I love Isarn

We've been to Isarn before of course and after having such a great time it was given the most points out of all the restaurants we’ve been to over the past year, so we had to return and tip our hats (and the waitresses, but I’ll come to that later).

Last night was an evening we’ve been looking forward to for a while now. Isarn is an unassuming little place from the outside and many people manage to walk right past it without noticing. Others, looking for a nice eatery on Upper Street tend to be distracted by either Gallipoli, with its dark, opulent Mediterranean look, next door or upmarket Carluccio’s across the road.

This just makes Isarn a hidden gem. The Thai food on offer is well presented, delicious and generously portioned and the décor is certainly not the sort you would find in a normal Thai restaurant, with funky butterfly motif lights and cow skin chairs.

The service is always exemplary and attentive, with a charming welcome and goodbye from the waitresses, and there is never a disapproving eye if you choose tap water instead of vino. In fact the waitresses go above and beyond the call of duty in this respect; they never leave a glass half empty and are always checking to ensure you have a full glass. The free prawn crackers also deserve a mention as they are crunchy, flavoursome, distinctly more-ish and miles away from the greasy, ricepaper-like efforts in other places. They really work a treat when you’re ravenous.

The starters are fab, especially the mixed starter for two – you cannot go wrong with that – and for vegetarians the papaya spring rolls deserve a mention – crisp, tasty and light with a great dipping sauce. Ooh my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Last night three of us passed on the starters to leave room for our mains, but Alex decided on a baked scallop with soya. He was disappointed to discover that the £4.50 only gave him one, but we all dug in anyway. I didn’t have any of the scallop myself but he enjoyed it and the sauce, which I did try, was so amazing I could have easily eaten it as a soup. Wonderful stuff.

Our mains quickly arrived – pak choi with oyster sauce, mange tout with tofu and baby corn (tasty with a surprising kick), fried red snapper (which we collectively agreed was lovely), sirloin steak with chilli and garlic and pork with chilli, garlic and lime (scrumptious). We also went for the brown jasmine and egg fried rice.

We cleared the lot and were trying to be cool about the desserts which, we remembered from last time, were amazing.

It didn’t take long to decide on vanilla crème brulée, raspberry and chocolate pudding and two portions of strawberry ice cream. All were to die for and we wondered aloud how it was that a Thai restaurant could achieve such greatness with their desserts? We didn’t spend too much time pondering though as we were enjoying eating them with our lovely heart shaped spoons too much!

However, despite how it may seem from my comments, things are not always perfect here and there are some drawbacks. The wine and other drinks are expensive, which is why we stuck to tap water and when the bill arrives it automatically includes a service charge. Although it states it is discretionary, it’s actually not as once it’s on the bill they refuse to take it off and there is no use arguing – I’ve seen it happen. Saying that though, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the service in my opinion; just watch out if you’re not normally a tipper or for any reason you don’t want to give them the full 12.5%.

Anyway, for us it was another marvellous evening out and as I said above, I do love Isarn.

I recently realised that in a whole year of DC I had not given a score above 8. I immediately thought of the stingy markers on CDWM when you’re forced to shout at the TV, ‘but you just said it was sooo much better than last night and yet you marked it the same – what are you DOING?!?!’.

I even marked Isarn a measly 8 initially, but considering how much I like it and after reiterating that thought to myself after last night’s yummy meal, I hereby award it a 9!

As I've been asked; if this is how I feel about Isarn, what mind-blowing place is going to get the honour of a 10? I'm wondering myself!

TTFN,
Stinge

Emma W, Emma B and Alex. Me behind the camera :-)

A veggy adventure

Two of our dining club (DC) members are vegetarian, and it can be a real challenge to find restaurants with tasty and varied veggie options.

After chatting about this, we decided to create an offshoot/extra curricular type DC where we would investigate only vegetarian restaurants. Since then, we've eaten at five - only one of which we combined with an official DC visit.

Tonight we visited our fifth - Vanilla Black in Took's Court near Chancery Lane.

It was raining heavily when we arrived at 5.45, huddled under our umbrellas with one of our party, Alex, soaked to the bone since he doesn't wear a coat or use an umbrella (long story). We had booked a table for 6pm and couldn't wait to get into a warm, dry restaurant for a nice glass of vino. Imagine our surprise then, when the manager opened the door for a girl in front of us, presumably a waitress arriving for work, and refused to let us in behind her.

"Have you booked a table?"

Yes, at 6.

"Sorry but we don't open until 6"

Can't you let us in so we can wait on the sofa in the window?

"No I'm sorry, we need to get changed, I'm not dressed yet and we can't let you in until we're ready."

Okaaay.

And we were back in the rain. Great.

If you know the backstreets of Chancery Lane at all, you'll know it's not exactly filled with places to pop into for a quick pint. And it was raining. Brrr.

