No waffle: Duck and Waffle

It's the opportunity to take in some of the most breath taking views in London that excited me most about visiting Duck and Waffle. Located on the 40th floor of the Heron Town, the restaurant boasts an incredibly swanky cocktail bar and post-modern dining room that is not only astonishingly beautiful but is also incredibly trendy to hang out in, if you can get past the sea of suited up city-types.


Soon to go 24 hours, D&W is sister to the American chain SUSHISAMBA, but brings a very modern British style to the family. The menu is made up of a number of small plates including breads and bar snacks, raw, small plates, brick oven (served in hot skillets), and for the table. Unlike much of the other restaurants who have jumped on the small plate bandwagon, D&W offers hearty and rich meals meaning you don't need to go crazy and order one of everything on the menu.

The pigs ears were a great bar snack and worth a try but not really my bag. They were deep fried, crunchy and flavoured with a salty BBQ seasoning that I unfortunately relate too closely to Texas BBQ Pringles. The mackerel tartare was citrusy, dressed well and finished with creme fraiche. Served slightly too chilled, the fishy flavours didn't really surface until the dish had rested on the table for a short time. Compliments of the chef, the raw scallops were excellent. Fresh and served resting on lime dressed apple slices on top of a salt block, they were a very pleasant surprise.

Feeling brave in saying so, my favourite dish of the night was the foie gras all day breakfast. Seemingly controversial amongst fellow bloggers, the dish is inventive and worth a try if only to decide you hate it. Fried quails egg, crisp streaky bacon and duck foie gras sat on top chocolate-hazelnut spread bread, the whole thing is dressed with maple syrup and finished with black puddings. For me, this dish worked incredibly well as a whole. The foie gras was rich and almost melted on the toast with the creamy egg. The saltiness of the bacon brought out not only the richness of the foie gras and egg but also the surprising sweetness off the chocolate. Not necessarily needed but a nice addition, the black pudding was rich but under seasoned. My dinner partner however, felt almost the opposite about this dish claiming the chocolate simply overpowered it all. I agree in essence this may be the case for some but if you get the good side with just the right amount of chocolate the dish is perfect.

bbq-spiced crispy pig ears / £4

mackerel tartare / pickled cucumber / smoked vodka / crème fraîche / £6

foie gras all day breakfast / £12

shetland mussels & clams / n’duja / fennel broth / house bread / £10

roasted essex beetroot / goat curd / honey / watercress / £8

In some places the food was hit and miss, but hey let's put it down to teething problems. After discovering the rather exciting breakfast menu I have booked a table to return later this month. This is saying something as I rarely find time to re-visit a restaurant in London. I expect I will be blown away again by what will this time be an early morning view of London waking up. I can only hope the food impresses me again in round two.

What it says on the tin: Burger & Lobster

Burger & Lobster indulgently offers but three things on it's menu: whole lobster, beef burger and what is essentially a lobster burger. Despite my review being so brief, the hype that has surrounded B&L for what must be going on a year is completely warranted. Quite simply B&L delivers well cooked, tasty, quick and affordable lobster (and a burger that also looks good).

There is the inclination that you're getting best value for money with the whole lobster. With a side salad and fries it's an easy choice for £20. The lobster is fresh out of the tank in front of you and comes steamed or grilled. Our lobster was cooked well. That said my only criticism is that for a restaurant that sets out to do only one thing they should do it impeccably well. The lobsters that came out for the diners next to us were far too charcoal verging on what looked to be inedible. Had one of those landed in front of me I would have sent it back - something I never do.



The lobster roll is more an exciting offer. What appears to be a whole lobster is chopped, dressed in Japanese mayonnaise and chives and stuffed into an intensely buttery brioche roll. It may look small, but once you take the first bite you soon realise it's not only overwhelmingly rich but also overwhelmingly filling.

Both the lobster and roll come with a garlic butter, which if your arteries can bare to endure is delicious. As are the thin cut fries and sentiment of a salad.

There is a reason people are still raving about Burger and Lobster. It is what it is. You should go, and go with the confidence that you'll be getting a lot of good, fresh seafood that would cost more elsewhere.

