Akara, Borough Market, London West African and Brazilian restaurant review

I've not eaten much West African or Brazilian cooking before, so I can’t exactly tell you the difference between a Nigerian akara osu and a Brazilian acaraje.

So, my assessment of the reimagined akara on offer at the eponymous restaurant in Borough Market is going to be about as nuanced as a seagull assessing the relative merits of French fries compared to triple cooked chips.

All I can say is that these deep-fried black bean fritters are bloody tasty and so too is the rest of Akara’s West African and Brazilian cooking. Thankfully, their menu also includes a helpful glossary to provide a primer of dish components like kokoro yaji and noir yassa.

Owned by restaurateur Aji Akokomi, Akara holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand whilst its sibling restaurant Akoko holds a Michelin star. Located in a cavernous, converted railway arch with huge bifold doors, Akara is a cool and airy space to spend a summer’s evening.

We were catching up with a group of friends and so ordered a load of dishes to share. We focused on Akara’s snacks and small plates, but eye-catching larger plate include grilled pork feijoada (£24) and cod fillet moqueqa (£24). Whilst I was lost in conversation, Akara’s spice and texture packed cooking couldn’t help but draw my attention back with each mouthful.

On the booze front, we kicked off with a pair of excellent cocktails - a fruity and boozy Akojo (£13) made with Planteray coconut and pineapple rums and a citrus packed Caiprinha (£13). We followed it up with a bottle of super fruity Jumi-Juma Moldovan Chardonnay-Riesling (£45) and schooners of Lost and Grounded Keller Pils (£6).

Bowls of crisps were both great – green plantain lengths (£5) with an aubergine sauce and spiced cassava chips (£6) with kelewele spice topped cashew sauce.

My favourite of the picky bits, however, were a quartet of soft and airy sinasir rice pancakes (£5) which were accompanied by nutty black bean hummus with a deceptive chilli kick.

Akara, the restaurant’s headline dish, were most definitely worth naming the restaurant after. Golden, crisp and fluffy crumbed, the savoury black-eyed bean fritters were stuffed with a variety of fillings, including sweet barbecue prawn (£12) and shreds of slow cooked beef short rib (£12). They were excellent dipped in a savoury Senegalese hot sauce.

It’s saying something when the rice is the standout dish of a meal. But Akara’s efike rice (£8) was so good that it could also appropriately be named epic rice. Served in a striking cauldron with an equally impressive wooden spoon, the fluffy fried grains were turbocharged with the decadent umami-intensity of coconut, shellfish and chicken broth.

Smoky chicken alata skewers (£20 for two) with a sticky, sweet and fiery scotch bonnet glaze were superb. And so too was garnish of crisp seeds and crushed chicken skin.

Nuggets of yielding, slow-cooked lamb dibi (£14) were accompanied by a tangy mustard onion sauce.

Tender barbecued aubergine (£14), meanwhile, was crowned with crispy kale and paired with a slightly sweet carrot sauce and a vibrant Senegalese green herb and chilli rof paste.

Blushing pink and char-kissed flat iron steak (£14) was good but arguably the weakest link in the meal as I did find a few bits a little too chewy. Accompanied by kulikuli yaji, a spicy Nigerian peanut powder, it certainly wasn’t short of flavour.

For dessert, a squidgy warm plantain cake (£9) was accompanied by milk ice cream and smoked butter sauce. Combining toasty caramel and sweet fruit notes, it was an excellent sticky toffee pudding and banana bread hybrid.

With its reasonably priced spiced-laden cooking, cool setting and friendly service, Akara is exactly my kind of restaurant. It’s another big win for Borough Market’s excellent restaurant scene and it’s certainly given me the taste to try more West African and Brazilian cooking.

The Details:

Address - Akara, Arch 208, 18 Stoney Street, Borough Market, London SE1 9AD

Web - https://www.akaralondon.co.uk/

Telephone - 0203 8615190

Fallow, London restaurant review

In the age of social media, the viral chef rules supreme. 

It must be frustrating for some chefs these days. When all you want to do is focus on cooking and running a kitchen, success can seem to depend just as much on being a social media personality as it does on your culinary skills. I’m sure many chefs choose a back-of-house career for a reason, and constantly being expected to create content probably isn’t one of them.

