Mishkin’s is a recent addition to Russel Norman’s “definitely not a chain, but actually maybe kind-of a chain” of restaurants (but in a good way). One noticeable difference from the other restaurants in the group is that Mishkin’s actually takes bookings, which is a Good Thing. Not taking reservations seems to be all the rage at the moment, but it can also be very off-putting for those of us who aren’t fans of queuing for over an hour in the rain for a burger.

So it was with high hopes (and a guaranteed reservation) that we arrived at Mishkin’s. This was actually our second visit. Previously we ate from the pre-theatre menu; in my case a chicken and matzo ball soup starter followed by a steaming hot cast iron pot of mac and cheese. Both were fantastic, and well-priced at £12.50 for two courses (although you have to order before 6pm).

This time we were eating at a sensible time and opted to have something from the specials board. We both went for the mac and cheese-topped hotdog at £12-ish, or thereabouts (it was too ridiculously decadent to turn down and neither of us wanted to suffer from food envy).

We were not disappointed. The ‘dog was top quality; the bread was toasted the perfect amount; the crispy onions and sliced chillies made for perfect toppings; and after all of that, they slathered it in gloopy mac and cheese. Oh, and onion rings on the side. Man, that’s a lot of carbs… I’m nothing if not inconsistent. We didn’t have a starter, and that one dish was enough to leave us in physical pain from over-eating (the best kind of physical pain in my opinion).

I haven’t even mentioned the cocktails yet. Basically, they’re fantastic. I asked for a dirty and dry Sipsmith martini (my usual tipple) and they brought me just that – made to my exacting standards when it comes to martinis, and stained purple from the Kalamata olive brine that they opted to use. After one of those I chose to go for a Campari-based cocktail, which I did not like at all. This was entirely my fault though, as I had never had Campari before so didn’t know that it was very much not to my liking (seriously, Campari, ewww). They went above and beyond when I asked for some simple syrup to mask the Campari bitterness and replaced the cocktail with a maple old fashioned, which I enjoyed very much. They scored some serious brownie points from me here – not every restaurant/bar would do this, and nor should they be expected to.

The total bill (for two people eating either a main from from the specials board, or two courses from the the pre-theatre menu, with two cocktails each, plus service) is about £75. For the quality of the food and the cocktails I think that’s a great price. Replace the cocktails with tap water and you’re looking at less than £40. Except don’t, because that would be a mistake when they’re so well-made.

It’s in a great location – just around the corner from Covent Garden piazza – and is now our default pre-theatre venue. I’m already looking forward to visit number three.

Personally I find it quite hard to stick to a ketogenic diet for too long. I’ve managed just over a month before falling off the wagon and stuffing myself with Haribo; what can I say, my willpower is weak and I’m particularly fond of gummy treats. My wife, however, is a massive proponent of keto and in it for the long-haul – this means that I frequently end up eating keto-friendly meals and giving keto a blast for a few weeks at a time.

Why do I do it, even if I ultimately give up? Two reasons.

1. If you want rapid weight loss, it’s pretty damn effective.
2. The food is ridiculously tasty when done right. I may be craving sugar during the day, but as soon as I tuck into a double burger salad with cheese, bacon and avocado, the Haribo can go to hell.

Keto is catching on, and there are a number of restaurants and takeaways in Central London that are getting wise to this fact and offering super-low carb options. I work in Covent Garden and have had my fair share of low-carb/keto-friendly lunches. Here are a few of my favourites.

Just because you’re eating keto-style doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy a good burger. In fact it means quite the opposite, and the sooner you realise this, the sooner you’ll enjoy keto.

Byron sell a “skinny burger” – that is, a burger with extra salad and no roll. Add some optional extra toppings (avocado, blue cheese and bacon are a favourite of mine) and you’ve got yourself a delicious treat. Look at that picture and tell me that doesn’t look delicious, I dare you.

Word of warning though – at £7.50 the skinny burger isn’t exactly a cheap lunch option, and if you pile on the toppings as I did above, you’re looking at closer to £12. I choose to look at it as a decadent Friday lunchtime treat… just not every Friday.

