London calling

What I ate in London this time around

Hello hello hello,

As promised I’m doing less but hopefully more useful newsletters. This time around I’ll tell you all about what I ate during my trip to London last week and then I’ll go over my usual people and reading recommendations. This is going to be a long one but there’s pictures so I hope you can forgive me.

Old school recommendations
I left London in 2008 but I spent years, if not an entire decade, recommending places that were mid if not gone. Some of those places still hold but I’ve become more careful with what I recommend and tell people who to follow in London who might help them with some dining choices instead.

So here’s what I ate and where…

St. John
Inspite of the above, I’ll start off with my forever favorite that I have been recommending since my brother first took me there in 2005 and that I will keep recommending until either I die, or they close. As I went to Bread & Wine first, because I lived around the corner from it, I usually end up at their Spitalfields location. Sometimes I’ll venture out to the original location by Smithfield, which I also enjoy but feels a tad more formal (though barely, it’s just this allergy I have).

This time I had to try their new location at Marylebone. While solid as always, this pickled red mullet was especially delicious (and the service was perfect). The Welsh rarebit croquette is cool and all, but doesn’t really live up to the acclaims of the original dish, and it does feel quite cramped compared to the other two high-ceilinged locations. Given the location the crowd is also a bit more stiff upper lipped and affluent-acting, so I’ll keep going back to Smithfield and Spitalfields, which are more far my speed. If you are staying somewhere closer to Marylebone however, just go there, you’d barely know the difference food and service wise.

Toba
I saw Toba in Anna Sulan Masing’s stories, and was happy to learn they have quite a large number of vegan Indonesian dishes on offer. My brother and his partner are vegan, and they live in London, so when I visit I’m always on the lookout for places where we can enjoy a meal together.

Toba recommends sharing dishes, so we ended up with the tempe mandoan, bakwan jagung and bakwan sayur (a trio of the most delicious fritters), as well as perkelde kentang (Indonesian fried potato patties).

For mains we had gudeg, a slow-cooked jackfruit stew (which my brother compared to rendang but no not really), alongside terong balado (eggplant in chili sauce, thankfully not as spicy as announced) and gulai daun singkong pete (minced kale braised in a thick spiced coconut milk sauce, with tofu, tempe and sator beans - my personal favorite). Toba is located in extremely central London, but wonderfully hidden from the melee. Do NOT sleep on those fritters.

Royal China Club
Another one I got off of Anna Sulan Masing’s stories I’m fairly certain. Just really good, slightly more original (think crab meat and fish maw dumpling in parma ham broth or pan-fried taro croquettes with mushrooms and truffle), very fresh dim sum for the dim sum-minded.

I don’t think I’ve ever had better sui mai or cheung fun in my entire life. The doughs and fillings are just so much more delicate than anything you will have anywhere else. Best experienced for a Sunday lunch.

We had a nice stroll through Regent’s Park right up Primrose Hill after which comes highly recommended as well.

Sambal Shiok
I’m a fan of the cookbook and still confused why laksa isn’t the most popular noodle soup in the world so I had to go to Sambal Shiok. I kind of fucked myself up by ordering two starters while also ordering the laksa, but it was SO SO good.

I recommend going with friends so you can get the most out of the starters as well as the laksa. If I go again and can’t bring a friend I’d just stick to the laksa.

My order was the signature curry laksa with prawn, medium hot (it’s the hot broth with a side of coconutmilk to mellow it down to your liking) with an extra egg. Traditionally laksa is made with a shrimp-base, but they do offer a vegan broth as well. Just so you know.

If you find yourself hankering for laksa in central London, in March I went to Laksamania with my brother and it was also pretty stellar. I wouldn’t be able to pick a side between these two laksa power houses if they made me.

Tanakatsu
Finally I went to Tanakatsu at the recommendation of Tim Anderson. I’ll admit I messed up my order because I wanted a katsu sandwich but got distracted by the Iberico katsu and I just ordered that without realizing I’d ordered just a single slab of expertly breadcrumbed and perfectly fried meat. You can upgrade any of their katsu offerings to Iberico so if I am back (WHEN), I will return and order the katsu sandwich, with Iberico.

Bonus points for being a super nice and quiet location, perfect if you’re eating solo. If you’re into magazines you can take a nice post-lunch stroll to magCulture and then on to Magma.

London follows
I will say my follow list skewes towards the South East Asian, but if you’re looking for your next London food adventures these are some of the people I’d follow. They’re not ‘food influencers’ as such, but they are generally people who engage with food in one form or another and eat out (sometimes a lot) so you can see where they go and if it might tickle your fancy.

• Aforementioned Anna Sulan Masing

• Tim Anderson

• Jonathan Nunn, though he tends not to give away his locations and saves them for his excellent Vittles Magazine

• Melissa Thompson

• Celestial Peach

• Krish

What I’ve been reading
I’m not sure if you can find this in English, but I was sent a copy of Karin Lei’s Dim Sum & Dumplings (in Dutch) and it’s a really nice primer on dim sum (and dumplings) both for making it yourself at home as well as for eating some out.

I also finally read Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw and it mostly left me sad. Sad because it’s like a who’s who of chef’s who have since been outed as abusers. As well as sad for the man himself, and the crystal clear chapter he wrote on where he did not want his fame to end up for the sake of his daughter.

Spam wonderful spam
I had promised myself I’d also include some spam in these newsletters to recipes on my website from the past, but I think this newsletter is long enough. Though fall is coming in this part of the world, so may I recommend some shroom chorizo pasta for when you come home from work on a cold wet day?

Till nex time, when I can report back on my first trip ‘home’ to the Netherlands, which takes place in about a month or so.

If you have any London recommendations (please don’t say Dishoom), do let me know in the comments.

Till next time,

Dorothy