Looking around quickly/desperately we saw a sign saying The Blue Anchor. Looks like a pub, we thought, but with stairs that disappeared to somewhere that looked rather too upmarket for a pub, we just decided to huddle in the doorway and wait for 15 minutes. The damage was done and a big black mark appeared in all our minds.

At 6 on the dot we tried again and were welcomed like we had never been seen before. Sitting down, relieved to be dry, we decided against wine as we weren't exactly in the mood anymore, so a jug of tap water it was.

The menu was complicated - a little pretentious sounding if anything - and we had to ask the waitress to decipher most of it: Ribblesdale pudding, mushroom duxelle, deconstructed carrot cake.

We went for the Ribblesdale pudding with poached duck's egg, the mushroom duxelle (only finding out once ordered that it takes 20 mins to prepare) and the leek flan. Bread options were poppy seed or hazelnut, nothing special there, but the butters on offer were a nice change - individual portions of sea salt and black pepper butter, served on a small slate.

Possibly due to the rain incident, or perhaps just as an excuse to look experimental, without warning we were suddenly presented with 3 shot glasses of pale green liquid and small white squares of jelly.

"This is horseradish turkish delight and mint and cucumber shots".

What?

Gamely I tucked in first. I love horseradish but the texture accompanying the taste was very strange. Along with the shot it had a taste effect similar to wasabi. Not the most wonderful food experience I must admit and the others agreed.

When the mains arrived it was minimalist in presentation, which wasn't totally unexpected, and the food was tasty if a little strange. It was agreed that the mushroom duxelle was probably the nicest and Alex was flummoxed by what turned out to be boulangere potatoes on his plate.

The food was perfectly nice but it was all quite clinical. Not delicious or extremely flavoursome, just 'meh'.

On to dessert.

We went for the deconstructed carrot cake, peanut butter chocolate parfait and chocolate truffle. The parfait was our fave so that disappeared first, then the carrot cake which was small squares of cake with frosting, carrot ice cream and carrot puree. Not bad. The truffle was far too rich but ok.

And that was it. As evenings go it was nice to do our catching up about Emma's new job and making our own entertainment as usual, this time laughing at Alex's random referencing of 90s tv puppet characters (Otis the aardvark in case you're wondering!), but the venue certainly did nothing to enhance our fun.

So the verdict on Vanilla Black: it wasn't that there was anything wrong exactly, but there was nothing right either. Plus they turned us away into the pouring rain! Mistake. It was also expensive - £81 for three of us eating only two courses and drinking tap water (£27 each). We've had better and paid less.

On the plus side, over tonight's meal we decided we must revisit the other four vegetarian restaurants we've found because there were excellent parts of each and we need to determine a winner.

So in the coming months we're going to re-experience Mildred's in Soho for their fab desserts, Rootmaster in Brick Lane for their delish mains, Carnevale by Old Street to give it another chance to shine and Zilli Green on Dean Street for my personal fave, their amazing passion fruit brulee.

Can't wait.

Regrets, I've had a few

Thinking back, the one that sticks in my mind is our first ever dining club at Zeen on Drummond Street.

Being fairly naive at this stage, we duly looked up the place online for reviews and recommendations. The one we all saw was the mention of the 'amazing soft shell crab'.

Well, of course we all thought that sounded yummy and hey, why not try it? Dining club is the perfect time to try new stuff.

In the end we all ordered it as a starter and I admit, for a second I worried if all of us having the same thing was a mistake, but how bad could it be?

So, our mouths watering, it arrived. And it was a crab. A whole, little crab, all it's head and legs intact like a deep fried spider, since of course it has a soft shell so you eat it all, and we had to eat it...

Of course we all balked 'I can't eat THAT!' 'OH MY GOD'. We did try, but it wasn't great. I definitely couldn't eat it looking like that and had to mash it up so it didn't look like a crab. It was tasty, yeah, but I couldn't get the image out of my head and it really put me off. Now I know I can't separate looks from taste!

So soft shell crab is not for me. I knew I should have gone for the chicken tikka ;-)

Happy birthday!

It started a year ago with four of us, all colleagues. One of us was about to leave -not the country, just the job - so we agreed to meet once a month for dinner, to catch up, enjoy each other's company and try new and fun places to eat.

Looking back over the past 12 months, our evenings have consisted not just of meals, but also experiences that have been hilarious and sometimes strange to the point of 'get me out of here; NOW'. Since our little dining club began there's no doubt we have enjoyed the delicious, the expensive, the disgusting and the extremely weird, but we wouldn't change it one bit.

After judging all our exploits in a Come Dine With Me style, next week we celebrate our 1 year anniversary at this year's favourite, Isarn in Islington, since it came out on top when we compiled all our scores.

We decided to set up this blog to share our experiences, old and new, and for us to look back on fun times, remembering what we liked and what we didn't and what we saw and wish we hadn't!

One things for sure, we can't wait for Isarn again as the food, drink and cowskin chairs are fab - but we also can't wait to see what crazy things we'll do/eat/regret eating in the next year!