Pacific Plaza - Hot Korean

HOT KOREAN

Cuisine: Korean

Nearest tube: Wembley Park

Address: Wembley Retail Park, Engineers Way, HA9 0EG

Remember my lament for the deceased Oriental City? In looking up the address, I found out that a reincarnation has existed in Wembley Park for almost a year, complete with pan-Asian food court. I could barely contain my joy, and less than 24 hours later, here is the full report.

It's about 10% the size of Oriental City, and largely consists of a couple of shops and a food court. The food court currently has about six stalls (Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian etc.) so here is the review for one of them - Hot Korean.

Being currently bunged up with a stinking cold, I go for the spiciest dishes I can think of: Tteokbokki (rice cakes in spicy sauce) and soon-dubu-jjigae (spicy tofu seafood soup). The friendly waitress compliments me on my Korean pronunciation (yeah, I'm awesome) and we even get our food brought out to us! Pacific Plaza 1 : 0 Oriental City.

The food is ready in minutes, and it's delicious. The Tteokbokki are cooked perfectly with just the right level of spiciness, and the soon-dubu-jjigae is piping hot, full of generous chunks of tofu, squid, clams and a runny egg-yolk (which I opt to put on my rice). The meal is spicy, bursting with flavour, and at around £5 per dish, reasonably priced.

This is what my soon-dubu-jjigae might've looked like if I hadn't eaten it immediately without taking a photo. Whoops.

So, a promising start for a food court that I am VERY excited about. I will definitely be returning soon to try out some of the other stalls.

Service 5/5

Food 4/5

Value 4/5

Ambience 2/5

Total: 15/20

Why you should go there: Cheap, authentic Korean food.

Don’t leave without trying: Soon-dubu-jjigae

Wing Tai

WING TAI

Cuisine: Chinese

Nearest tube: Brent Cross

Address: 395 Edgware Road, NW2 6LN

Tel: 020 8452 2333

On June 1st 2008 something very precious to me died. 

Oriental City, AKA Yaohan Plaza, was the finest oriental shopping centre to grace the planet. The two jewels in its crown were: 1) the food court, which had about a dozen stalls selling dirt-cheap top-notch food from any Asian cuisine you could think of; 2) China City, an outstanding Chinese restaurant. Brent Council closed it two years ago for redevelopment, and a little part of me died inside. No demolition or building work has yet taken place. The building remains boarded-up and empty. This makes me so angry, words cannot do it justice.

So that's the history lesson over. The legacy being that since 2008, I have been looking for a Chinese restaurant to replace it. A few have come close, but never matched the quality of the legend that is China City. Until now.

Wing Tai is a restaurant that appeared after the redevelopment of the Staples Corner branch of Wing Yip, a popular oriental supermarket. It sits just on the corner of the complex, in the same building as the supermarket and the delightful Reindeer Cafe (review coming soon). My knowledge of Wing Tai was limited to peeping through the windows, but last night I finally got round to eating there. And boy, am I glad that I did.

The decor ticks all the boxes, elegant and traditional with that reassuring touch of tackiness that comes with huge golden dragons stuck to the wall. Despite being sat on a table by the wall (giving me a majestic view of the car park through the window), this is a nice place to eat in. It fills up quickly, and it's easy to see why. 

First course, the only way to start any Chinese banquet - deep fried soft shell crab. If you haven't tried it before, stop reading this and go get some. Rarely have I had a bad version of this dish, but Wing Tai's is particularly good. It's crispy, not too greasy, well-sized and served with a generous amount of that wonderful diced onion, chilli and garlic relish that is nearly as good as the crab itself.

Soft shell crab

For mains, we go for three kinds of roasted meat: the duck is adequate, the belly pork is crisp, and the char siu is truly delicious, moist and succulent. The mapo tofu isn't the best I've tasted, the sauce being overly salty and lacking the pungent flavour of fermented beans that I know and love.

