Fork My Knife: The 10 Cases -

Wine bar. Constantly changing wines and seasonal food. Reasonable prices. Interesting menu. Two minute walk from The Boyfriend's apartment. Why it took me at least four months to walk those two minutes, and take a seat at on of The 10 cases six or so stools I don't know. Maybe because despite the interesting concept, they never buy more than 10 cases to ensure a consist turnover of offerings, 10 cases just didn't seem that interesting.

Perhaps, it is the Russell Norman effect, where every new restaurant seems to come with some certain feature or gimmick. Jewish deli, tick, american bar/ speakeasy, tick, restaurant that serves only burgers and lobsters, tick, restaurant based on American Psycho, tick, restaurant modelled on Coco Chanel's apartment, tick, restaurant with interactive menu, tick. You get my point. So whilst Covent Garden desperately needed a place like 10 cases it just didn't strike me as somewhere I had to run to, but still its been comforting knowing its there.

And thats just what it is, comfortable. The food is good, but not amazing. The wine is better. The room, boring. The staff, incredibly friendly. The bill, reasonable. So its not that exciting, but I certainly am glad its here.

The Boyfriend, a friend and I went one Tuesday night. We intended to go for just a drink but found ourselves, so content, we just didn't want to leave. We started with a glass of wine each, which the man behind the bar helpfully advised us on and after a glass each we were ready to move on to the food - two small dishes and two large dishes.

One of the small dishes - Fried baby octopus was really quiet strange. This is a dish that is surprisingly hard to get right, there was something very, very wrong about this version. Both odd taste and odd texture meant that the dish went pretty much untouched.

Mackeral terrine was completely fabulous. Normally, I would have steered well clear of this, assuming it would be too fishy - but on the contrary it was incredibly mild. The texture was fabulous too, the texture of the fish remained in tact but was combined with portions of potato. Even better, it arrived with a basket of still warm baguette.

Having given up pork for 2012, as one of my numerous new years resolutions - I was unable to taste the lentil sausage stew, but it got rave reviews by our companion who wolfed it down.

Seabass, was well cooked - if not particularly memorable. The potatos on the hand were fabulous, and must have been cooked in about a stick and a half of butter they were so good.