My London Foodie Bucket List

Having recently realised just how often I walk past restaurants and say "I need to go there" I thought it would be beneficial to start a London foodie bucket list... So... Here it be. In no particular order other than that in which it comes to mind:

Pitt Cue Co - after I gorged myself on ribs at the first Southbank pop-up I am now eager to hit up the permanent location in Soho

Burger & Lobster - for the lobster burger, and with Soho soon to open and TAKE reservations I have no excuse

Roganic - to experience the two year pop-up by Simon Rogan while it lasts

St John - and I'm talking all three meaty locations

The Corner Room - new Nuno Mendes

10 Greek Street - all the way from Wapping Project, having heard nothing but good things

Bubbledogs - James Knappett, Sandia Chang & posh hot dogs and champaign

Dach and Sons - sliders close to home

Lima - More Peruvian comes to Soho (prior to my trip to Peru)

The Riding House Cafe - to join the brunch club

Pollen Street Social - contemporary artistic tasting, let's see what all the hype is about. There must be a reason it was awarded it's first Michelin star just months after opening

Viajante - the Numo Mendes' real deal Michelin star affair

Hix at Tramshed - steak or chicken, and that's it

The Ledbury - fellow Aussie Brett Graham's two Michelin star in Notting Hill

Upstairs at the Ten Bells - the semi-permanent stay-on from pop-up kings Young Turks (now with Giorgio Ravelli of The Ledbury)

La Bodega Negra - more street food, this time Mexican

Da Polpo - more Russell Norman

Polpetto - relocating Russell Norman, Polpetto will complete my Norman full house

The Admiral Codrington - for Burgerac' s number one rated burger in London, of course

Duck and Waffle - coming soon 24 hour dining that sounds god damn cool

Barrafina - younger, sexier tapas from Fino

Hawksmoor - more meat. How have I not been here yet?!

Dabbous - even though it's starting to feel like I'll never get a table

Dinner by Heston - because it's Heston Blumenthal

The Wolseley- another brunch addition, this time for the eggs benedict

Hibiscus - for the entire two Michelin star experience

Wild Honey - Because I've heard nothing but good things

Jose & Pizarrio - if I'm going to try his tapas, I may as well try both restaurants

Yauatcha - because I can't get enough dim sum and I feel I should see what Michelin star dim sum is all about

Bibimbab - for cheap and cheery beef bibimbab in soho

Tonkotsu - for what is apparently the best ramen in London

Ducksoup - because I'm excited by the ever changing menu

STK - for a New York steak. Coming soon

Wishbone - I guess because I'll try anything Scott Collins (MeatMarket, MeatLiquor) does, even though I don't like fried chicken

Story - no information disclosed but I'm assured it is coming soon. Because I like books and I like food, I also really like Thomas Keller's CV

I think that's it, for now. Feel free to let me know of anything I have missed.

Image: Viajante. courtesy of London Eater.

Prague [praɦa]

When there are no words.

There are photos.

(and dumplings and castles).

More meat: MEATmarket

Since I still haven't stopped talking about MEATliquor, I thought it was about time I drag a fellow burger junkie to MEATmarket.



MEATmarket is your typical fast food burger joint. Unlike MEATliquor which is as much about the experience as the food, the service and overall atmosphere of MEATmarket was slick and fast, with shiny steel counter tops in a long corridor venue to swiftly move in and out. Not quite an experience, but quirky and fun all the same.

I couldn't bring myself to break away from the Dead Hippie, which brought a freakish amount of happiness to my mouth the first time around, whereas burger junkie number two ordered against my rave review and went for the Black Palace.



The Dead Hippie was almost as good as my first one. Juicy and meaty with lashings of cheese and sauce, just a bit more greasy than MEATliquor's. I've put this down to the fast food nature, straight off the grill, into a bun and wrapped in paper with no time to rest and let just a bit of the excessive fat drip off.

The Black Palace was massive, the bun barely containing it's immense meaty patties. Without the dead hippie sauce the thick double patties made the Black Palace a straight up, fuss free meat lover's dream. If I've not made my point, choose this one for beef!

