Talli Joe is a new ish restaurant doing Indian half plates and full drinks on the Covent Garden side of Shaftesbury Avenue. I headed there recently to join their PR company and some of my favourite bloggers to test run their menu and learn about the spicing that head chef uses to create the different tapas style dishes. It was such a fun and filling evening and we learnt about the three ways the chef spices dishes - as a dry rub, in poaching liquids or through frying. We sampled as many cocktails as possible from the menu divided into regions that inspire each drink. My favourite was the Holy Basil - made with whisky, basil leaves, grapefruit syrup, tea and prosecco - which was just the right side of bitter whilst being really refreshing.
We also ate as much from the food menu as was humanly possible! My absolute favourite being the truffle ghee kulcha - a naan stuffed with cottage cheese and brushed with a very generous portion of truffle ghee. Other stars of the menu were the Chicken 21, aptly named after the number of attempts it apparently took chef to develop this delicious dish. The Devilled Quail Egg, a scotch egg made with crabmeat, quail's egg and served with tadka mayo, was sublime, as was the Talli Macchi - grilled and spiced red mullet which comes with half an orange that's been soaked in Old Monk rum that you squeeze over the fish. In fact, out of all the many dishes we sampled there wasn't one that I disliked. It's great to have a reliable "tapas" style Indian in the middle of town, where you can get cracking cocktails and really good food at great prices. You can find more info on Talli Joe here.
As much as I love discovering the newest, top-rated restaurants in London, sometimes you just want to pop in somewhere, knowing that you can get good food, served quickly, that's not going to cost a vast amount of money. When I lived in Hoxton (a long, long time ago!) The Real Greek on Hoxton Square was one of those places. I'd go there with mates for pre-party feeding sessions, and at other times for a quick, good value snack. I hadn't been to any of their other branches in London (there are now 8 across London) but when I was invited to their new site on St Martin's Lane I was interested to see if they're still serving that same food we enjoyed way back when.
I'm pleased to say that nothing's changed! I ordered a few small dishes to sample - to start with I had a taster plate of some of the dips, from the top - taramasalata (deliciously smooth and none of that bright pink supermarket stuff which isn't real taramasalata at all); a pea dip which I can't find the name for, but was really good and summery; melitzanosalata - smoked aubergine, garlic and lemon - which was light and very tasty; tzatziki - Greek yoghurt with cucumber, garlic, dill and fresh mint; and the red one, which was htipiti - Greek cheese blended with roasted peppers and chilli, which had just the right amount of spice to add a nice kick. What I really like about the dips at The Real Greek is they all taste so fresh and light. Often shop bought, and some restaurant, dips can be heavy, and lacking in their own distinct flavours but this wasn't the case at all here. If I could buy pots of their taramasalata my diet would be in a lot of trouble!! The flatbreads served with the dips were perfectly toasted with herbs and oil, and warm when they were served.
I don't review a lot of chain restaurants on my blog, as I don't really eat at a lot of chain restaurants. I live near Chiswick which is full of chains that I never go to, but there's one that stands out from the rest and which has tempted me in before - Bill's. Bill's started life as a greengrocer in one of my favourite villages in Sussex, Lewes. The greengrocer grew to include a café, the café became a restaurant, and now there are over 60 branches of Bill's restaurants across the UK, from Exeter to Glasgow and most places in between, with 18 branches in London. I was invited to the Covent Garden branch to try the new summer cocktail and food menu. Despite their huge growth, Bill's ethos is still the same - to serve really good food at good prices, in gorgeous spaces, to loyal customers.
Our dinner at Bill's in Covent Garden was on a hot, hot night, and we were sitting at a long, cool table in the upstairs area near the kitchen. We kicked things off with cocktails - a fruity and refreshing raspberry and rosehip collins for me - rosehip gin, raspberry and pink grapefruit cordial, lemon, Bill's pink lemonade and fresh raspberries; and the bramble mojito for the boy, made with white rum, blackberry puree, mint and lime. Both cost less than £6 which is pretty amazing value for a cocktail in the middle of Covent Garden!
