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.

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.

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