Diner

If you're in an "only a burger can fix this" mood, but hate finishing your Big Mac and thinking, "I could eat another ten of those," The Diner on Ganton Street is the place for you.

Despite the fact it was 3pm on Wednesday afternoon, the restaurant was buzzing. We had a brief wait at the bar before our rock-chick waitress showed us to our table.

Uncharacteristically, I overestimated my eating prowess by ordering a cheeseburger, cheesy fries and a chocolate and vanilla milkshake. This should give you an idea of the classic American fare on offer. 

We both had a cheese OD as my friend went for macaroni cheese with a side of cheesy fries.The menu offers a selection of cheeses to accompany the dishes. I went for Monterey Jack, but would've liked cheddar as an option, as for me, it is the cheese par excellence for  a gourmet burger (and I belong to a family in which "cheesing" is a verb i.e. "are you cheesing?")

The food is served in pleasingly trashy plastic baskets. We decided that for future visits, one basket of cheesy fries would suffice as a side for two healthy appetites. 

Alcoholic and non-alcoholic milkshakes are available. I went for the virgin option. It is best to think of the milkshake as less of a drink and more of a dessert, as we both needed to order a more hydrating beverage. 

The burger was a tempting combination of flavoursome beef, cheese, tomato, onion and lettuce. Just don't expect to be asked how you'd like it cooked.

The cheesy chips were delicious and just what I needed after traipsing around the British Museum's fantastic Ice Age Exhibition. 

The Diner gets +1 point for service for our friendly and accommodating Anglo-American waitress. 

We met up with my friend's sister after our meal and she expressed envy at our trip. She said: "if you don't feel at least a little bit sick after going to that place you haven't done it right." I think it's fair to say that by that token, we most certainly did it right.

7.5/10

Chiquito, Basildon

My friends and I went for a Christmas meal at Chiquitos, a Mexican Restaurant at Basildon’s Festival Leisure Park. There is a good cocktail list-I recommend the sweet, Disaranno based MexiPop. Some of us had pre-ordered our meals and some hadn’t, but the staff were obliging about our mix-and-match approach.

The table was decked out in Christmas crackers, party poppers and balloons. I appreciated the festive spirit put into our table, although my cracker gift was the weirdest thing I have ever seen-a small pair of plastic orange lips. Still, you never know when you will be invited to a goldfish fancy-dress party.

My starter was a tub of barbecue chicken wings; there were a lot of them, so it’s a good thing they tasted great. My main was a chicken and chorizo skewer. This was served on a sizzling hot plate, meaning that sides like sweetcorn continued to cook after it arrived. I liked the fun presentation of the dish. It also came with sweet-potato chips, but given the size of the main plate, the chips were surplus to requirement. For dessert, I had a honeycomb cheesecake served with a small pot of melted chocolate. The chocolate was unnecessary but tasty, and the cake, topped with chocolate-coated honeycomb, was the highlight of my meal.

                                                                                

Other highlights included: fajitas, with the wraps served separately to an array of fillings, so that the diner can create whatever kind of wrap they want; Churros, the Mexican donut strips; and ice-cream Sundaes. There was also a monster Strawberry Daquiri served in a glass which could have contained an entire Dita von Teese Burlesque act.

While I love a three-course meal, given the size of the portions at Chiquitos, I would advise visitors to stick to two-courses. My friend had a burger which included two giant patties, which would challenge even Hunger, the erstwhile Shreddies mascot. The service, while friendly, was also a little slow, and our booking deposit was not deducted from the first copy of our bill, although our cheerful waitress was quick to correct the error. It was also good value at three courses for £19.95 from the Christmas menu.

A Visual Representation of My Main Course

Overall: 7/10

Theo Randall

For my other half Rachel’s birthday, I took her to Theo Randall at The InterContinental Hotel. This was my second visit, so I had high expectations of quality Italian-inspired food. The last time I came, it was early evening, and the restaurant was rather quiet, so while I enjoyed the experience, the atmosphere was slightly intimidating. At 8.30, there was a far more relaxed ambiance, which was a necessary comedown from our crazed dash across the road from Hyde Park Corner Tube Station-note to other diners: use the Park Lane subway, your instinct is wrong (o.k, note to self). I found the staff welcoming, friendly and attentive, asking several times if we had any questions about the menu or if there was anything else we wanted.

As a starter, I had a charcuterie board, the highlights of which were the parma ham and salami. I was not keen on the pickled vegetables served with it, but Rachel liked them. She had the Carpaccio served with beetroot, parmesan and red cabbage. She found the dish to have perfectly balanced flavours and said that after eating the starter she felt like she’d never eaten beef before.

