Gaucho

GAUCHO

Cuisine: Argentine

Nearest tube: Picadilly Circus

Address: 25 Swallow Street, W1B 4QR

Tel: 020 7734 4040

This is the best thing I've put in my mouth for months.

The simple steak has taken some serious abuse over the years. We've all witnessed those heartbreaking occasions when we've ordered a steak in a non-steak restaurant, and for the resultant flaccid, incinerated lump of leather to make us weep with despair. I say: enough is enough. Let's go to Gaucho, and stop this madness.

Gaucho is where cows want to go when they die. Gaucho is steak heaven.

Tucked away in a trendy back alley in Picadilly Circus, Gaucho is the antithesis of the crude and generic Aberdeen Angus steak house. It has the air of a speakeasy - a fashionable secret only shared amongst London's elite diners. Coolly understated on the outside, you wouldn't look twice if you walked past it on the street, so it's a safe haven away from the usual mass of braying tourists that populate restaurants in the area.

On the door are bouncers, who usher you into a dimly lit, uber-cool reception area. The interior feels like an exclusive nightclub, with sharply-dressed staff on hand to help whisk your coats off to a cloakroom. Access to the restaurant itself is somewhat convulated: first you get past the bouncers, then you speak to the receptionist, who sends you upstairs to meet the host, who will finally introduce you to your waiter as you are seated in your cow-hide chairs.

Moo

This is where the fun begins. Upon arrival, your waiter will swoop over to your table wielding a huge oak platter laden with slabs of raw meat. What follows is a five-minute presentation on the various cuts of steak and their relative merits, how to have it cooked, what it goes best with, and so on. This can be a little overwhelming, as I was mostly staring open-mouthed at the steaks and drooling slightly with a glazed look in my eyes as the information went straight over my head.

Truth be told, whatever you pick will be superb. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the finest steak I have ever had the privilege of tasting in my entire life. So far I have had the rump and the rib-eye, and both were utterly magnificent. Cooked to absolute perfection, there is no need for the customary extra-sharp 'steak knife' - the humble table knife will suffice is gliding through the flesh like it were butter.

And when you taste it - man alive. My mouth is starting to water just thinking about it. The texture is almost marshmallow-like in its tenderness. It is bursting with flavour, lightly seasoned to coax out the full meaty joy that captivates your tastebuds. Every mouthful I ate was accompanied by a sigh of joy, and a quiet moment of reflection about how no meat has ever, or will ever live up to the brilliance of a Gaucho steak.

If you hadn't got the message by now, the steak is the main event here. Starters are well-crafted but overpriced - my pan-fried baby squid with aubergine caviar, chorizo, black olives and lime dressing was certainly full of flavour but hardly warranted a £9.95 price tag. Likewise, the shrimp salad and Empanadas were expensive and also somewhat uninspiring. I'd recommend leaving the starters altogether.

Steaks come in 225g, 300g and 400g. The smaller size will be plenty when augmented with a few side dishes, which are fine accompaniments to the meat. The chips are thin, rustic and crisp, the spinach with garlic and lemon is perfectly cooked, the sauteed selection of field mushrooms are wonderfully earthy, even the mixed leaf salad is colourful and fresh. I probably overdid it by adding sweet potato chips with chorizo, but hey, when in Rome.

There are some fine dessert options to conclude your meal, the cheesecake with dulce de leche, coffee biscuit and chocolate sauce being particularly outstanding. Even the coffee is superb here. The service is attentive and informative, if sometimes a little overbearing, but it's all part of the experience. The waiters are well-trained, enthusiastic and always on hand to help, a cut above the rest, and definitely enhance the experience. There is the warm, fuzzy feeling of being well-looked after, which is all too often absent in restaurants these days. 

As far as the price goes, it ain't cheap, but you truly get what you pay for here. For the quality of the food, I can heartily commend this as being good value. The steaks go from £13 (225g rump) to £38 (400g fillet) but when you taste it, you will understand that it is worth every penny. 

From top to bottom, Gaucho is a delight, and a truly fantastic dining experience.

Service 5/5

Food 5/5

Value 3/5

Ambience 4/5

Total: 17/20

Why you should go there: The best steak on the planet.

Don’t leave without trying: Any of the steaks.

Angeles

ANGELES

Cuisine: Sichuan

Nearest tube: Kilburn

Address: 405 Kilburn High Road, London, NW6 7QL

Tel: 020 7625 8686

Sichuan food is Cantonese food's younger, sexier sister. This is where she lives.