Chefs like Matthew Ryle, Adam Byatt, Will Murray and Jack Croft have all enhanced their reputations by pulling back the curtain on how to prepare restaurant style dishes. Each has amassed hundreds of thousands of social media followers and, I’m sure, bolstered their booking sheets as a result.

Will and Jack are the duo behind @fallowchefs, which currently has an eyepopping 1.6 million followers on Instagram. They’re also the chef patrons of Fallow, a restaurant that’s located just a minute’s walk from Piccadilly Circus and is currently ranked at 89 in the National Restaurant Awards.

Billed as serving “conscious gastronomy”, Will and Jack have done a fine job of creating menus that are both aspirational yet accessible. Dishes include crowd pleasers like a dairy cow burger (£19) or crispy fried chicken buns (£10) as well as more challenging plates such as sweet and sour pig head (£59).

As we sat at lovely high table in the window at Fallow on a Sunday lunchtime, we were surrounded by families with toddlers, groups of tourists and chichi couples, many of whom were getting stuck into a Sunday roast. Fallow have certainly succeeded in pulling in a broad customer base – a bit like Cardiff’s Pasture, which seems to appeal to everyone.

As we’d been on the booze on Saturday night, we stuck to alcohol free drinks - a fresh and fruity Dragon Punch (£11) made with tea, apricots and mint, and a highly gluggable Beavertown 0% (£8) pale ale.

We ordered a bunch of snacks, small plates and larger dishes to share, and a smoked leek Caesar salad (£16) was the first to arrive. Layered with sweet charred leeks, crisp leaves, nuggets of salty pancetta and crunchy croutons coated in a briny anchovy charged dressing, it was a first-rate salad. 

Next to show up was a silky smooth, creamy and umami rich mushroom parfait (£18) with a wonderfully complex boozy twang of port, madeira, and brandy. It was served alongside slabs of charred sourdough. I thought Tom Simmons’ version was as brilliant as mushroom pâtés could get, but somehow this was even better.  

Crisp and sweet corn ribs (£9) were coated in a compellingly savoury and smoky spice rub made with kombu and smoked paprika. They were a simple yet highly addictive snack. 

Smoked beef dairy ribs (£15), with just a few mouthfuls of meat left on the bone, were also just the right size to live up to their snack billing. I'd love to have had a go at one before it had been stripped of most of its meat. Stupidly tender and richly beefy, they were excellent dredged through a pool of intensely umami reduced cooking juices.

A cod’s head (£29) was our main event and it looked like a monster, both in portion size and personality. But in fact, it was a delicate beast that required plenty of burrowing around its various nooks and crannies to extract the equivalent of a small fillet of fish. It was well worth the effort as the meaty fish was glorious drenched in a spicy and glossy sauce that tasted like it was 50% sriracha and 50% butter.

Finally, sweet and juicy heritage tomatoes (£12) were piled on top of a bed of creamy labneh and cleverly seasoned with the crunch of seeds and fragrance of deep-fried curry leaves.

At this point, the efficient yet standoffish service that we’d experienced up until now, ground to a halt and after fifteen minutes of waiting for our table to be cleared, we gave up and asked for the bill (which included an eyebrow raising 15% service charge). 

I was seriously impressed by the elevated yet crowd-pleasing food at Fallow and I can see why Will and Jack’s cooking has amassed them over a million followers on social media. It’s slightly frustrating that it was let down by indifferent service as it didn’t come close to the level of the excellent cooking. 

The Details:

Address - Fallow, 52 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RP
Web - https://fallowrestaurant.com/
Telephone - 020 8017 1788

Etles, Walthamstow Uyghur restaurant review

Over the years, one of the questions that I've been asked that pops up now and again is,“Can you recommend any BYOB restaurants in Cardiff?” 

I can totally understand why. If you want to have a few drinks whilst you’re out for a meal, then the typical mark-up for wine and beer can make it a seriously expensive endeavour. 

At my last time of checking, the places in Cardiff that I would recommend are Vegetarian Food Studio, Sen BBQ and Pim's @ iCookThai. Sadly it looks as though the excellent Ponnuswamy has now closed. Although, it’s been a while since I’ve visited any of them... 