Meat (beef, pork and/or chicken), lettuce, chillies, guacamole, hot sauce: these are all good, low-carb, keto-friendly things. The only problem with the burrito is the tortilla wrap. Luckily Benito’s Hat offer burrito innards in a box, sans the carbalicious wrap, and if you ask nicely they’ll bulk it out with extra lettuce. Total cost (including guacamole) is between £6-7.

Burrito salad: it’s a thing.

Pret – crayfish and avocado salad

78 Saint Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4AA (also, pretty much everywhere)

Surprisingly, you can “do” keto at Pret. It may not be as exciting as a bunless burger or a burrito-in-a-box but their crayfish and avocado salad ticks all of the keto boxes. It’s super-low-carb (to the point of basically having none), has a moderate amount of protein, and thanks to the avocado has a decent amount of fat in it. Plus it’s actually really tasty; the crayfish may be kind of bland (because it’s crayfish) but the tangy vinegar dressing and the creamy avocado make this a genuinely delicious lunch option. Expect to pay about £4. It’s not huge though, so you might want to get a miso soup on the side (or even better, another crayfish and avocado salad).

The simple tuna salad only has about 4g of carbs, so that also makes for a fine keto-friendly lunch option. At a stretch you could even go for some of their soups, which frequently have 20g or less of carbs (just make sure to check the nutritional information first).

* Sort of – I was being intentionally sensationalist to make a point. Nutritional science is not exact and many people have many differing opinions. Do some research and make up your own mind. Start here!

Stepping inside is like stepping back in time to the 70′s. There’s no natural light, the plants are made of plastic, and the furniture looks like it was bought from a charity shop.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s fantastic.

It gets better, too. A perfectly drinkable bottle of house wine costs £12.95 per bottle; they’re on Taste Card at 50% off food; and most importantly, the food is good.

It’s tapas – affordable, simple and tasty. As long as you don’t go in expecting something else then you’ll love it.

For the first round of food we went for chorizo in red wine, meatballs in tomato sauce, and mushrooms in garlic and oil.

The chorizo was tasty because, well, chorizo is pretty much always tasty. It was perhaps slightly over-cooked but I wasn’t complaining. As an added bonus you get lots of delicious red wine and chorizo oil left in the bottom of the ceramic bowl to soak the complimentary bread in.

The meatballs were delicious. Juicy, meaty, ball-shaped – that pretty much covers it. Who doesn’t like meatballs?

The mushrooms were also very nice with thick slices of fried garlic mixed amongst them. We liked these three dishes so much that we ordered them both times that we’ve been here.

Round two: patatas bravas, prawns braised in garlic oil and wine, fried aubergines, and pork kebabs.

The patatas bravas, while not the best I’ve ever had, were perfectly decent. Plus you have to order patatas bravas when you have tapas (at least you do when I’m there).

The prawns were fantastic. I don’t normally go for prawns – I have issues with the exoskeletons – but these were nicely de-shelled. They were super-garlicky, which is always a good thing, and absolutely delicious.

The fried aubergines were a bit limp. They were still pretty tasty, although I’m not sure that I’d order them again any time soon, simply because there’s a lot of other stuff I want to try first.

I don’t know if fried pork, peppers and onions served in a bowl is technically a kebab, but I’m not sure that I care. It tasted good, and like most dishes on the menu it only cost about £3 with the Taste Card discount.

After just two rounds I was completely off my mash on tapas and wine and it only came to a shade over £40. That included plenty of food for two people, a bottle of wine, and even service. The first time that we went we were feeling particularly gluttonous and had 10 plates to share, yet the bill only came to just over £50. Pretty good value.

One final piece of advice: be sure to tip the keyboard player on your way out. He must be in his 60′s and does a fantastic job of singing and playing the keyboard along to cheesy built-in backing tracks. My favourite this time was his unique rendition of “Hung Up” by Madonna.