Mixed roasted meats (front) and mapo tofu (back)

The mixed seafood ho fun is wonderful, an enormous portion packed with juicy king prawns, huge sweet scallops, and thick chunks of surprisingly tender squid. The noodles themselves are cooked perfectly, with that unique burnt oil taste that I crave. The real standout dish is the eel in black bean sauce. The eel is fresh, moist and creamy (I imagine it's been bought fresh from the neighbouring supermarket and their remarkable fish counter). The sauce is exquisite, so much more than normal black bean sauce, with a delicate combination of flavours between the salty beans, the sharp tang of ginger, and a wonderful bitter citrus hint of what I can only imagine is finely diced orange peel.

Eel in black bean sauce

Mixed seafood ho fun

All in all, this was a truly delicious meal that rivals any Chinese restaurant I could think of. It's not cheap (around £80 for three people) but I wouldn't expect food this good to be cheap. The service was a little slow, but our comedy waiter made up for it ("What's that dish those people are having?" "Sizzling . . . something").

Congratulations Wing Tai, to the top of the Chinese restaurant league you go.

Service 3/5

Food 5/5

Value 3/5

Ambience 4/5

Total: 15/20

Why you should go there: The best Chinese food in town.

Don’t leave without trying: Eel in black bean sauce

Byron

BYRON

Cuisine: American

Nearest tube: Covent Garden

Address: 33-35 Wellington Street, WC2E 7BN

Tel: 0207 420 9850

Aha. So that's what a burger is supposed to taste like.

I'll go on record to say that this is the best burger I've ever had, and I don't even like burgers that much. My solitary trip to GBK I found uninspiring, yet something about this chain of diners brings an otherwise dull dish to life. Going out to have burgers for an evening meal was once unfathomable to me, but having been to Byron twice, it's likely to remain a staple of my eatery circle. 

Byron is decked out in classic American 50's diner deco, with a touch of class (note the mirrored toilet doors) and is usually full, as I suspect its reputation is beginning to spread. Upon arrival, one of a gaggle of cheery female waitresses welcomes us in and seats us, reminding me how much of a difference service with a smile really makes (note to waiters/waitresses in general: cheer up, might never happen.)

The menu is minimalist and reassuringly simple, a small piece of card with a list of about five different burgers and side orders. So many restaurants have such a bewildering range of options that choosing your meal can become an ordeal (GBK, I'm talking to you). It's refreshing to have your choices limited, and the only real option here is a classic cheeseburger. My connoisseur friend Gerard assures me that American cheese - the luminous orange processed variety - is the only way to go, so I advise others to do likewise and avoid the temptation of messing around with mature cheddar/blue/Monterey Jack/Gruyere. It's an American classic, so let's leave it to the experts.

The burgers arrive: colourful, traditional, and mouth-wateringly simple. The bun is toasted just enough to have blackened slightly around the edges, giving a subtle charred edge to the flavour; the burger itself is thick, juicy and pink the middle, with a course, meaty texture and that distinct flame-grilled taste that I can only seem to find in France with a good steak hache, the kind of flavour that Burger King lie about having. It's nice to find a burger that isn't well-done by default - I wouldn't eat a steak like that, so why should my burger be incinerated? Byron gets everything spot-on.

Therein lies the beauty of the classic burger that has sadly been lost over the years. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. There's nothing extraordinary here: bun, burger, cheese, tomato, red onion, lettuce, mayo. But it just works. When you have good quality ingredients cooked to perfection, very little else is needed to deliver a top-drawer meal.

I haven't even mentioned the sides yet, which are of the same high quality: the French fries are faultless, the home made skin-on chips are thick, crispy and tasty. The onion rings are excellent, and the courgette fries - lightly battered slices of courgette - are definitely worth trying. I accompany all of the above with my own special concoction of Ketchustanaise (ketchup + mustard + mayo - try it, it's the only thing you'll ever eat with your chips again). Washed down with a can of cream soda, what more could you want?