Don't get the two mixed up - as far as Chinese cuisine goes, the two are a world apart. Sichuan is a heady mix of strong, spicy, aromatic flavours, and whilst Angeles serves both Sichuan and Cantonese food, the former is definitely the best option.

This is one of those restaurants where Chinese people go - the restaurant is always packed full of locals crowded round a bubbling hotpot. I have yet to try the hotpot, but the menu is so good that there's plenty to be getting on with in the meantime. 

The restaurant is split in half - the left side is a grotty all-you-can-eat buffet, serving stodgy crap like sweet and sour chicken for the local yos and yoettes. Stay out of there, lest you catch a stray bullet. The right hand side is the bustling hub of Sichuan activity, in a spacious dining area that affords you a good peek at what everyone else is eating.

The food is truly excellent. We go for a platter of mixed grilled skewers, which include ox tongue, curried squid, cuttlefish cake, tofu, sweetcorn, king prawn, spicy lamb and chicken wings. All are delicious, with the cuttlefish particularly outstanding - a wonderful spongy texture, perfectly crisp on the outside, with a sweet teriyaki-style sauce. Main dishes include mapo tofu, a little too oily but with that distinct pungent soybean flavour unique to this dish. The stir-fried green beans with chilli are delicious, spicy and savoury, and the dandan noodles are wonderfully moreish, in a tasty, meaty sauce with that aromatic Sichuan aftertaste. 

Mapo tofu and green beans with chilli

My one problem with Sichuan food is that it's not the healthiest cuisine - most dishes are rather oily and greasy - but the unique flavours more than make up for it. Despite feeling a little bit sick afterwards, I thoroughly enjoyed this tasty meal that is far more lively than its oriental counterpart.

If you haven't tried Sichuan before and you have an adventurous palate, get yourself down there for some red hot foody action.

Service 4/5

Food 4/5

Value 3/5

Ambience 4/5

Total: 15/20

Why you should go there: Authentic food bursting with flavour.

Don’t leave without trying: Green beans with chilli

Pomegranate

POMEGRANATE

Cuisine: Thai

Nearest tube: Willesden Green

Address: 35e Walm Lane, Willesden Green, London NW2 5SH

Tel: 020 8830 2111

An unassuming yet charming little eatery.

This place has gone straight to the top of the Thai premier league of restaurants. Cosy, delicious, and unlicensed - bring your own booze, people!

I'd been driving past this inauspicious-looking restaurant for years - compared to all the other gaudy-looking places in Willesden, Pomegranate does tend to be invisible to the untrained eye, located around a dark little corner next to Willesden Green station. The most notable thing about this place is just how tiny it is - four tables that seat four people each, so with a maximum occupancy of 16, booking a table is advised as it fills up with locals pretty quickly.

The interior is warm, snug and homely, a bit like being in someone's dining room for a private dinner party. The chairs are a little uncomfortable and it's very small inside, but it has a certain comforting charm that seems perfect for a romantic evening out.

The menu contains the usual Thai fare - the chicken satay is tender and tasty, the tom yam het is fragrant and spicy. The som tam is fresh and crisp, with a light hint of chilli that doesn't overpower the dish, although it's a little too sour for my liking. For our mains, the pork pad kaprow is well-spiced with a bold savoury sauce that errs on the side of salty, and the prawn tord kratiem is garlicky and peppery, with huge juicy prawns that possibly could've done with a few more vegetables, but I'm nitpicking - the food is good. The coconut rice is creamy and fluffy, offsetting the savoury dishes perfectly. 

Pork pad kaprow and prawn kratiem

The service is good, with a pretty smiling Thai girl only a few feet away should you need assistance. However, it's cash only, which I wish I'd known ealier - it would've saved me a breathless dash to the cashpoint. It's reasonably priced, costing us about £35, and anyone wishing to have a glass of wine need only pop to the Sainsburies over the road - the bring-your-own-booze is definitely one of the big plus points for the locals (mostly Australians, so expect to see groups of squawking women sinking bottle after bottle of cheap plonk).

All in all, the food is decent, well-priced, and it was a lovely little evening out.

Service 3/5

Food 3/5

Value 3/5

Ambience 4/5

Total: 13/20

Why you should go there: For a cosy and intimate evening out.

Don’t leave without trying: Tord kratiem

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.