I'm loving the MEATeasy, MEATliquor, MEATmarket bandwagon, I think I'll stay put for a while. Or at least until a new burger craze surfaces in London to satisfy the cravings.

A god damn fit burger: MEATliquor

I was late to the party with MEATliquor, but my god was it worth the wait.

These burgers, are quintessential food porn that quite shamefully I spent a week drooling over photos of. And it wasn't just the photos that amped me up for this birthday meal, the word on the street is that these burgers are the bomb.

To start, entirely unnecessarily we ordered the chilli fries, chilli chicken wings and deep fried pickles to share between 6. This was a hell of a lot of food, and was gluttonously delicious. The chilli on the fries, topped with runny cheese, jalapeño and mustard looks like a heart attack in a bowl but were a moorish highlight for me, where as the boys will have dreams about the chicken wings soaked in chilli sauce for days.



Burger time, it was almost Dead Hippies all round. This burger was so delicious its hard to find the words that aren't just yummy noises. Two insanely meaty patties sat on top of pickles and lettuce, covered in cheese, dripping 'special' sauce that was essentially what Big Mac sauce would be like if it weren't from McDonnalds. As you eat this burger juices drip down your arm and you don't even care, all you want to do is get it in your mouth and moan "oh yeah".



Ive heard about the ghastly queues MEATliquor experiences, but at 2.30pm on a sunny Saturday there was absolutely no wait. With such high expectations we could have easily been disappointed, yet all 6 of us have been raving about the meal since... and that was 4 days ago.

Peru hits Soho: Ceviche

I've been day dreaming about Peru and Bolivia a lot lately while planning my next big adventure to climb a mountain, so Ceviche with all it's hype seemed like the perfect place for a lazy grazey lunch.

Ceviche, is one of the newest small plates swanky-casual restaurants to open in Soho, yet still manages to stand out from it's peers. I arrived and shuffled through the narrow entrance past the trendy pisco (traditional Peruvian spirit) bar with single diners perched at the counter, to the chilled yet sophisticated dining room where I met my friends who were waiting with their first drink, a pisco sour.


Not having tried peruvian food before, we let ourselves be guided entirely by our waiter. She was excellent, and her knowledge of the elements of every dish was impeccable. She knew we were newbies yet didn't want the safe options and advised what dishes would work together. We ordered to start the house specialty Don Ceviche - fresh seabass in an amarillo chilli and lime tigers milk, Alianza Ceviche - fresh prawns fish squid and octopus in a rococo chilli tigers milk and quinoa salad with chilli, fresh tomato, avocado and butter beans. Both ceviches were fantastic, I'm not sure what I expected but these were both better than I imagined. I had thought the tigers milk marinade would be much of the same and the fish would drive the flavours, however this wasn't the case. Although the fish tasted perfectly fresh, both of the marinades provided a very different experience. It was the Don Ceviche that I favoured, but only ever so slightly. The lime was interesting in the marinade, it was zingy and added a second dimension to the dish that the Alianza Cebiche just didn't have, and the seabass was simply delicious with an incredible smooth texture from the tigers milk. The quinoa salad was equally impressive, with loads of ripe avocado and fresh tomato.


The steak skewers were cooked rare and were a delight to eat, yet were a little understated without the additional punch from the anticucho sauce. A work of art on a plate was the causa mar which boasted an overpoweringly dense potato cake. The Arroz Con Pato rounded off the meal nicely. The confit duck was well roasted and full of gamey flavour, and the coriander rice not only added colour, but kick.


We weren't sure desserts were necessary, and if you find yourself in this same dilemma please trust me and try one! We went for the cinnamon sponge soaked in pisco with dulce de leche Ice cream and chiricahua fruit mouse. Both were to die for. The sponge packed a massive cinnamon sweet punch, the perfect textures of the mouse melted at first bite. Utterly delicious.


I can certainly appreciate the hype surrounding Ceviche. It's unique, conceptual, delicious, fresh and a welcomed break from the rich or meat heavy London small plate craze. I want to go back, and I want to go back soon.