Automat -

The Boyfriend and I have a bit of a tradition, its a relatively new tradition tradition but still , of getting a long drawn out boozy lunch on New Year's Eve. Over Bob Bob Ricard, last year's location, we were in search of some other relaxed, moderately priced, cool restaurant.  This year it was Automat an upmarket diner in the heart of Mayfair - a restaurant that has been on my eat list ever since I heard about their Truffle Mac and Cheese and the invite only club downstairs. 

Barrafina

Whoever said you can't change a person, was wrong. When I first met The Boyfriend,  he knew a grand total of two restaurants,  neither of which took reservations or served food that was unhealthy - Sophie's and Barrafina. The Boyfriend, pre-boyfriend title, was unable to make plans more than three hours in advance, or eat food other than cottage cheese, smoked salmon and blueberries, unless it was only slightly less nutritious. In other words, he was the world's best dinner date. Luckily for our relationship - Barrafina was such a great location for our first dinner date that I didn't mind that no carbs were involved in the whole meal and that he hadn't had to put in any effort. Almost two years later it still serves as "oh-bugger-we-don't-have-a-reservation-for-any-decent-restaurant" - which happens a lot less frequently than 18 months ago. Now of course, he not only knows more than two restaurants, many of which have phone lines, but he primarily eats unhealthy foods.

Corner Room

I really didn't want to like the Corner Room. Why? Because the Corner Room is really far away from Covent Garden, and I mean River Cafe far away. A £20 and 30 minute long cab ride each way and this place becomes expensive and time consuming. To be perfectly honest, had The Boyfriend and I not been heading to the East End anyway we probably never would have gone. This would have been a mistake because the Pork with Portugese Bread and Butter Pudding was so worth the journey. 

Bocca di Lupo

I've really tried hard to fall in love with Bocca di Lupo the way the rest of London has. Seriously, I have gone and attempted to be wowed every time and yet it has never happened. Every time I'm left with the feeling that perhaps, I'm just ordering wrong but after three attempts I have officially given up. It is the kind of restaurant I know I should like - Italian food from a variety of different regions, flexible ordering, an elegant dining room and prime location in Soho. This is technically the kind of restaurant that could suit every occasion, if only the food lived up to everything else. 

Travels in Italy (2) - Tuscany

We had five days in Tuscany, and in those five days, with a car and a trusty TomTom we covered most of the area. I have no idea why but both The Boyfriend and I had very high expectations of Tuscan food. For some reason we seemed to think that even if we ended up in a Tourist Trap food would still be much better than your average restaurant. As if any restaurant in Tuscany was automatically destined to be better than the rest because of the region's culinary heritage. How wrong we were. Of the ten meals only three were memorable. Another three were goodish, and the other four were either okay or crap. They are ranked in a complex equation of quality of food + view or venue + price, and by complex I mean we just vaguely remember which ones were the best -a suprisingly difiicult feat (but understandably difficult if you look at how much wine we consumed, sometimes I'm amazed we even managed to take photos of the stuff). Anyway, here goes.

Opera Tavern - Waiting for doom

How do you deal with the impending end of the world? Simple. You drink wine and eat cheese. Obviously we were on a limited time scale, with only one and a half hours till "Rapture", which put La Cave Du Fromage in South Ken out of the question and La Fromagerie too. So Opera Tavern it was.

Terroirs

I'm clearly a little behind in terms of the London food scene, as when all of London's food bloggers and critics have hit the East End to check out Brawn, I have only just visited Terroirs the original wine bar of the two. Terroirs seems to get mixed reviews from most bloggers and to be honest I wasn't too excited about the prospect, but it ticked all of my boxes which are; a) easy to get a last minute table b) not on the otherside of town, (unlike Brawn) and c) starts with a letter at the end of the alphabet, (also unlike Brawn).

Brasserie Roux – Perfect for the price

Brasserie Roux is, according to the website, “Inspired by Albert Roux”. I dont know if that means Monsieur Roux had/has any role in the running of the restaurant or if they just persuaded him to let them use the name but either way I enjoyed this experience much more than my previous Roux excursion at Le Gavroche.

Comptior Gascon – Food, Food, Everywhere but Not a Bite to Eat.

Comptior Gascon is part of The Gascon family: a trio of restaurants all around Smithfields with Club Gascon (the daddy of them all with one Michelin star), Cellar Gascon, the relaxing Wine Bar, and Comptoir Gascon the low key bistro.

28-50 - Perfection

28-50. The latitude between which grapes can grow. I guess that really tells you all about the type of restaurant this place is however, despite the primary focus being on the wine the food is actually very good.

Bar Boulud -

Daniel Boulud is America's equivalent of Gordon Ramsey except he's not American, or bankrupt or having a public fight with his mistress/father in law/mother in-law and wife but you get my point - incredibly successful with numerous restaurants and Michelin stars . Despite being from Lyon, Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental is his first venture in Europe and when it first opened in May it received a lot of acclaim. In fact it took about 2 weeks before it became tough to get a table less than a week in advance. So finding a table on a Wednesday, for that very evening made me a very happy camper indeed.

Chisou - What a let down.

Chisou apparently means in Japanese either -


a) 'a treat'
b) 'a dinner'
c) 'delicious food' 


In our case it was one of these - dinner and not a very good one at that.

Tom's Kitchen at Somerset House

I hadn't intended to go to Tom's Kitchen. In fact, I didn't realise it existed until about 10 minutes before I arrived. Desperate to find a last minute alternative to eating yet another burrito on my living room floor I googled restaurants near Holborn and after trying the most obvious restaurants to no avail I stumbled upon Tom's Kitchen at Somerset House.