Dan "vrih" B.'s Profile

The best burgers in London now have a permanent home. Meat Liquor is a church to the glory of processed cow and pickles that have been baptised in holy oil. The fries are triple fried, the kitchen roll double ply and my belt stretched wide. This is pure meat heaven in a devilish setting - the deep South gone twisted. No more needs to be said other than go there!

Calling yourself a legend can go either of two ways. In this case we are sure to be talking about Manchurian Legends for a long time for all the worst reasons.

If you were to look up the professional reviews of this dongbei restaurant you would believe that it's the greatest new Chinese restaurant. A slew of 4 & 5 star reviews from people that are normally right. I can only assume that they picked their dishes with a large amount of luck.
From the starters menu we had Aubergine with garlic. This was honestly inedible with raw garlic so strong and plentiful that it felt like it was burning my mouth. The manchurian duck was at least edible but the quality of what was presented to us was far below what was pictured in the menu. In fact the only passable dish we had from the starter section was spicy shredded potato, which we have had much nicer versions of in other dongbei and sichuan restaurants.

The manchurian kebabs seem to be raved about by reviewers. What we got was squid completely overpowered by raw cumin amongst other spices. Not inedible and at £1.50 per skewer probably not bad value but just not a great dish.

We then got pork belly with glass noodles. I don't know if it was because my taste buds had been destroyed by previous dishes but this seriously disappointed on flavour. The point of wanting the thick artery clogging fat on pork belly is for the wonderful flavour trapped within. This dish again just had a cumin/curry taste and could have pretty much had any meat in and tasted the same. A real waste of pork.

Finally the bubble tea. Surely a safe bet. In fact it was a delicious milky taro but the bubbles were few in number and when bitten had a horrible grainy texture. Not knowing much about them I can only assume they were undercooked.

We left the restaurant having paid £40 and only eating about £10 of food. The rest was honestly ranged from unpleasant to inedible. We turned down the option of taking the left overs away. There are much better Dongbei restaurants that actually do justice to the cuisine.

Rooftop bars and bbqs are in theory a great thing. There are many reasons why they can fail and The Queen of Hoxton is a perfect exposition of these.

1) If you're a rooftop restaurant make sure you have a view.

Here the roof is overlooked by tall imposing office blocks. The only glimpse of outside world you get is either onto the neighbouring rooftops or a tiny break in the office blocks revealing a view of the ultimate office block, Canary Wharf.

2) Make sure what's on the menu is the same as what you're cooking.

I can overlook how the menu makes the burgers sound better than a limp patty in a budget bun with some coleslaw and limp salad. I'm slightly less willing to overlook 'Jerk chicken wings with dirty rice and sugared oranges' being served as Jerk chicken wings with coleslaw and limp salad. Even worse was watching the terrible hygiene standard in the kitchen as they couldn't find a clean place to put the coleslaw spoon.

3) Don't have your rooftop bar overlooking a much more exciting bar.

Throughout the whole time we spent on the rooftop bar most people seemed more interested in looking at the party that was happening at Papermill next door. The atmosphere was completely drowned out by Papermill's music.

There's plenty more things that were wrong with the Queen of Hoxton. For a bar situated at the wrong end of Hoxton they really haven't tried very hard to make it good.

This is not a music mecca. This is just a shockingly bad tourist trap, in which they try to fleece you for as much money a possible. Sure they still have a great selection of music to buy but they don't want you the music lover in there. They want Mr Tourist who will buy the novelty photos from the Rough Trade photo booth and will stop for a coffee. In fact they don't really care about this either as, despite making a big deal of advertising it as Monmouth coffee, they have no idea how to brew it. Actually incompetently brewed and tasted worse than instant. There isn't really a lot to recommend Rough Trade other than nerdy musicness.

Eating at Gaucho is like dining on a 'classy' porn set.  It has everything you could want for a mucky movie: dark lighting, chandeliers, black walls and cow print furniture. Unfortunately none of this really translates well to dining. It's too dark to read the menu and the place just seems a lot tackier than the prices would suggest. In fact, that's exactly the reason for me avoiding the chain for so long.

Despite all this there is one redeeming feature it's the quality of the steak. We had 5 people tucking into a huge sirloin that was tender to perfection. This was an exceptionally cooked £120 slab of meat. Almost enough to completely overlook the cheekily overpriced sauces and the slightly underwhelming sides. This definitely falls into the category of places I would never invite someone to but if I was invited then I would grudgingly go based purely on the memory of that steak.

Koya is brilliant udon preceded by a queue. I wish this was an undiscovered gem. At one point it probably was. Now there is always a queue on a Friday night. These are the best noodles in London and it is worth the queue.

It's not just noodles at Koya. There are delicious small plates available as well, like the fattiest, tastiest pork belly you'll find. Just get your mouth round the noodles though.

Cay Tre Soho is different to the other branch. Very different. I mean, the food is reassuringly as good as in Hoxton but everything feels alien and a completely different experience. What you have here is a cool restaurant with staff that are much more attentive.

Starting this review with the desserts, as that's by far the most important aspect of the meal, Cay Tre offer ice creams made by local ice cream parlour Gelupo. These aren't Gelupo's normal flavours. No, these are special Cay Tre flavours like Vietnamese Coffee and Vietnamese Basil, and boy are they good.

The rest of the food is also absolutely delicious and expertly cooked. They are also pretty reasonable in price, particularly when you consider this is Dean Street and they could easily get away with being a bit cheeky with the prices.

Service has never been a strong point in Cay Tre. In fact I kind of enjoy their indifference sometimes. Here, however, they are definitely making a bit more effort here. They're by no means perfect but, as I said, Cay Tre has never been about service.

This is definitely now a go to place for a light meal in Soho.

The name café feels a little bit misplaced here as this is much more like a bistro. There are a selection of large and small dishes available for lunch, starting from just £3 a dish.

The dishes were all delicious, absolutely packed with flavour. Each small dish contained only a few ingredients and they were all very present in the flavour.

The most striking thing about the Riding House Café is that it's just full of beautiful people. The staff and most notably the customers are all stunning. It's a fantastic place to just go have a couple of dishes and people watch.

I can imagine that on a weekday The Folly is my worst nightmare. It's the kind of bar that could just be completely overrun by bankers. Thankfully o a weekend they are nowhere to be seen.

Cocktails are adventurous and well executed here. The bar staff are friendly and on a Saturday night it isn't too busy. There is room to move around and breathe. It's really quite a cool chilled bar.

All Summer I've been getting the train to Charing Cross and getting the gorgeous smell of pigs being sacrificed getting me starving. The sacrifice must be working because on a gorgeously hot day I had the most amazing pulled pork.

The food comes in a neat little cardboard box, stuffed full so you can't see what awaits. On the bottom is the nicest slaw, followed by pickle with a flavour that is much more than just vinegary and then meat with a hunk of bread on top. The only way forward is to dig in and get messy.

Definitely save the bread to mop up all the juices that collect in the bottom of the box,  It's almost like a sweet dessert to round off the meal.

The bonus to Pitt Cue are the cocktails. These are more than passable for a 'burger van' style outlet and on a hot Summer's evening you'll just be in heaven.