My main was Anjou pigeon on a bed of lentils with Bruschetta. It was extremely tasty, although I felt there was slight overkill with the amount of lentils. I resisted the caveman urge to pick up and gnaw the leg when I couldn’t get any more meat off-could have done with a sharper knife. Rachel had veal capelletti-all of the pasta dishes are available as a starter or main course, and I can recommend these delicious fresh pasta parcels with rich game and mushrooms.

For dessert we shared a tasting plate, which deserves a drum roll ellipsis … panna cotta with a quince-like jam, ice cream in espresso, Amalfi lemon tart and flourless chocolate cake. Up until this meal, I would never have ordered a lemon tart by itself, but it is Theo Randall’s signature dessert for a reason. The flourless chocolate cake was almost overwhelmingly intense but delicious nonetheless. It was a cake worthy of Gregg Wallace-esque excitement (something along the lines of 'I want to dress like a hippo and wallow in it'). The only part I didn’t go nuts for was the ice cream in the cup of espresso, as I’m just not sold on cold coffee, but the vanilla ice cream and flavour combination worked well. 

Theo Randall has an extensive wine list of varying prices, with bottles starting from about £34. We went for an excellent Valpolicella.

Overall: 8.5/10

Not forgetting, of course, my visual representation of our dessert:

 

Locanda Locatelli

For my 21st birthday I went to the one Michelin starred Locanda Locatelli. I promised to send someone an email all about it. Being the food animal that I am, once I started writing, I started thinking I was a restaurant critic, with the following results:

I’ve read a few reviews which have described the interior of Locanda Locatelli as seedy, presumably because of the presence of Leather Sofas (imagine the words nailed to a wall and dripping with blood). So, rather than enjoying the comfortable cream sofas and the soft swivel armchairs, some critics would prefer to be wedged into a straight-backed slab of wood, modelled on an iron maiden. I found the dim lighting chic and relaxed. It is easy to see why 8 Seymour Street is popular with celebrities desirous of an intimate dinner.

It is pricy, and unless you are a movie star, it’s probably strictly for special occasions. My Dad had a field day with the 28 page wine list with a range of prices (my family agreed that an £800 bottle should, at the very least, contain the elixir of immortality).

To start, I had the Carpaccio served on rocket with Parmesan cheese. It was perfectly soft melt in the mouth beef. I’m not a fan of rocket but found this one soft and non-acidic. My brother and sister both had homemade pasta parcels filled with ricotta and asparagus, topped with soft baby asparagus and Parmesan. Despite not liking asparagus or ricotta, I enjoyed it the morsel I tasted: the sign of a great chef is to convert you to his or her choice of ingredients. My Dad had the special of pasta parcels filled with aubergine and walnuts. My Mum had pan-fried scallops.

My mother, sister and brother went for the special main course of slow cooked beef with mashed potato and morel mushrooms. It was a fantastic fillet of medium rare beef served with a red wine sauce. Needless to say, they weren’t sharing. My dad had honey roast breast of duck, with broccoli, garlic and chilli. The sweet and sour flavours lent the dish an Asian feel. I had the extravagant lobster linguine with tomato, garlic and chilli. It was delicious, although my inner spice freak would’ve liked a stronger chilli hit. We shared some deep-fried courgettes, which were like delicious vegetable chips.
                                  

I was disappointed that the chocolate fondant was not available on the night (having drooled over the menu in advance), but my second choice made up for it. The chocoholics (my Dad, my sister and I) went for the tasting of Amedei chocolate. This consisted of a soft chocolate cake, slightly let down by a crumbly chocolate base, a scoop of white chocolate ice cream with chunks of fudge, and the star was a pastry cylinder filled with warm chocolate mousse. My brother had another special, a white peach torte with white chocolate ice cream, which looked, and tasted, wonderful. My mum went for a lighter dessert, fragrant Catalan cream foam with berries and ice cream.

I was delighted with the selection tray of sweets which accompanied the hot drinks. One was an orange sugar-coated jelly, which was essentially, a very posh Jaffa Cake. Then a rich chocolate truffle, and my personal favourite, an almond biscuit, which was macaroon-like in texture but more rustic in appearance. I had a great meal, and I would recommend Locanda Locatelli to anyone who loves Italian food.

Overall: 9.5/10

Here is a visual representation of my meal. Probably not the greatest advertisement, but I had fun trying.