Latest reviews by walid

Pierre Victoire

walid — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:28:42 +0000

Rating: 3.7

Location: 5 Dean Street, W1D 3RQ, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7287 4250

Tags: french, good value, soho

Nice little French PlaceI've been to Pierre Victoire a few times over the past few years and always found it to be a relative safe bet. What characterizes Pierre Victoire is pretty good food at a very good value. I went back there last weekend for a meal and had a fairly good experience. As mentioned the food at Pierre Victoire is pretty good French food but it isn't exceptional. I had one of my favourite dishes bavette with shallots. Now for me a bavette is a good fairly chunky piece of great beef. The one from PV looked as though it had been flattened. For dessert I had the tiramisu with amaretto biscuits, which was alright. Overall I like this place and would probably return there if only it didn't get as noisy as it usually does.

Busaba Eathai

walid — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:28:21 +0000

Rating: 3.9

Location: 106 Wardour St, W1F 0TR, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7255 8686

Website: http://www.busaba.com

Tags: good food, chance encounters, good value

Fond MemoriesI'll always have a very fond memory of Busaba Eathai as it's actually in this restaurant that I met this girl dinning a few tables away from my table... was a good moment.

Anyway the food is fresh, tasty, and thoroughly enjoyable. I also like the dark wood paneling across the venue. This place is obviously very popular as there's always a queue of people wanting to enjoy their great food.

The Cumberland Hotel

walid — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:38:51 +0000

Rating: 2.0

Location: Great Cumberland Place, W1H 7DL, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 0870 400 8701

Website: http://www.cumberlandhotel-london.co.uk/?gclid=CK6Ope2MkJUCFQ5NQwodEWbcgQ

Tags: bar, slow service, Marble Arch, cocktails, swanky, expensive, trendy

Kua Bar @ The Cumberland HotelAs you enter the Cumberland hotel you're quite impressed by its massive entrance that has this modern scifi feel to it. Anyway this review isn't about the hotel itself but the Kua Bar. The Kua Bar at first site looks trendy, spacious, comfortable, trendy and swanky. I was there attending a Courvoisier event and looked forward to trying out a few new Courvoisier cocktails including the one picture which had chocolate. The cocktails themselves were great, well prepared and well presented. Now if I stopped my review at this point I'd give the Kua Bar a 4 stars... however... and that's a big however the service was extremely slow. Not because there was too many customers or not enough staff but from what I understand misunderstandings and bad management by the staff. Both my drinks and the other guests with me took 15 - 20 minutes to arrive which is completely unacceptable, so because of this I'd give the Kua Bar a 2 star and probably won't be returning.

L'Esquisse

walid — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:30:08 +0000

Rating: 3.0

Location: 73 avenue de Suffren, 75007, Paris, France

Phone: 01 47 34 90 56

Tags: jazz, steak, Paris, good value, italian

Jazzy Italian RestaurantHad lunch at l'Esquisse with my mom last Saturday. L'Esquisse is conveniently located 200 meters from my mom's home and as it was a sunny day we decided to give this place a try.

As it's found on l'Avenue du Suffren you get quite a few tourists who come to l'Esquisse for a bite to eat. We sat outside on the terrace to have our lunch as it was sunny and not too many cars were passing by... it is August and all Parisians flee Paris.

First impression of l'Esquisse is that it's a nice clean and relaxing venue. Second impression, is was a funny waiter we had from Bayonne. He was just super friendly, funny, and entertaining, his presence tempted me to give this place a 4 star. As for the food, it was pretty good. I had ordered an onglet with shallots that was quite good, tender but I would have expected a little better.

I think the best time to try this place is at night as they regularly have a live jazz band and/or a piano player to entertain the guests.

Cafe Arabe

walid — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:44:29 +0000

Rating: 4.0

Location: 184 Rue el Mouassine, , Marrakech, Morocco

Phone: +212(0)24429728

Website: http://www.cafearabe.com

Tags: moroccan, mergez, marrakesh, couscous, free wifi, middle eastern, good value, lounge, cocktails, romantic

Morocco meets ItalyMy brother, his wife, my friend and I were in Marrakesh about a month ago and whilst walking around in the Medina we came across this attractive looking entrance. It instantly reminded me, from the outside, Buddah Bar in Paris. So without further to do we went in and climbed the steps to go to the terrace. There we sat down on the comfy white sofas with a beautiful view of the old city of Marrakesh with the Atlas mountains in the background. The setting was perfect. As it was night we ordered a few cocktails, me having my traditional mojito which turned out to be pretty good.

The overall ambiance of this place is definitely one of a cool lounge with a mixture of tourists and Moroccans. The place is owned by an Italian and you can see some Italian influence in the decoration but also in the food, as I came back the following day to try out the restaurant. I ordered a Mergez Couscous which was divine, the couscous was perfectly cooked and the Mergez were very tasty, juicy and not overly spicy.