But I digress, because this week I’m writing about a BYOB restaurant in Walthamstow, where we happened to be visiting an old university friend of Mrs G. 

Etles is an understated place that’s located near Walthamstow Central tube and focuses on Uyghur cooking from the Xinjiang region of northwest China. Due to Xinjiang's location along the ancient Silk Road, Uyghur cuisine incorporates a colourful fusion of influences and utilises spices like cumin, Szechuan pepper and chilli.

I’ve only had Uyghur cooking once before when we were in Munich and fondly remember the cumin spiced meat and elastic hand-pulled noodles which we ate. 

On the menu at Etles is a selection of dumplings, hand-pulled noodles, meat skewers and sides. 

And to drink, we shared a selection of local Pressure Drop beers and German lagers, with a 20% service charge added to the bill to cover the booze.

We shared a couple of starters between three of us whilst we waited around 30 minutes for our sharing main course to arrive. 

Minced lamb filled boiled tugur dumplings (£9.99) were juicy and thin cased if a little light on flavour. However, a big hitting chilli vinegar added plenty of oomph.

Lamb kebabs (£14.99), served on their ornate metal skewers, were commendably tender and had a lovely cumin chilli marinade going on.

Large plate chicken (£39.99), Etles’s house special main dish, most certainly lived up to its no nonsense name. The large plate was laden with plenty of food for three people. It probably could have served four with a few more additional sides. 

Elastic thin flat homemade noodles, soft potatoes, toothsome peppers and nuggets of tender chicken on the bone were coating in a mammoth flavoured, warming spiced and meaty sauce with chilli, Sichuan peppercorns, five spice and bay leaf.

On the side a crisp, soft and dense crumbed naan bread (£2.99) topped with nigella seeds was the ideal mop.

We had really tasty, well-priced and laid-back meal of Uyghur cooking at Etles and it’s well worth a visit if you’re ever near Walthamstow - especially if you’re on the hunt for somewhere that’s BYOB. 

The details:

Address - Etles, 235 Hoe Street, London E17 9PP
Web - https://etleswalthamstow.com/Home.html
Telephone -  020 3620 6978

The Tamil Crown, Islington, London desi pub review

I've said it before but I’m a huge fan of desi pubs. After all, delicious Indian food and well-kept beers are a match made in heaven.

Tap and Tandoor in Solihull and the Soho Tavern in Gateshead are both places where we've eaten and drunk very well on our travels. 

On our most recent trip to London, we managed to squeeze in a visit to The Tamil Crown in Islington. Whilst it stretches the definition of a pub as most of its space dedicated to restaurant dining, there’s still room for a few people at the bar to enjoy a pint alongside an onion bhaji or two.

Owned by former Roti King executive chef Prince Durairaj and ex-Market Halls general manager Glen Leeson, the Tamil Crown is currently ranked as the 35th best gastropub in the UK in the ever reliable Top 50 Gastropubs list. Alongside its stablemates The Tamil Prince and Tamila, the Tamil Crown leans towards Southern Indian cooking, as that’s where Durairaj hails from.

We weren't drinking after a craft beer holiday in Tallinn but I think it’s fair to say that the Tamil Crown’s beer selection isn’t the most inspiring, especially when there are London breweries on its doorstep like The Kernel and Pressure Drop. Harbour’s Beach Party Pale Ale (£8 a pint) and Purity Session IPA (£8) are about as exciting as it gets. Instead, I enjoyed a bready alcohol free Lucky Saint lager (£6.50) and Mrs G saw off a fruity and fragrant Desi Spritz alcohol free cocktail (£11.50).

Snacks kicked off the meal, and okra fries (£9) were probably the best I've ever eaten. Hyper crisp and grease free, their potently spiced batter surrounded thin fronds of vegetable.

Beef masala uttapam (£12.50) was the standout dish of the meal. A light and crisp rice flour pancake was topped with slow-cooked, headily spiced shreds of beef which had been fried to a golden crisp on their surface. It was joined by a creamy and fiery coconut chutney.