It’s the little quirks like this that make San Miguel’s such a fun and memorable dining experience, at least for me. They’re not being ironic – the plants are genuinely made of plastic, and the guy on the keyboard actually means it when he sings Madonna in a Spanish accent.

Never change, San Miguel’s. Never change.

I love French food. It’s easily one of my favourite cuisines. Let’s put the history and technical stuff aside for a second (I don’t want to get into all of that, I’d only embarrass myself) and focus on what’s actually important – meat, and rich-as-hell sauces. What’s not to like about that? If I’m going out for a meal then I’m not concerned about the calories – melt the entire stick of butter into the sauce, please.

My love of French cuisine was solidified when I visited Paris with Nuhar last year. We had steak tartare for the first time and, apart from the religion, it was a religious experience. So I guess it was just an experience if you’re being technical, but a really, really good one. We were in Paris, one of the gastronomic capitals of the world, and we got swept up in the moment; we found a charming little restaurant down a side-street (replete with nobody but locals, and owners with only a very basic grasp of English) and decided to go with it. We left the restaurant in love with steak tartare.

We’d been craving this dish ever since returning from Paris. We’d had it in Brussels and that particular meal was really something special. However, we’d not had really good steak tartare in London since then. Well, Nuhar enjoyed the tartare at The Bountiful Cow but I found it too coarse and was too in love with their Bountyburger to order anything else.

We’d heard that the tartare was particularly good at La Sophia, a French/Mediterranean restaurant in Notting Hill, and had been meaning to go for a while. Eventually we trekked out there (well sort of, we live in NW1) and found out that it was as easily as good as we had heard.

The actual review

Okay, so now that the sentimental anecdote about my love of French cuisine and discovery of steak tartare is out of the way, let’s actually review this place.

We were there on some kind of a deal (obviously, as that’s what we do) so we ended up paying a very reasonable fixed price to dine from the á la carte menu. We’ve since discovered that they are on Taste Card (which we are a member of) at 50% off on food, so we’ll be going back soon using that.

The decor is nice. It’s fine. No complaints. But let’s talk about the food.

We both ordered the tartare to start with, obviously, even though we normally order different starters to share. If you read the long-winded introduction above then you’ll understand why.

On the menu it is listed as “beef tartare with black truffle paste with chopped onions, tomato concassée & Dijon mustard” – and yeah, that’s pretty much what it was. Look at the picture; it’s accurate.

The texture was perfect – the beef was silky smooth, and had the egg yolk pre-mixed in. Personally I prefer having the yolk cracked on top so that I can mix it in myself, but that’s just an aesthetic/borderline-fetish thing (screw you FSA, I’m mixing a raw egg yolk into equally raw beef!)

The accompaniments were pretty much perfect. Basically, I can’t really fault the tartare. If you’re using a Taste Card then (at the the time of writing) it cost a few pennies under £7. Madness.

The mains weren’t quite as mind-expandingly awesome but they were very good indeed.

I went for the most expensive thing on the menu, the beef fillet & foie gras burger with caramelised onions, house salad & thick chips – partly because I adore foie gras, partly because I am on a constant quest for the perfect burger, and partly because we were paying a fixed price for the voucher and it was really expensive (but mostly the first two).

It wasn’t the perfect burger. It was made from beef fillet, but so was the burger at The Mughouse, and I enjoyed that more (the mix of spices was a lot better at the latter restaurant). It also wasn’t on the same level as my current gold standard of burgers, the Bountyburger.

In fact, the very reasons that I ordered it (the fact that it was made from beef fillet and foie gras) worked against it – the fillet was too bland and the foie gras made the whole experience too fatty, which in hindsight is to be expected, considering that it’s just engorged goose liver. I was expecting a slab of seared foie gras layered delicately on top of the burger, like a slice of bacon, but unfortunately it was mixed in with the burger. Ultra-lean fillet mixed with uber-fatty foie gras… the ingredients may be fantastic separately, but nope, they don’t actually work when mashed together.

The chips were good though – they came in a little basket and everything. And it wasn’t a terrible burger; it was fine really, just way-over-ambitious and way-overpriced. Next time I’m going for the escargot linguine.

