• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Euston
• Category: Bars and Pubs

London NW1 2AL
020 7388 0021

patheticshark said
dire student pub, discerning people avoid!
This pub is populated exclusively by students staying in the halls around Tavistock Gardens (Hughes Parry, Canterbury etc) and by people who go there to beat up students. Nice! It plays loud, awful pop music and serves crap drinks at student prices. You will probably love this place if you are the kind of person who likes drinking Carlsberg and headbutting people, or who likes doing karaoke to Christina Aguilera; otherwise you may want to kill yourself. I strongly recommend avoiding it and avoiding any fellow students who try to convince you to go there with them, because London is FULL of excellent pubs and this is about as far away from them as you can get.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Lewisham
• Category: Bars and Pubs

London SE10 8RT
020 8692 6258

patheticshark said
fab pub in Greenwich with its on microbrewery
The Union in Greenwich has a lot going for it. Firstly, it's on Royal Hill, which is pretty much the nicest part of Greenwich in my opinion - there's another great pub next door, a proper old-style butchers, deli, fruit shop etc. Plus it's right next to the park. Secondly, it's a pub from the award-winning Meantime brewery, - you won't find any Fosters or Becks here. Plus, these beers are all ace - my favourites are the Wheat beer and the Raspberry beer. Thirdly, it has a really great garden with loads of benches and heaters - perfect for lazy summer afternoons, or if you smoke. The food I've tried isn't outstanding but is good quality pub food. The only problem is it's wildly popular with Greenwich Uni students so can be mobbed on the weekends.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Clerkenwell
• Category: Cafes and Coffee Shops

London EC1V 9HL

patheticshark said
fabulous soups and salads
This place is really, really popular with people who work in the area for lunches - there's always a long queue (though the staff are very efficient, so you don't have to wait too long). The soups are really good, all served with a hefty chunk of bread. They publish all the soups they have on the website every morning, so you can decide what you want from the office and nip down to pick it up (and orders from the rest of the office if you're not careful). (Menu is at http://www.nusakitchen.co.uk/index.php?go=menu). They always have a good range of meat and non-meat soups, usually with a good balance of Asian and Western styles - so you'll usually find ramen or pho amongst cream of courgette (which is really good, by the way) or minestrone. It's a bit addictive, though, so be careful! They have a loyalty card thing going on, I think you get a free soup after 5 soups or something. They also do some tasty salads (like falafel, crayfish, tuna nicoise, greek etc) plus fruit salad and granola and stuff.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Brixton Hill
• Category: Restaurants

London SW2 4RD
020 8674 6888

patheticshark said
Best sushi in Streatham
OK, I admit, I don't think there are any other sushi restaurants in Streatham. Seriously though, Oishii is good. And not just for sushi - they do a nice mixture of Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai. The sushi is fresh and tasty and the noodle dishes are great; service is excellent and the slightly weird American-diner style decor adds to the experience. It's also really good value. Highlights are the sushi and the yaki soba is damn good. It's usually full of cute couples having romantic meals for two. A highlight of Streatham Hill! They also give you sweets at the end of the meal, which is really exciting because some of them are really tasty (like coconut flavour) and some are HORRIBLE (like, cough medicine). Exciting!

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Camden Town
• Category: Restaurants

London NW1 7PG
020 7482 3990

patheticshark said
Really good sushi
Being in Camden and serving damn good food, this place is unsurprisingly busy, so you might have to wait for a table if you haven't booked. I reckon it's worth the wait though - not the cheapest restaurant in the world, but still good value and the sushi is really fresh and excellent quality. The bento boxes are great too. The waiters can look a little fraught, but overall my experience of the service has bene good (though I know some reviewers have had negative experiences). It also gets a bit noisy - especially if you're two people sitting next to a table of 6 people being drunk and loud - but the positives outweight the negatives and I'll be going back.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Greenwich
• Category: Restaurants

London SE10 9BG
020 8853 2770

patheticshark said
Food OK, service pretty awful
To be fair, it's in central Greenwich, so it's always rammed with families with screaming kids. So it's not the most relaxed atmosphere to work in. At the same time, I've never been anywhere where the waiters actually contribute to the terrible atmosphere quite so much. The last time I came here, we walked through the door and one of the waiters had a tantrum and seemingly on purpose smashed an entire tray of glasses on the floor. Truly bizarre. They are also very good at getting orders wrong, taking several hours and looking at you like you're scum if you have a 2 for 1 voucher. That said, pizza express pizza is generally pretty tasty and reliable and these are no exception, so if you're not easily wound up by insane waiters or screaming children it's a fairly safe bet.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Lewisham
• Category: Restaurants

London SE8 4PQ
020 8692 9633

patheticshark said
OK if you're skint and starving
Noodle King is really, really cheap. Unfortunately the time I went there I felt horribly ill for several hours afterwards, even though I picked out all the alarming looking defrosting shellfish out of my noodles. It's a bit like eating in a McDonalds but with less character, and everything is really greasy. It's a popular option with local kids because of the prices. They have a buffet thing going on at the back which I haven't tried, though it seems pretty popular... to be honest the 'a la carte' (ha) prices are so low that I don't think there's much difference. I would recommend this if you only had a few quid on you, aren't remotely fussy and don't get sick easily.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Charing Cross
• Category: Restaurants

London WC2R 0DE
020 7240 3070

patheticshark said
fast food that's good for you
There are loads of Leons around now, which is mostly a Good Thing. The food is fresh and organic and really tasty, especially the cakes. They have a kind of 'tapas' philosophy, so you can try small amounts of lots of different things. This only falls down when you get a really tiny portion of something and feel slightly cheated (but that's only happened when I've bought takeaway from there, rather than in the restaurant). Their branding is done very well, not that it makes a particular difference to the eating experience but the restaurants are all nicely designed with fun books on organic gardening and that kind of thing.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Brockley
• Category: Food and Drink

London SE4 2SH

patheticshark said
Great friendly Thai cafe
Brockley locals get very protective about Smiles, and with good reason - it's a great value local thai cafe with excellent service and delicious food. It's also pretty small, so probably worth booking ahead, though we've always been lucky so far. It's also bring your own booze, which makes it nice and cheap (though you might want to do this in advance of getting to that bit of Brockley as there aren't too many options). All the noodle dishes and curries that we've tried are supertasty. Note - this used to be called Nass and Natt cafe, so if you're looking for other reviews it's worth searching for that.

• Added: 31st of August 2008
• Area: Bloomsbury
• Category: Restaurants

London WC1N 3BP
020 7242 2434

patheticshark said
Massive tasty pizzas. Hurrah!
I have a lot of love for La Porchetta. It's tucked away down a street with basically nothing on it, so not easily found unless you're actually looking for it (though it is a very central location). It's often full of savvy students and young couples on cheap dates - and downstairs there is usually a birthday party going on with 20 people around a table (if you are lucky enough to have your birthday party here, the waiters will drop some pizza dough on your head to celebrate. Ace!). It's usually pretty crowded but service is pretty efficient and the pizzas are really, really tasty, as well as being huge. Also: dead cheap house wine and the bruschetta is brilliant. A Bloomsbury gem.