Looking for a sophisticated, quirky afternoon tea in Central London? Then I’ve got just the thing for you.

Set in the sun-filled atrium of the Sanderson Hotel, this Alice-in-Wonderland-theme afternoon tea was just what the doctor ordered for nine mildly hungover girls celebrating a friend’s engagement. To the soothing sound of the atrium fountain, we mulled over a choice of tea-infused cocktails or a glass of Laurent Perrier. The majority opted for the ‘Vivid Hour’, an earl-grey-infused vodka cocktail with raspberry liqueur and fresh raspberries, heavy on the vodka.

Then came the tiered vintage cakestands, laden with sweet treats such as mini medicine bottles filled with a passionfruit and coconut concoction, a layered chocolate cake masquerading as a clock, and ‘Eat Me’ hearts filled with strawberry mousse. For the traditionalists, there were mini scones (two a piece) with clotted cream and individual pots of strawberry jam, and an array of rainbow-hued finger sandwiches.

A common problem with afternoon teas can be the sheer relentlessness of cake and sugar — an issue the Sanderson cleverly avoids with a myriad of different flavours and textures, all executed with style and a little dash of invention.

Lastly, a choice of teas. For pure show, I’d recommend the flowering Jasmine tea, which slowly unfurled to the ‘oooohs’ and ‘aahs’ of all present.

All this for £35 (plus a rather cheeky 15% service) each seems perfectly good value, especially given the cocktails and sheer amount of food. Given the hype and over-inflated price-tags that come with many London afternoon teas, and the various luke-warm reviews online regarding the food and service (which was lovely and friendly when we were there), the Mad Hatter’s Tea was a delightful surprise.

Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea
Sanderson Hotel
50 Berner Street
London W1T 3NG
0207 300 5588 (Restaurant Reservations)

The Royal Garden Hotel is as swish inside as it’s ugly on the outside. Given its hulking boxy concrete exterior, that makes it rather swish indeed.

I felt decidedly underdressed as I step out on the 10th floor and was faced with all the polished surfaces of hotel fine-dining decor. Having high-tailed it over straight from yoga to make it in time for our 6pm booking (the only time-slot available at short notice on a Thursday evening), I somehow ended up compensating for my scraped-back yoga hair and tatty jeans by attempting to sound as posh as humanly possible.

“Good evening good sir, I believe my companion has made a reservation for a table at the hour of six o’clock, would you be so kind as to advise me whether or not he has arrived? Oh my, what a spiffing view, I do say!”

Thankfully, my friend also turned out to be wearing jeans and a t-shirt, putting me at ease for the rest of the meal. (He was also wearing a sweater-vest, but we’ll gloss over that, shall we?)

Our table overlooked Hyde Park; with the sun still high in the sky, the view was a dose of well-being and calm. Far below, a large white circus-style tent was setting up.

All this pleasant surrounds seemed to bode rather badly for the food. A Chinese restaurant, one I’d never heard of, on the top floor of a hotel on High Street Kensington? In these casual recessionary times, where the hallmarks of a good eat is an undesirable location, zero-budget decor and an active Twitter account, nothing about Min Jiang was ringing my foodie bells.

Thank goodness then, for the half of ‘Legendary wood-fired Beijing duck’, served two-point-one ways. First up (the 0.1 of the meal): a handful of slivers of skin from the duck’s neck, served with a fine sugar, but better when dipped in hoisin sauce instead. Fatty goodness.

Next, thin slices of duck breast with pancakes (5 each) and two sets of fillings – the traditional (spring onions, cucumber) and the mild-variation-on-tradition (carrot in a marinade and something else, I forget). In the end, once you slather a pancake with hoisin sauce and slices of duck, the rest of the ingredients are mostly there for texture.

Then, a choice of four options for the rest of your duck (or half duck):

Option 1 Spicy minced Duck with a Lettuce wrap

Option 2 Salted Vegetable Soup with Duck and Tofu

Option 3 Fried Rice with diced Duck

Option 4 Fried Noodles with sliced Duck

 We opted for Option 2 (whether or not you have to choose the same thing, I’m not sure). Delicious and surprisingly filling.