Nuhar went for the oven-roasted French trimmed rack of lamb with crispy lamb tongue, crushed potato with herbs and rosemary jus. She loved it. I loved it. The tongue was good and I don’t normally even like tongue that much. It melted in the mouth. The lamb was lamb; fatty, delicious and bursting with flavour. The potato was fantastic too, full of herby goodness and complementing everything else superbly.

For about £60-odd including a decent bottle of wine and service we had a fantastic meal. We already have plans to go back. I have no hesitation recommending this restaurant, and if you live even remotely close to Notting Hill then you absolutely have to go.

I will say though, it’s definitely worth getting a Taste Card before going, as the savings will pretty much cover the cost of signing up for it.

The company that I work for is only in Shoreditch temporarily, so who can blame me? In a few weeks we’re moving back towards the Soho / Covent Garden area, so I’m getting as much spring bowl in me as I possibly can.

So what is this dish? Take a look:

Looks pretty good, right? A nice, healthy bed of cold vermicelli noodles in fish sauce (yum) with crunchy fresh lettuce and assorted veg… topped with fried things, and lots of them. Awwww yeah.

More specifically, you get three different typed of fried things. You get “imperial spring rolls”; I don’t know what makes a spring roll imperial, but whatever they do to them, that’s how I want my spring rolls from now on. There’s something prawn-based (wrapped in pastry and deep-fried, of course) and delicious, spicy meat parcels wrapped in betel leaf (again, also fried).

It’s a huge bowl of food, especially for the price – which is £8.50 for dinner, or just £6.00 if you go for lunch like I have been.

Like I said, I can’t really comment first-hand on the other dishes because I’ve become completely obsessed with this one delicious dish. I’ve heard some good things, however – next time that I go I’m totally going to order something different (probably).

The service went okay. It was a little bit… how to describe it politely… relaxed. Everybody that I have been with has commented on it too. The bill has always taken way too long to come, getting the attention of a waiter is slightly more drawn-out than it should be, and I’ve had to re-order drinks when my original order failed to materialise.

I’m willing to overlook all of that, however, because…

…damn that’s some good spring bowl.

Basically, my Dad won by a longshot – thanks to some campaigning on Facebook, some kind readers casting votes and retweeting, the almighty force that is reddit, and the fact that he is awesome and totally deserving of the title and prize. A huge thank you to all that voted!

In a month or two my Dad will be getting one-to-one tuition from Henry Harris of Racine restaurant in London (very fancy) and he’s pretty pleased about the whole thing. I’ll be sure to get a report from him about how it went, will try to collar him into taking a photo or two, and will post the results here.

He totally deserved this prize so thanks once again for your support!

Anyway, here’s the original post (don’t click to vote or anything ‘cos he’s already won):

I recently entered my Dad into a competition for the title of “best BBQ dad”, and he’s in the five finalists (although he doesn’t know anything about this yet). Voting ends on Friday it’s pretty much neck-and-neck at the moment. I’d really like him to win this!

This is why I think that he deserves the title:

N.B. You can find his YouTube channel of rum reviews here.

…and this is my entry into the competition, which made it into the finalists:

He recently ditched the standard British approach to BBQ-ing that we had to endure as children (burned sausages, sub-standard hamburgers and suspiciously pink chicken drumsticks) and embraced the art of proper BBQ – the Texan way.

He bought a decent BBQ and has spent hours watching TV shows, reading websites for tips, and makes his own proprietary rubs. The man even has a special syringe for injecting juices into meat! Now when I visit my parents I’m treated to pulled pork and delicious slow-cooked beef brisket, painstakingly cooked over 12 hours and sprayed every hour with something containing cider or vinegar (I think – I don’t really know, but he clearly does!)

It’s safe to say that he has taken BBQ-ing to the next level, and I’m very fortunate in that I get to reap the rewards. For these reasons, I nominate my old man as the Best BBQ Dad.

