.

So, with the intention of making a roast, and having leftovers from it for the next week, we set out to buy a large chunk of good quality meat, no expense spared (it was to be eaten over many meals, you see). Turns out we finished it in 1.5 meals, but never you mind about that now.

With beef in one hand, oven glove in the other, I set about marinating it with nothing but the best quality salt and pepper. Oven set at 220 degrees (no scientific reason, mere estimation), we set Boast Reef (clever? no) in the middle rack of the oven. Ten minutes later, and lots of excited peeks through the door, we turned down the temperature slightly as Jamie Oliver (that famous guy, you know him) said that meat should be roasted at very high temperature at the start, and then turned down to let the meat cook. So, we did that.

Seems it worked, and the meat that came out of that oven was one of the finest we’d ever cooked. Told you I prefer cooking to baking. It’s all about estimating and guessing. Easy.

What did we eat it with?

Asparagus, and some potato dauphinoise-wannabes.

Satori Robata, 28-30 Knightsbridge London, SW1X 7JN (Taste London)

We’ve had the Taste London card for a while now, but not used it much so decided to give it a go. For those of you who don’t know, the Taste London card can be used to get 2-for-1 meals, or 50% off food prices at participating restaurants. You have to pay to be a member and to get the card, but we managed to get it for free when they were giving it out some time ago. Although there are quite a few restaurants on there, the ones we wanted to try never seemed to feature on the listing. Anyhow, we felt like having Japanese food, and Satori Robata featured as one of the restaurants on the list, so we decided to give it a try.

The restaurant is located close to Harrod’s, which, to those in the know, usually mean higher prices. I say usually, as there are some high street stores which obviously can’t raise their prices (too much). The interior of the restaurant is really nice, and the seats are also designed to look as though you’re sitting on the floor, even though you’re not (a good thing). With that much space, you would have thought that they’d make it so that more customers could be accommodated during one sitting, but it seems they prefer using that space for decoration instead. Maybe it’s something to do with that ambience thing (the places I go to don’t usually focus much on ambience).

Squid and octopus sashimi, £3.55 a portion (a portion is 2 pieces)

Being more used to the sushi-from-the-counter type shops, which usually charge about 50p for a piece of sushi, this seemed quite expensive to me. Perhaps it’s quite reasonable to most people (the ones who shop at Harrods), but certainly not to us. For that amount, I expected the portions to be huge (or at least singing and tap-dancing their way to the table), but the pieces of squid and octopus we had were just OK, and nothing more different than other sashimi I’d had before, for that price.

Prawn tempura temaki, about £3

This was something I ordered instead of a portion of rice with my main meal. Unconventional, I know. It was again, just OK. The prawn tempura was fresh, and the batter was light and crispy. The seaweed was slightly soggy by the time it got to the table, which meant quite alot of chewing before I could actually bite a piece of the temaki off, but it tasted nice.

Beef rib eye teriyaki £16.95

Fresh, tender beef cooked very well, with lovely tasting teriyaki sauce. Would have said more about it if not for the price. Why? Because, for the price, you almost expect it to be so fantastic and so unlike anything you’d ever had before. Sure it was nice, but it wasn’t great value for money, or nicer than any other beef I’d ever had.

Pan fried venison steak with sake and garlic soy glaze £19.50

Cooked to rare perfection, just as requested, and very tender. Didn’t taste much of venison, in fact, it could have been beef as far as taste was concerned. Comment about price as before. Could it just be me who thinks this is expensive???

Jumbo prawn yaki (whole jumbo prawn flame grilled with yuzu and garlic ponzu) £14.95

‘What’re you going to have?’, I asked my friend.
‘The jumbo prawns’, she said.
‘Prawns?’, I asked. ‘I think you meant prawn.’
‘No … surely they mean the plural version of it …’

A quick check with the waitress confirmed that uh huh, it was one prawn, and one prawn only. Wooo hooo, that’s one expensive prawn! Not a lobster or anything in even similar in size. Fresh, as with the other dishes, it has to be said but very expensive, like the other dishes also.

Seafood tempura moriawase £10.90

This was perhaps the option which was best in terms of value for money. The portion was acceptable, the pieces of seafood were fresh, and there were different types of fish included in the selection. I enjoyed this very much, but it didn’t come with any rice or side dishes so this alone does not make a filling meal.

Free salad that came with the venison. Free! Something that is reasonable priced. (such a cheapskate hey)

Would I recommend this? Well, we dined here on the Taste London 50% off promotion, which made the price per person just about reasonable. Without that, we most certainly wouldn’t have had considered this as an option for dinner, because there are lots of other Japanese restaurants in London (more central) with food that is just as good in terms of quality, at more reasonable prices.

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Lina’s Store, 18 Brewer Street, Soho, London

What a marvellous find. We were scuttling through Soho, like mice in a field one Saturday, when we found this shop. As the motto for the day was ‘Try something new’, we decided to venture into the shop.

My motto is usually ‘Why try something new’ so this was quite a remarkable change of motto.

From the outside, this resembles a hardware shop. Perhaps I was standing too far away, but something about the window display made me conclude that this place sold paint.

A closer peek at the window and I saw pannetone. Now, everyone likes panettone.

I like panettone.

With that, I had to check this place out.

The first impression of this place is that it is a rustic, charming, traditional-styled Italian mini-mart. It sold almost everything Italian I could come up with (food-wise, of course), and being someone who really likes Italian food, I had to buy something.

The first thing that took my fancy was the garlic and parsley, but I didn’t buy them.

The guy at the counter was nice enough, jumping in and out of my pictures.

Behind the guy, there were shelves full of spices, condiments and lots of herbs. I’m not sure how these herbs are different from the ones you get at the supermarket, but when they’re sold in an Italian shop, with many other Italian things, it must absorb some sort of authenticity. You just don’t question things like that.

Italian sausages chilling out, absorbing the Italian air, slowly transforming from Cumberland sausages to salami.

The most Italian thing I bought from this store was the 3 packs of instant risotto (tried one out, tasty). There were lots more I could have bought. In fact, while we were in there, customers came in to the deli which seemed to be the most popular bit of the store, but as I didn’t see how walking around Soho carrying sausages and garlic would be a good thing to do, perhaps I’ll do that another time.

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