All this, at £30 for a half duck, is a bit of a bargain in my opinion. Unfortunately, this economic saving was quickly overshadowed by the other dishes we ordered: Yong Chow Fried Rice, Tofu with Morel Mushrooms and Snow Fungus, and Sichuan Double Cooked Pork Belly with Chinese Leek. All these were a) double the price you’d be willing to pay for them, and b) not in any way special or particularly good.

Service, by Chinese restaurant standards, was stellar. The waiters smiled. They brought dishes over in a manner that suggested respect for their diners and pride in their work. They wishes us a good evening as we left. They even gave me this rather snazzy take-away box for the leftover food.

Would I go back? Definitely. But only for the view and the duck.

PS: They advise you to pre-order the duck, as it takes 45 minutes to roast.

Min Jiang
Royal Garden Hotel
2-24 Kensington High Street
London W8 4PT
020 7361 1988

www.minjiang.co.uk

 We are young and ambitious, have worked in some of the best kitchens in the world, and now we want to do things our way.

~ from the Young Turks website

Who are the Young Turks? Put simply: a ‘collective’ of a few young chefs, currently cooking dinner in the upstairs room of the Ten Bells pub near Spitalfields Market.

Latest news is that this pop-up (yes, let’s all have a collective ‘urgh’ at the word) has now been extended to the end of April, thus making it worth a write-up.

Firstly, the menu (which changes weekly), starting with:

Cauliflower Cheese

Goose, Oat Cracker & Chutney

Devilled Crab

These were served as sharing plates for the table, along with some brown fluffy sourdough bread, which they buy in from a bakery outside London, apparently. All good; the crab rather addictive.

Pig’s Head, Turnip & Apple

Kale, Arborath Smokie & Herring Roe

Pheasant, Parsley Root, Onion & Chestnuts

Marmalade, Brioche & Clementine

Then the individual plating started. Again, all good. Pheasant portion (two breasts) was much larger than any of the preceding courses, which threw us (in a good way). Dessert was rather sublime.

Ambiance: like any good pop-up, the specialness of the Ten Bells lies in the atmosphere and location. You enter through an umarked door at the back of the pub, up creaky stairs, into a high-ceiling room filled with mis-matched pub tables. Lights are low, the walls are peeling with old paint. Sure, the glare from the renovated Spitalfields Market shines through the window, but in this room you could be anywhere, any decade. The place buzzes with the sound of Londoners having a jolly good time.

Would I go back? Maybe. If it was cheaper, certainly. But at £39 for dinner, without service and wine, it feels like you’re paying a hefty price for the atmosphere (and perhaps a lack of economies of scale), rather than the food.

If you regularly spend £50 on dinner, or love supperclubs, then paying a trip to the Ten Bells is a no-brainer. Go, go soon, and book even sooner.

But if £39 is a major splash-out, I’d suggest going somewhere where your cash will stretch further. After all, with the right group of friends, a rollicking good time will be had, no matter where you go.

Young Turks @ The Ten Bells
First Floor, 84 Commercial Street
London E1 6LY

Young Turks website

The Dead Hippe Burger -- no oil painting....

Eating in a restaurant has been likened to buying a slice of lifestyle which doesn’t necessarily belong to you. For example, book dinner at any of London’s overpriced overstyled “it” restaurants and feel like an oligarch for the evening; as long as you can pay the bill, no one has to know otherwise.

In a similar vein, cult burger joint MEATliquor is so overtly, drippingly, jaw-achingly cool that you’re automatically cool by association, for just stepping in the door.

Exhibit #1 of coolness: there is no obvious sign outside the restaurant. You identify it by the queue of quietly hip people (Exhibit #2) waiting outside, and the wafting smell of greasy charred meat.