A humble request for your help

If you are on the FaceBook and wouldn’t mind voting for him (don’t worry, it won’t spam all your friends or anything) – and feel that he is deserving of the title, which he totally is by the way – then please click here and vote for Dad A.

That’s Dad A!

If he wins, he gets one-to-one tuition from a top London chef for a day, and two tickets to a BBQ festival (which I will photograph, write up, and post here in case anyone is interested in how it turns out).

I’d love to do something nice for my old man, and I just know that he’d really like this. If you could help him out by voting then you would have our gratitude.

Okay, that’s my piece. Thanks for reading and let’s hope that he wins!

While I’m on the subject, let’s get something cleared up: there’s nothing wrong with British food. We may get slated internationally for our bad food, but this is just a very tiresome stereotype. Sure, there are a whole slew of pubs serving up frozen pies that don’t exactly help our cause, but if you’re a tourist willing to dig a little deeper than the shiny Angus Steakhouse exterior then you can find some real treats. The modern face of British cuisine is fresh and seasonal, and it tastes good.

On that note, we are brought to The Mughouse, situated in (or rather under) London Bridge. It’s part of a chain owned by Davy’s, the wine bar, but they’re the first of the chain to make the change to “Gastropub”: they’ve brought in a new chef (Chris Bish), extended their beer range, and are focussing on serving good quality food with a home-cooked feel.

To start we had the crab cakes with sweet chilli sauce, and the ham hock terrine.

The crab cakes were good. Perhaps over-potatoed a little bit, but overall they were exactly as described. If you went to a pub and ordered Thai fish cakes, and these came out, you would not be disappointed.

As for the ham hock terrine – well, as you can see, it is big – almost too big for a starter, but I find that this is almost never an actual complaint. It comes with a dollop of piccalilli relish and a slice of toasted bread. It’s big, and tastes exactly like a ham hock terrine should taste. It was good.

The burger (my main) was frickin’ amazing. Apparently it was forged from fillet off-cuts from the Queen’s butcher in the cracks of Mount Doom. I don’t know about all of that, but it tasted damn good – definitely one of the better burgers that I’ve had in recent times, and I’m not shy about ordering burgers (I have an ongoing personal quest to find the perfect burger).

I tried some of Nuhar’s pie and it was everything that a pub pie should be, and then some. Freshly-made that day mince filling? Check. Crumbly, buttery and intensely satisfying crust? Check. My only regret is that we were both too full to finish it in its entirety. I even left a few chips.

We don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so we ended things with cheese – more specifically, three different types of cheese with crackers. It was good. There’s a board explaining what cheeses they have in. Take heed of it and order appropriately. Sorry for the photo of half-eaten cheeses, we got a bit over-excited when they arrived and forgot to photograph first.

You’re definitely going to want some wine, it being a wine bar and all. Let me suggest that you skip the house red and instead go straight to the E S Malbec Finca Sophenia 2009 – only an extra £10, but tastes so infinitely better that you can’t put a price on it. Apart from £25.

So yeah, that was some good pub food. For that selection of food, sans wine, you’re looking at a shade over £40 – which I think represents good value for money.

N.B. I was invited to review The Mughouse. They gave me “25% off food on a Sunday” vouchers for my readers – if you want one, let me know!

I’ve heard mixed reviews of this place. It opened in 2007 and was warmly received by the critics; A.A. Gill even compared his fellow diner’s remarks to the dubbing of a porn film and give it 4.5/5 stars. Quite a few People From The Internet (food bloggers) also seem to love this place, with good reviews popping up everywhere. However, for every gushing review there is a mediocre one to balance it out, from critics and bloggers alike.

Then there’s the fact that it’s Michelin-starred Italian food, which to me at least is a bizarre concept. When I think of Italian food I think of simple and flavoursome rustic food, usually with large portions. This is not what Michelin-starred food brings to mind. It sounded intriguing though, and although I wasn’t sold on the concept, I was eager to experience it for myself.