In short, this is the perfect burger. Simple and delicious. The service is great, the prices are reasonable, and the food is faultless. Do yourself a favour, get down to Byron, and fall in love again with an old classic.

Service 4/5

Food 4/5

Value 4/5

Ambience 3/5

Total: 15/20

Why you should go there: A neglected classic brought to life with elegant simplicity.

Don’t leave without trying: American cheeseburger

Bodean's

BODEAN'S

Cuisine: American

Nearest tube: Oxford Circus

Address: 10 Poland Street, W1F 8PZ

Tel: 0207 287 7575

'Need no teef to eat my beef', says the slogan. I wouldn't go as far as saying the food is worth smashing all your teeth out for, but it's certainly tasty.

As the most recent addition to the established tradition of 'Meat Night', Bodean's came with some high praise from friends, and certainly fulfilled the criteria of being a) meaty, and b) heart-stoppingly unhealthy.

Upstairs is a busy New York-style deli, where regulars sit chowing down on their famous Soho special sandwich, but downstairs is where the magic happens. Basking in the warm red glow that's synonymous with poorly-lit American underground BBQ restaurants, Bodean's comes complete with flatscreen TVs showing US sport, which gave us the added bonus of seeing replays of Chael Sonnen giving Anderson Silva reconstructive facial surgery with his fists circa UFC 117 while we ate our food. I love this place already.

On every table are two, yes two bottles of BBQ sauce - regular and chipotle. Just get me a straw and I'll be a happy man. We order nachos and wings with extra hot sauce for starters, the former unspectacular and slightly anaemic, the latter juicy, greasy and spicy, just the way I like it. The wings were good, and had clearly been freshly cooked, unlike a lot of places who commit the cardinal sin of microwaving their wings. Two sauce-covered thumbs up so far.

My main course is pulled pork and baby back ribs, which were tasty enough but nothing special, both slightly dry and overcooked. But it's on the side orders that we really uncover Bodean's hidden gems: Burnt Ends. Two words that will haunt me for the rest of my days. Slow-smoked chunks of beef brisket served in a light BBQ sauce - moist, fatty, succulent, delicious. Also outstanding are the chilli cheese fries - whilst the fries are average, the chilli is excellent, with that distinct beefy, peppery flavour that American chilli alone manages to nail.


**UPDATE** Upon our second visit, we ordered the diablo wings again, and they were literally the most mind-blowingly delicious chicken I have ever eaten. Fresh, juicy, smothered in an explosive sauce that has a slow burn, the perfect level of spice, that had me sucking my fingers like a disgusting animal to get every last drop. My main was the Soho Special sandwich - a mushed up patty of burnt ends and pulled pork, no more than the sum of its parts but certainly satisfying.

The only other disappoint comes with the lack of a huge sundae option for dessert, but it's probably just as well, as the burnt ends have probably shaved about a decade off my life expectancy. Needless to say, I'll be going back for more soon.

Service 4/5

Food 3/5

Value 2/5

Ambience 3/5

Total: 12/20

Why you should go there: Burnt ends and diablo hot wings.

Don’t leave without trying: Burnt ends and diablo hot wings.

Megabite Cafe

MEGABITE CAFE

Cuisine: Chinese

Nearest tube: Holloway Road

Address: 117 Benwell Road, Islington, N7 7BW

Tel: 0207 697 0891

Arsene Wenger, and Arsenal Football Club in general, have Megabite Cafe to thank for my continued support.

It is no lie that were it not for this wonderful little eatery, I would go to Arsenal home matches far, far less than I do. It is a compulsory part of the matchday experience, and depressingly, is usually the highlight of the day.

