The first time I went to the Harwood Arms (click here to read about that meal), I was bowled over by both the wonderful quality of the food and the very reasonable pricing. Resident Harwood Arms chef Stephen Williams trained under Brett Graham at The Ledbury which now holds two Michelin stars. So while the Harwood Arms may be a collaboration between Brett, Mike Robinson from The Pot Kiln and Edwin Vaux from the Vaux brewery, it resonates with Brett’s trademark cooking. It’s little wonder then that the Harwood Arms won its first Michelin star earlier this year.

With its new star rating, bookings have gone through the roof. Its focus has switched solely to the food, and so it’s dropped the gastropub label. There is still a bar area at the Harwood Arms, but this is mainly used for pre-dining aperitifs with casual pub drinking now being frowned upon.

My last visit to the Harwood Arms was over a year ago, and ever since then I have yearned for their wonderful venison Scotch egg (£3). A perfectly cooked runny egg encased in beautifully seasoned venison meat and coated with crispy breadcrumbs delighted once again. However, from memory there use to be more meat to be had.

Scotch egg

Scotch egg

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Foie gras terrine

The last couple of meals that I had with LD (at The Cadogan Arms and Le Café Anglais) proved to be somewhat unsuccessful. This seemed to have the effect of putting a dent in my ‘restaurant choosing capability’ as this time round she suggested (insisted) that she pick the destination for our next meal out. With a sniff, I agreed. I obviously don’t get it right all the time, but I like holding the mantle of ‘restaurant picker’ amongst my friends, even if it is self-bestowed, and it isn’t a title that I wanted to relinquish easily.

So this is how, at LD’s suggestion, we ended up at Marco at Stamford Bridge (sniff). The restaurant is a collaborative effort between Chef Marco Pierre White and as you might have guessed, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich. The restaurant has the look of money behind it. The room is filled with leather cubicle seating and glamorous black and white photographs of celebrities from a bygone era. It’s dark and decadent, and if cigars were allowed, I would have almost hazarded a guess that this was an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club house.

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Wallace & Co.

Wallace & Co is the new cafe/restaurant (opened about three weeks) undertaking by Greg Wallace of Masterchef fame. You know, the self-proclaimed “cooking woman’s crumpet”. The happy chappy with the shiny skull and the big booming voice, who along with John Torode, came up with some rather memorable (or depending on your viewpoint – laughable) turns of phrase on the show. Wallace & Co is located in Putney, rather than the more competitive locales of Central London, and it looks the part of a wholesome neighbourhood restaurant. It’s cosy, airy and spacious, and decorated in warm green and beige colours, it feels so homely that you can’t help but want to go in and sip a cappuccino or two.

The centrepiece at the front of the restaurant is a huge wooden table, littered with scrumptious looking baked goods. There is also a take-away salad bar, and, something that should come as no surprise, vegetables for purchase (Greg is a wholesale greengrocer after all – his business is called Secrett’s Direct). Behind the front section is the split level dining area.

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Lobster noodles

For those of you familiar with the Royal China chain, it would be easy to assume that the Royal China in Putney is part of this established group of restaurants. It isn’t, although it was the original restaurant that spawned the rest. The Putney branch broke away some years ago and it operates as an independent establishment even though it still shares a name with the well known group.

My interest in Royal China Putney has been alive and kicking for a while now, spurred by a recommendation from the mother of one of my Chinese friends. She and her Hong Kong University alumni friends have tried this dish at various restaurants in London and they consider Royal China Putney’s lobster noodles to be the best in London.

But my motivation for coming here was twofold, as I also wanted to dispel the myth/rumour that exists in some food circles that Mandarin Kitchen in Bayswater has the best lobster noodles in London. In my opinion, it doesn’t. I tried their version about a year and a half ago (pre-blog) and was hugely disappointed. The noodles turned up in a few short minutes, suggesting that they had been pre-cooked and then reheated just before service. And that’s how they tasted, as they lacked that quintessential zing that comes with food that has been cooked à la minute. The lobster also lacked flavour and overall the noodles were lacklustre. Thereafter I hatched a plan to find something better in its place.

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Roast beef

I have long wanted to try Sonny’s. It’s one of those restaurants in South West London (Barnes) that is well liked by the locals and holds a steady reputation as a pretty decent venue. Ed Wilson of Terroirs use to cook there, so it’s churned out some notable chefs. I’ve booked to go there before, but for one reason or another have never quite made it. So it was not without irony that we ended up at Sonny’s on this occasion purely by chance – when the first restaurant we went to around Richmond way was booked out, and the second one we tried to find a table at stopped serving Sunday lunch at 2pm.

But it was my fault that we were so late. After having been homeless for about six weeks after getting back from my summer trip, I finally moved into my new flat a couple of weeks ago. It therefore seemed opportune when arranging to meet up with some guy friends who I invited around to check out my new pad before we headed out for lunch, that I may as well get them to help me move some furniture around. And then it seemed like another good idea to ask them to help me with those mysterious problems that I always seem to have with certain electronic devices, eg, the TV. When all was done and it was 2:15pm, I was not only starving but ever so grateful that we finally found a restaurant that would accommodate us

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Wild rabbit starter for two

I suffer from a disposition that I call ‘geographical disorientation’, an affliction which I liken to not ‘knowing’ where something is. It usually strikes when I am trying to remember where I have last parked my car, and most inconveniently when I am in a desperate hurry to go somewhere. I usually can’t remember, a debate ensues, which ultimately results in me having to guess. Living smack bang in the middle of my street, there is roughly a 50/50 chance that I have parked the car either to the left, or to the right of my flat. But it is not unheard of for me to occasionally guess wrong, which means that I invariably have to walk back on myself. Sigh – what to do?

The situation wasn’t particularly different when, over coffee the other day, I was trying to tell a foodie friend of mine, D, that the next restaurant on my agenda was the Harwood Arms in Shepherd’s Bush. ‘Oh no, it’s in Fulham’, she said. ‘No, I’m pretty sure it’s in Shepherd’s Bush’, I insisted, and so it went. But now that I have actually been to the Harwood Arms, the consequence of which was that I had to drive to, umm, Fulham, and not Shepherd’s Bush (and this was after finally locating my car), I now have no option but to swallow my words and admit to D that she was correct. Sigh, what to do?

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