Exhibit #3: the decor. Scarlet tube lighting, black-red-white painted walls adorned with torsos, animal parts, skulls, quotations, you name it. Men’s toilets labelled ‘dicks’ in edgy capitals. (What’s the girls’ loo called? I asked my dining buddy. Chicks, was the disappointing reply on her return.)

Exhibit #4: the crockery. Jam jars as water glasses. Aluminium baking trays as plates. Rolls of kitchen-towel on the table. And no cutlery. All very alt-glamour.

And the food? Highly enjoyable wholesome calorific fare. We both went for the Dead Hippie burger (double patty, cheese, pickles, I forget what else) along with a side of Deep Fried Pickles with Blue Cheese Dip. The dip was so moreish I’d have eaten the whole little tub, if I’d had cutlery. I settled for dipping my burger instead, which dripped dangerously with meat juice and wayward ketchup.

For dessert, a small selection of pies and ice-cream floats failed to excit, so continuing the ‘savoury for sweet’ theme of recent meals, we shared the Chilli Fries — an enourmous plate of fries covered in chilli (as in ‘con carne’), pickles and more cheese. We ate most of this addictively stodgy mess, but I’d avoid it in the future for the sake of my arteries.

Staff were uniformly pretty, chirpy and tried to ply us with Bloody Marys at 1pm in the afternoon.

I’ll be back soon, when I get that burger craving, or need another dose of cool to bolster my social ego. MEATliquor will be sure to satisfy, either way.

Burgers around £7, sides around £3-5

MEATliquor
74 Welbeck Street
London W1G 0BA
020 7224 4239

meatliquor.com

No reservations

It’s hard not to love the concept of The 10 Cases – Bistrot à Vin.

10 whites, 10 reds, 10 cases of each. When the cases run out, that’s it, and a new wine comes in. Simple daily-changing menu, featuring three starters, three mains and three desserts — plus a small board of specials and appetiser tidbits.

We had the anchovies, twice. Once as a starter, once as dessert — though this may be over-selling them, as their choice as a dessert was more due to the lack of exciting dessert options (rice pudding, Neal’s Yard cheese, apple tart) than a whole-hearted recommendation. That said, there were rather good, as was the saucisson.

Mains-wise, confit duck (£15) was as excellent as they come. Crispy skin, soft perfectly-salted meat, all perched on a bed of greens with a side of carrots included. My dining partner ordered the rainbow trout, which came whole, lightly poached, then seared. Fresh enough to tempt me into ordering fish the next time I come here, and that’s saying something.

Now, the wine. Hand-written in a charming but barely legible scrawl, the list offers all the wines by the 125ml glass, 500ml carafe and bottle. We ordered a carafe of the 2008 Riesling “Karthauser”, Weingut Tesch, Nahe. Served along with an ice-bucket (important for slow drinkers like me), it was smooth, fresh and gently aromatic.

Wine pricing: unfortunately for light drinkers/small groups, it seemed that the more pricey wines were prohibitively expensive when ordered by the glass. For example, the white burgundy was £9 for a 125ml glass, while only £31 for the whole bottle. Compared to the cheapest red, which was £4 per glass and £20 per bottle, this means that either the burgundy was a steal by the bottle (quite possible) or they’re really not keen to sell you it by the glass (for obvious wine-storage reasons).

A real shame, especially for a restaurant seemingly selling the merits of fast wine turnover — i.e. limited cases, so a chance to try something new. It all would have been running for the cheapest option, should I only want a glass with each course.

Service in this surprising small bistro was super-friendly and wonderfully efficient. My fork had barely stopped clattering on the floor when our waitress hurried over with a clean one. But don’t expect to hang around after desserts on a busy night. With a queue of diners waiting just inside the door, only a few metres away, the message is clear: your table is hot property. But at least there was no official time-limit to our dinner.

I’ll definitely be back. But oddly enough, for the food and atmosphere. The wine list, quirky as it is, is merely a minor plus point.

The 10 Cases
16 Endell Street
London WC2H 9BD
0207 836 6801
Online booking available

the10cases.co.uk