To give it a football analogy, Megabite Cafe is a bit like Cesc Fabregas. An unpolished gem that's been around for ages, great value, magnificent quality, and has blossomed into the heart and soul of the football club. Rumours of Barcelona attempting to purchase the cafe and airlift it to Catalonia are yet unconfirmed. (And if you're reading this Pep Guardiola, fuck off, there's no Barca DNA here)

Very much in the Wong Kei mould, Megabite serves huge plates of delicious food for next to nothing, minus the rude service. Most meals cost under a fiver, and range from my usual favourites of mixed seafood ho fun, lamb with sea spicy aubergine and crispy noodles, to my friends' usual choice of mixed meat Thai curry. All of which should of course be smothered with the fantastic chilli oil. Every dish, without exception, is expertly cooked, in a huge satisfying portion that will never let you down as much as the football inevitably will.

In short, this little cafe has become a treasured part of my life. I've had some real moments here over the past four years: counting down the minutes on a rainy Tuesday night before a big Champions League match; celebrating a victory on a Saturday afternoon by swearing at the passing away support coaches; or even just cramming in a quick meal before going to the pub to watch a game on TV. Win, lose or draw, Megabite Cafe always delivers.

Service 4/5

Food 4/5

Value 5/5

Ambience 2/5

Total: 15/20

Why you should go there: Brilliant food, huge portions, dirt cheap.

Don’t leave without trying: Lamb with sea spicy aubergine

Buen Ayre

BUEN AYRE

Cuisine: Argentine

Nearest tube: Bethnal Green

Address: 50 Broadway Market, E8 4QJ

Tel: 020 7275 9900

The meal at Buen Ayre took years off my life. In the best possible way.

This was a masterclass in gluttonous indulgence. I would eat here every week if I could, but unfortunately, I'd be dead faster than you can say 'pass the Stilton butter'. After my meal, I felt on the verge of a triple bypass, but had I died, it would've been with a smile on my face.

Everyone should eat here at least once before (/because) they die. A rustic and stylish little restaurant in the grottiest armpit of East London, Buen Ayre is full every night, and it's easy to see why. Booking is a must, so bring your friends along for an unforgettable evening out.

When ordering, if you don't choose the Parrillada Deluxe, you might as well go home. 14oz prime Argentine Sirloin steak + 11oz grilled Argentine Rib-eye steak, two Argentine-style pork sausages + black pudding + provolone cheese = WIN. The steaks are succulent and full of flavour, and the black pudding was the standout performer, moist and bursting with flavour. Add a side order of papas fritas a la provenzal - huge, fat, golden brown chips, crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and dripping with delicious garlic and parsley butter. The joy of this meal came with the bizarre and horrific combinations Gerard and I came up with: chips dipped in meat juice; steak smothered in the blue cheese butter that accompanies the bread; black pudding with melted cheese. Now I know how Elvis felt.

Buen Ayre is a bit of trek from Bethnal Green station, so you might fancy a taxi to carry you back when you're bursting with meat. It isn't cheap, weighing in at about £40 per head, but for the sheer guilty pleasure of it, I'd say it's worth every penny. You might die, but you'll die happy.

Service 3/5

Food 4/5

Value 2/5

Ambience 3/5

Total: 12/20

Why you should go there: This is probably how Henry VIII used to eat.

Don’t leave without trying: Parrillada Deluxe

Wong Kei

WONG KEI

Cuisine: Chinese

Nearest tube: Picadilly Circus

Address: 41-43 Wardour Street, W1D 6PY

Tel: 020 7437 8408

Wong Kei wins the distinct honour of Joel's 'Most Visited' restaurant. Wear it with pride, boys.

Disclaimers out of the way first: Wong Kei is not a pleasant place to eat. It is not an elegant dining experience. The standard procedure is: get in; eat; get out. This place is probably more famous for its brisk, unfriendly, and often downright rude service. And I wouldn't change it for the world.

There's something unspeakably satisfying about the whole experience. Walking in without bothering with the pleasantries of a smile or a 'good evening', you hold up the requisite number of fingers before being unceremoniously ushered up or down a grubby flight of stairs into a packed dining room, as you are then herded onto a table that will almost certainly already be seated with other diners. A menu is shoved under your nose as a waiter grunts in your general direction. Yeah, welcome to Wong Kei. Now hurry up and order.