I was also slightly concerned that perhaps the food wouldn’t be quite up to scratch as we were going for the Groupon seven course tasting menu at £35 per head. Then again, if it’s a decent restaurant (with a Michelin star, no less) then this shouldn’t be a problem… right?

The appetisers were fine, and kind of interesting. We were given a board of crispy parmesan puffs, thin slices of crispy bread coloured with squid ink, and super-thin crispy roasted vegetables. Sorry for over-using the words “thin” and “crispy”, but it was all very thin and crispy.

The bread was… mediocre. There was a decent selection, but it wasn’t show-stoppingly good like at (say) Tom Aikens. It wasn’t even warm.

The first course was a scallop on a bed of lettuce in a vinaigrette dressing. The scallop may very well have been tasty, but I couldn’t tell because all I could taste was vinegar. It was completely overpowering; so much for the simplicity of Italian cooking and letting the flavours of quality ingredients speak for themselves.

Next up was roasted baby monkfish with half a quails egg served on gem lettuce with some kind of rice/vinegar concoction. Once again, it was way too vinegary. What is up with that? I don’t want to have to scrape overpowering gloop off my food to get to the good stuff. The monkfish and quails egg were quite nice though.

The third course was ricotta and orange filled tortellini in a butternut soup – at least I’m pretty sure that it was a butternut soup, because again I was faced with a big bowl of mono-flavour: in this case, orange. It wasn’t terrible, but I was hoping to experience two or three meticulously-picked flavours complementing each other perfectly on my palate. Instead, I got orange.

Then came the prawn and tomato linguine. I hate to whine (honestly, I do) but the pasta was undercooked. I love my pasta al dente, but I know the difference between al dente and undercooked, and this was the latter. Everything else on the dish was fine, although I’ve had better at home (it’s one of my staple carborific meals).

Fifth course was beef tagliata with green beans. Now that’s more like it! I wasn’t expecting much at this point in the meal, but it was fantastic. The thin meat was cooked beautifully, and the dish tasted of parmesan (but not in an overpowering way as with the vinegar from the earlier dishes). I was sad when my plate was empty.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the fifth course took a long time to come, and when it did, it was the pasta (fourth course) again. They took it back, we waited a while longer, and eventually the beef came. At this point we had been in the restaurant for two hours and still had two courses to come, so service was clearly too slow (despite it not being particularly busy that evening).

I’m not normally this cheeky, but the combination of slow service, mostly-mediocre food and the half-bottle of wine that I’d consumed led to me to ask for a complimentary glass of wine each. They were all too happy to oblige, so they scored some brownie points with me here.

The beef tagliata was the turning point of the meal, as the desserts were both fantastic as well. The first dessert was an apple fritter with an apple and cinnamon purée, and a slice of dried apple. The fritter was doughy (in the best possible way) and reminded me of festival donoughts. It may not sound like a compliment but it really, really is. I’m mildly allergic to raw apple (it makes my mouth itch) but I went ahead and ate the entire plate anyway. It was worth the five minutes of mild discomfort that I experienced shortly afterwards.

To finish the meal we had a melt-in-the-middle chocolate fondant-type thing (the name eludes me), chocolate ice cream, and grappa pannacotta served on a plate smeared with chocolate. If you like chocolate – which I do, very much – then you’ll love it. The grappa pannacotta in particular was fantastic, prompting me to ask a waiter what was in it.

Overall, however, we left unimpressed. The food was at-times delicious, sometimes downright terrible, but mostly mediocre. I’ve had far better food in much cheaper restaurants – even taking into account the Groupon deal. Service was slow, although the waiters were friendly and helpful.

Perhaps it was the Groupon deal, even though a restaurant worthy of a Michelin star really should not let standards slip like this. Perhaps the restaurant was having a bad night. Perhaps I’m just a miserable bastard, I don’t know. Nuhar (my dining companion) shared my sentiments, however, so either we’re a pair of miserable bastards or the food just wasn’t that good. In reality it’s probably 90% the former and 10% the latter, but I’m okay with that.

Another lukewarm review for the pile.