I'd strongly recommend you try out Cafe Arabe if you're in Marrakesh whether if you'd like a nice meal or simply an oasis of peace upstairs in the terrace with a few cocktails.

They also had free wifi which is great if you can't stay away from your work whilst on holiday ;-)

Maison Bertaux

walid — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:30:51 +0000

Rating: 4.6

Location: 28 Greek Street, W1D 5DQ, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7437 6007

Have been there for coffee and cakes a few weeks ago with a few friends. I love the decoration, it's quite original. As for the cakes I found them to be average and overpriced for the quality. If I wanted just cakes and no funky decoration then I would have gone to Paul down the street.

Le Pain Quotidien

walid — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:29:28 +0000

Rating: 4.0

Location: 18 Great Marlborough St, W1F 7HS, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7486 6154

Website: http://www.painquotidien.com/

Not to bad, but I personally prefer Paul which is close to Le Pain Quotidien

Gerry's Off Licence

walid — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:28:41 +0000

Rating: 4.3

Location: 74 Old Compton Street, W1D 4UW, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7734 4215

Friendly off license place run by a Greek I believe. Seems to know a lot about the area.

Piada

walid — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:17:39 +0000

Rating: 4.0

Location: 12-14 St John Street, EC1M 4AY, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7253 0472

Website: http://www.piada.co.uk

Tags: italian, piadine, farringdon, good value, crowded

PiadinesAs littlevegemite's review explains, paidines are filled flatbread which with the right ingredients taste delicious. I've been there before and today had the chance to have another bite at one of their famous Piadines. They have 16 different varieties of piadines. Piadine zero for example has salame milanese and stracchine cheese, piadine nove has bresaola and parmesan and the one I had today is the piadine uno which comes with prosciutto and mozzarella. Whatever piadine you take you can pretty much guaranteed that the filling ingredients are quite fresh and tasty.

Prices are reasonable and vary between Â£4.10 and Â£5.00. If you find yourself in the area and want a little something different then try out Piada.

The Diner

walid — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:04:23 +0000

Rating: 3.0

Location: 18 Ganton Street, W1F 7BU, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7287 8962

Website: http://www.thedinersoho.com

Tags: relaxed, american diner, carnaby street, french toast, pancakes, young and fun, noisy

Pancake TowerA friend of mine brought me to The Diner this afternoon as she wanted French Toasts.... ooohhh French Toasts hmmmmm. I love French Toasts but I also love pancakes, especially a pancake tower American style. Fighting our way up Regent Street we approached Carnaby Street where tucked to the side you can find The Diner.

The decoration is what you'd expect a traditional American diner to look like abroad, ie. close to the real thing, but trying a little bit too hard.

My friend ordered the French Toasts and me my pancakes. Now I make French Toasts, and I love them when they're crispy from the outside and soft in the inside. Her pancakes looked nice, except that they weren't crispy from the outside and had some cinnamon which may please some but not me. As for my pancakes as you can see from the picture it was a good portion but not what I would describe as a pancake tower.

Overall we had a good experience, the food was ok, the service was fine, the pricing is good, but the music was getting too loud. So I'm giving this place a "small" 3 stars.

Viet

walid — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:52:16 +0000

Rating: 3.7

Location: 34 Greek St, W1D 5DJ, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7494 9888

Tags: vietnamese, bad service, cheap eat, crowded, soho

DisappointingAfter reading the reviews by coldclimate and lenalouise I was very much looking forward to trying out Viet.

Ok lets start with the good points, as lenalouise wrote in her review the warm beef salad is indeed quite nice and excellent to start working your appetite for the main dish. The spring rolls that coldclimate had were also quite good. I had the King Prawn with noodles which was quite good and of course the pricing is excellent at Â£10 per head for a shared starter and a main dish.

Now what brings this place to a 2 stars and very nearly a 1 star is the incredibly poor service. I had reserved a table for 4 and left them my name + mobile number. Because we arrived 8 minutes late they had canceled my reservation without calling me to check if I was coming or running late and gave our table away. Luckily for them they managed to squeeze us into a smaller table.

Mistake #1, Mistake #2 the waiter seems to have no clue about the food he served. My friend can't eat flour and thus we tried to identify dishes that were flour free, which of course he had no clue. Mistake #3 taking forever to take our orders and bringing our dishes one at a time instead of all together, thus we waited for everyone to be served before eating our meal.

I would have given this place a 1 star if the food wasn't so cheap, but I prefer paying extra if it means receiving a better service.

Skylon

walid — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:45:10 +0000

Rating: 2.3

Location: Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7654 7800

Website: http://www.danddlondon.com/restaurants/skylon/home

Tags: south bank, royal festival hall, merguez, slow service, waterloo, high ceilings

Impressive Views but OK FoodThis is a really difficult one to rate, on one side the service was a 2 star, the venue a 5 star, and the food 3 star... ok so overall a 3 star.

Found on top of the Royal Festival Hall, Skylon has a restaurant and brasserie section. My friends and I sat in the brasserie section as we starred at the beautiful view of the south bank. With its incredibly high ceilings Skylon feels very airy and with its candles at night would probably be romantic.

