I will be in London at the beginning of April for 10 days, which will include my birthday. I am planning on going out for a meal with someone special on that day, so I was wondering if you could recommend a good restaurant that is not too expensive.
Anything you can suggest would be good, but for further info, I am a very fussy eater (as anyone at the dopefest will know) and the person I am going with can’t eat much in the way of carbohydrates, so pasta is not good. I don’t like tomatoes and cheese, so Italian is not good. Chinese/Thai/cantonese etc would be nice. Also, I love fish, so fish restraurants would be great.
If you have a Palm OS PDA (Palm, Visor, etc), I recommend putting Vindigo on it, the London version (they have several American cities as well). It’s freeware and can be downloaded here.
My Fierra and I had our first meal together in December at the Palms of Goya, which was a decent Indian restaurant.
Other good Indian restaurants are the Star of India, Chutney Mary, Cafe Lazeez, and The Red Fort. For Thai, try the Blue Elephant or Thai Pavilion. You might like Indo-French, in which case you would want La Porte Des Indes.
The Hard Rock Cafe is pretty good, and you can be guaranteed to find American food there.
I’m racking my brain to think of Chinese restaurants and I can’t recall actually ever eating at one in London. But Chinatown is in the Leicester Square area, so I’m sure you could find something there. Dunno how cheap it will be though.
I highly recommend Wagamama. It’s a japanese place - there are several in London and the food is gorgeous without being expensive. The atmosphere’s good - the seating arrangements are huge long tables, the portion sizes are generous and the service is quick and courteous. I recommend the yakitori and the chicken ramen. They don’t take bookings so you just turn up - the queues can get a bit long on friday and saturday nights so it’s best to go at other times.
Of course, there’s China Town by Leicester Square, but the quality can be a bit hit and miss.
For fish, there’s an excellent place called Pescatori, 55-57 Charlotte Street, north of Soho. It’s been recommended to me by lots of friends and Charlotte Street is the place to eat. There’s also a useful index of fish restaurants in London here although that doesn’t give you prices.
Hope this helps. Use google to search for more places
Mwahahahaha I laugh at your recommendation of Wimpys. For those not in the know, it’s basically a burger bar and while their food is perfectly palatable, their gimick (and get this, it’s a good 'un) is that they serve food on real plates. Yes ladies and gentlemen, none of your plastic rubbish for Wimpys, it’s real plates and cutlery all the way.
But yes they are still around, although they’ve diminished in number greatly over the years. They tend to hide away in bowling alleys and that sort of thing nowadays.
A couple more recommendations from me - for everyday sandwiches/lunches, go to Pret A Manger. There’s one on every street and there’s a good range and they’re good value for money.
If you like French food there’s Chez Gerrard - it’s classy and they do gorgeous steak frites. The one i know is on Charlotte Street, but there are a couple dotted around London.
Erm, since it’s been mentioned twice, maybe I should point out that Wagamama is the Japanese restaurant in Camden I (jokingly) referred to earlier, and that we ate there at LondonDope, and RickQ hated it
Silks and Spice in Camden (and I think there are other branches too) is a very nice Thai restaurant.
For pub food, I like The Freemason’s Arms in Hampstead (http://pubs.com/freenw3.htm), The Pembroke Castle in Primose Hill and The Porterhouse in Covent Garden (but only during the week, as the Sunday menu isn’t great).