The concept behind Hummus Bros is simple. You order a big bowl of hummus with your choice of topping (fig. A) and scoop it out with great big chunks of warm, perfectly soft pitta bread (fig. B).

You see, I actually really like hummus, and if you’ll excuse the hyperbole this has to be the best hummus that I’ve ever had. It has such a perfect consistency – not all thick and clumpy like the stuff you get from Tesco, but not gloopy and paste-like either. They’re clearly passionate about making good hummus.

It doesn’t even have to be vegetarian if you don’t want it to be, either. A large part of the appeal behind Hummus Bros lies in the the toppings. Why settle for just a bowl of hummus (kinda boring) when you can load it up with chunks of tender beef or chicken (delicious)? And why stop there; chuck some sun-dried tomato or feta on there too. Or both.

Then there’s the garlic and lemon juice that they put on the table in pourers. It’s amazing. I always get carried and drown everything in the stuff.

Prices are good, too. A regular bowl (which actually means a huge bowl) with your choice of topping and two pittas costs about £6 at lunch or £8 at dinner. Extra toppings range from 65p – 95p. They offer a delivery service although I’m not really sure what the deal is with that – according to their website there is an additional delivery charge of £15, which is a bit weird. I guess if you’re throwing a… hummus party? Although I don’t think that’s a thing.

I don’t mean to gush or anything, but I quite like this place. They’ve taken a simple concept – hummus in a bowl with tasty toppings and bread for dipping – and executed it perfectly. Good hummus, good prices, good service. It’s definitely up there with Busaba (which funnily enough is just a few doors down) on my list of places to go for a quick, cheap, informal bite to eat in Soho.

The general consensus seems to be that Yalla Yalla is a Good Thing – just check out the blog posts on its Urbanspoon page. I’ve even been once before and had a reasonably tasty lamb wrap; apparently not interesting enough to bring me back any time soon, but it was decent enough and only cost £4, which is a great price for a Soho lunch.

The first thing that you’re likely to notice when entering Yalla Yalla is the size. It’s really, really small, and the handful of seats that they have always seem to be taken. I guess that they’re focussing more on takeaway lunches than anything else.

Most of the people that I was with took advantage of the lunch offer, which at £5.50 for any wrap and a choice of dips was (I felt) pretty good value.

To start with I went for the houmous shawarma – so, houmous topped with delicious thin-cut slices of lamb. Except, they brought me houmous topped with chickpeas instead. They were pretty busy, and I was pretty hungry and eager to eat as soon as possible – plus I was having a lamb wrap for my main – so I just went with it.

The houmous was fine. It definitely wasn’t the best I’ve ever had (i.e. it wasn’t on par with The Hummus Bros) – slightly dry, slightly bland, kind-of reminiscent of Tesco’s contribution to the houmous market, but full of chickpea-based goodness nonetheless. The pitta for dippin’ wasn’t exactly stale or anything but I’ve definitely had fresher; it was a bit dry (epecially around the edges) and bit boring. I left most of the pitta.

Then my main course came – a lamb wrap, without the cucumber (because cucumber is gross). The only problem was that three other people on my table also ordered lamb wraps, and the waitresses didn’t seem to mind who got which wrap – meaning that my wrap was probably heavy on the cucumber. When I mentioned that I ordered a wrap without cucumber I was told to ask a different waitress because she didn’t take my order. Hmmmmm. Not very impressive.

Anyway, they took my order away and a few minutes later I was brought… a chicken wrap. I ordered lamb because chicken is bland and uninspiring at the best of times. By this point I just wanted to eat and didn’t want to finish long after everyone else, so once again I went with it. It was bland and uninspiring. No amount of Tesco-inspired houmous could save it. It was chicken, after-all.

Perhaps I’m fixating on the mix-ups and not-so-hot service a bit too much, but these are important things that any restaurant should be getting right. The food wasn’t exactly great either, even though it was far from bad. Then again, the lamb wrap that I had a while ago was pretty good – plus “the internet” overwhelmingly approves of this place – so as mentioned above, I left feeling confused.

Not confused enough to go back any time soon, though.