Finally, a gorgeously juicy and crisp-skinned lime leaf scented chicken thigh (£13.50) was delicious dunked in a pot of fresh and fruity pineapple chutney. It had lux Greggs mango chicken oval bite vibes, and I was fully sold.

Onto mains, and the other standout dish of the meal was a corker of an aubergine curry (£13.50) with soft and sticky chunks of the meaty vegetable and long cooked sweet onions. It was a rich, deeply spiced and decadent curry.

A Chettinad lamb curry (£16) had a well-spiced and meaty gravy and a decent amount of soft and tender pieces of meat. But it was no better than similar dishes I’ve eaten at Cardiff’s myriad excellent southern Indian restaurants.

On the carb front, coconut cream was stirred through pilau rice (£6.50) to give it a sticky rice-like decadence. Its creaminess also worked exceptionally well to balance the punchy spicing of the other dishes.

A good roti (£4.50) was light and elastic, but it didn’t quite live up to the exemplars at Roti King – it just wasn’t as flaky or crisp.

With its combination of big-flavoured southern Indian cooking in a laid-back pub setting, we had an excellent meal at the Tamil Crown. I can see why it’s a contemporary London desi pub success story. 

The Details:

Address - The Tamil Crown, 16 Elia Street, London N1 8DE

Web - https://www.thetamilcrown.com/

Telephone - 020 3342 0709

Agora, Borough Market, London Greek restaurant review

Despite Agora and Oma both being Greek restaurants, and one being upstairs from the other on the edge of Borough Market, they're both quite different.

Whilst Oma is light and airy, Agora is dark, moody and intense.

Whilst Oma riffs on its high-end Greek cuisine, Agora more closely follows tradition with its rustic Greek cooking.

Whilst Oma is owned by David Carter (the restaurant supremo behind Manteca and SmokeStak), Agora is also owned by David Carter.

And whilst Oma is great value for a Michelin-starred restaurant in Central London, Agora is ridiculous value for a London restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Okay, I guess they’re not really that different, but you catch my drift.

Billed as souvlaki bar, Agora’s menu is divided into spreads, skewers + grill, salata, braises, wood-oven flatbreads, and wood-burning rotisserie.

On a dreary Tuesday lunchtime during the middle of a tube strike, Agora’s industrial dining space still filled up swiftly when they opened at midday. It’s a good indicator that it’s still one of London’s hottest tables even after being open for a couple of years. Most of Agora is given over to walk-ins, and we perched at one of their many counters that surround the bars, windows and kitchen.

As we'd been boozing a lot lately, we stuck to the soft drinks - a fresh and fragrant rhubarb lemonade (£3.50) and an even better sinus tickling ginger soda (£4).

Hummus and crisps (£5) is a picky bit classic and here a silky version of the dip was topped with crunched up paprika spiked crisps. It was a lovely idea and meant the whole thing could be gobbled up with a spoon rather than needing hands.

Oma's take on tirokafteri (£5) saw tangy feta mixed with sweet roasted peppers and the gentle fieriness of pickled chilli. It was another excellent dip.

Freshly baked breads were ideal dipping implements - an airy and slightly elastic Wildfarmed flatbread (£3.50) was the pick of the two.

A sesame seed dotted koulouri pita (£3.50) was in more familiar soft bread roll territory.

Onto the skewers, and a pair of pork souvlaki (£5 each) were beautifully crisped around the edges with blushing pink interiors and well dusted with oregano.

Even better were a pair of gorgeously juicy and crisp-skinned slow cooked chicken thighs (£6 each), scattered with herbs and squeezed with lemon.

The Greek summer holiday vibes kept coming with a salata (£10.50) made with nutty and crisp carob rusks and a big dollop of thick and creamy galomizthra cheese.

Finally soft and tender chickpeas (£9) bobbed in a light vegetable broth which was zhushed up with the addition of verdant green zhoug.

All in, our bill came to £75 with ample food for two, a drink each, and 12.5% service. I’d say this is good value anywhere, let alone the middle of London. We had a delicious lunch of summery Greek flame cooking at Agora. I already had a lot of love for Oma and its more casual sibling downstairs is another big winner of a restaurant.

The Details:

Address - Agora, 4 Bedale Street, Borough Market, London SE1 9AL

Web - https://www.agora.london/