But hey, I love it. Us Londoners are fundamentally rude, so this is an eating experience that mirrors our black hearts, doing away with the sickening insincerity and etiquette that usually plagues a visit to a restaurant. Like an abusive relationship, I keep coming back for more.

The reason being of course, the food. And the prices. The food is good. The food is cheap. An enormous plate of delicious, authentic food costs around a fiver, providing you locate the hidden set meals at the back of the menus, which all seasoned WK veterans do. I usually go for Mapo Tofu - minced pork and tofu in a spicy savoury sauce, or mixed seafood ho-fun, which consists of king prawns, squid and fishballs ontop of thick flat noodles. At this point I'll admit that I usually order the same thing at any Chinese restaurant, but that just means I'm experienced. And the food here isn't the best I've ever tasted, but it's still warm and satisfying, a bit like an old pair of slippers.

Mixed seafood ho-fun, complete with chilli oil

A comparison to an old pair of slippers isn't really the perfect way to conclude a review of one of my all-time favourite restaurants, but hey, Wong Kei isn't really a perfect restaurant. It's quick, it's cheap, and it's tasty. What more do you want?

Service 3/5

Food 3/5

Value 5/5

Ambience 2/5

Total: 13/20

Why you should go there: Good hearty food if you're skint or in a hurry

Don’t leave without trying: Deep fried squid with salt and chilli

Golden Bengal

GOLDEN BENGAL

Cuisine: Indian

Nearest tube: Willesden Green

Address: 21 Walm Lane, NW2 5SH

Tel: 0208 451 4466

And so continues my seemingly eternal quest to find a decent curry house.

Golden Bengal is very much a member of the ‘new school’ of curry houses – polished interior, snazzy menu complete with trendy fusion dishes, TV with the latest bhangra hits on Sky, and not a scrap of textured wallpaper in sight. The restaurant is topped off by a gaudy bar illuminated with a fluorescent purple glow.

The first thing that strikes me is how much our waiter looks like an Asian Eric Cantona. Fortunately, he didn’t kick us in the face. He did, however, provide an amusing running commentary of his actions, complete with misuse of the present continuous tense: “I’m bringing this plate now”, “I’m moving this glass over here”, “I’m taking this glass away to make more room – it is empty”. As an English teacher, you tend to notice these things.

The first test of any self-respecting curry house is the chutney accompaniment to the pappadoms, always a solid indicator of the quality you’re dealing with. Chopped onions – fine. Mango chutney out of a jar – awright. Green yoghurt that’s suffering from a pudding/condiment identity crisis – check. Orange coconut filling scooped out of the middle of a Bounty – hello!

The mixed starters are wholly uninspiring, your usual lazy fare of bland samosa, bland prawn curry, ubiquitous onion bhajee yet a rather tasty lamb kebab. We were waiting at least half an hour for our main course, and as one of only three couples in the whole place, this was borderline unforgiveable, especially as the sizzling dish at the table next to us smelled so damn good.

Eventually our food arrived. And it was pretty damn tasty. The lamb tikka manchori came in a thick, tasty, savoury sauce, despite the lamb itself coming in unpleasantly chewy hunks. The garlic chilli chicken balti did exactly what it said on the tin, in a rich tangy sauce that had generous chunks of both garlic and chilli. The vegetable haleem was rather anonymous, the peshwari naan fluffy and buttery. All in all, a fine meal.

Which makes it all the more tragic that it took so bloody long, otherwise I’d definitely be going back. It was reasonably priced - £20 a head including beer – so I’d consider returning if I had plenty of time to kill. As it is, I think I can probably do better. Next!

Service 2/5

Food 3/5

Value 3/5

Ambience 2/5

Total: 10/20

Why you should go there: Tasty food, decently priced.

Don’t leave without trying: ...not to die of hunger waiting for your food to arrive