The food is ok at best, I had the Merguez Couscous which wasn't very exciting in terms of taste and texture. What this place has going is that the food is reasonably priced. See picture of the menu.

The disappointment came with the quality of the service. Whilst there was an abundance of waiters it was quite difficult to get their attention and when you did the service was slowish. Additionally I overheard at least 4 times dishes / glasses being dropped by the staff.

In spite of the above issues I would recommend you give this place a try, if not for the food do it for the great views and superb airy atmosphere.

Brumus

walid — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:31:48 +0000

Rating: 3.0

Location: Haymarket Hotel, SW1Y 4BP, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7470 4007

Website: http://www.haymarkethotel.com/index.php?page_id=8

Tags: italian, plush, haymarket, hotel, classy, expensive, trendy, stylish, bar, romantic

Loungy BarBrumus is an Italian Restaurant that also has an elegant lounge type bar.

Brumus is found within the Haymarket Hotel which is part of the Firmdale Hotel chain which includes boutique hotels such as the Charlotte Street Hotel, Covent Garden Hotel and the Soho Hotel. All three are very stylish and relaxed design hotels in London.

I discovered Brumus thanks to a friend of mine who took me there with her friends after a pleasant meal at Noura. From the moment we entered Brumus it reminded me of a favourite bar of mine in Paris called Buddah Bar, where the famous Buddah Bar albums originated from.

Brumus has does soft plush looking red sofas which relax you as you look at their large selection of alcoholic drinks. Low lighting and jazz music added to creating a very comfortable and relaxing atmosphere where you can enjoy each others company and conversations without having to speak loudly to hear each other.

I ordered a Pear cocktail made with pear liquor, vodka and a few other ingredients which I don't recall. It was superb fresh, not too strong in alcohol nor too dominating by the pear liquor.

I really enjoyed this place, the only reservation I had was the red wallpaper which unfortunatley looked a bit cheap, they should have covered their wall in a similar type fabric as the one on the sofas, now that would have been very classy.

I would recommend this place if you come out of the Haymarket Theater Royal or from a restaurant to enjoy your friends company or the one of a special person, but at Â£12 a cocktail it isn't for the faint hearted.

Noura Central

walid — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:06:30 +0000

Rating: 3.0

Location: 122 Jermyn Street, SW1Y 4UJ, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7839 2020

Website: http://www.noura-brasseries.co.uk

Tags: comfortable, pretentious staff, quality food, middle eastern, Lebanese, stylish

Good but can be PretentiousI hesitated whether or not to give this place a 2 stars or 3 stars. But in the end decided for the 3 stars.

Ok so what are the good things about this place:
* Very central in London and easy access
* It's good Lebanese food, and I LOVE Lebanese food. It's delicate, well prepared, and very tasty
* The venue itself is pleasant, stylish, and comfortable

What is irritating about this place is the staff. Whilst they're quite efficient they can be quite pretentious at times. It seems that no matter what you order it isn't good enough or more importantly in sufficient quantity. It's a pity because accept for this issue this place could easily get 4 stars.

I would go back to this place for the 3 reasons I gave above but if another Lebanese restaurant had friendly staff and food of the same quality I would prefer to travel the distance than go this central Noura.

Elephant Walk

walid — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:45:59 +0000

Rating: 4.0

Location: 98 West End la, NW6 2LU, London, United Kingdom

Phone: 020 7328 3308

Website: http://www.elephantwalk.co.uk

Tags: friendly staff, West End Lane, Sri Lanka, West Hampstead, lamb, good value

Award Winning Sri Lankan RestaurantI have to admit that I have no knowledge of Sri Lankan food and that I would make the mistake of amalgamating Sri Lankan food with Indian food.
So when I heard that not too far away from where I live is a Sri Lankan restaurant I decided to walk over there and order some take away.
Elephant Walk is a small sized restaurant that is clean and spacious. What it slightly lacks in decoration to make it feel different from most London restaurants it makes it up with a friendly staff and incredibly tasty food.
I ordered the following:
* Devilled Lamb (Â£6.50) - A dry dish of lamb marinated in ginger, garlic and green chillies tossed and cooked with spices and capsicum & sesame.
* Dry aubergine curry (Â£3.50) with tamarind base
* Basmati rice (Â£2.25)
The Devilled Lamb was incredible. Perfectly cooked and tender. It was hot but not too spiced. Associated with the dry aubergine curry and basmati rice was simply delicious. I understand why Charles Campion rated the Elephant Walk as "One of the three best new comers in London" and why it won the Cobra Good Curry Award as the best Sri Lankan Restaurant in the UK.
As you can see from the prices above they're already very competitively priced but they also have a 50% discount on selected days during the week. I also understand that they have a function room downstairs which can be used for large groups dinning out or for parties.
If you live in the North West I strongly encourage you to try this restaurant, not just for the great food they serve there but also to learn about Sri Lankan cuisine.