Taco Bell review – whitewashed Mexican-ish fast food comes to Woolwich
★☆☆☆☆ / Mexican

Taco Bell review – whitewashed Mexican-ish fast food comes to Woolwich

For most British people, their only knowledge of Taco Bell will be from the infamous scenes in Sylvester Stallone’s mildly diverting 1993 sci-fi yarn Demolition Man. In the dystopian future setting of the film, Taco Bell is apparently the *only* restaurant left in the world following the ‘franchise wars of the 1990s’ (as Sandra Bullock’s character explains with a straight face) before inexplicably pivoting to fine dining.

While clearly meant as a cheap joke for American audiences of the time, Taco Bell – like many other fast food franchises – is really a transformational pivot of another kind. Continue reading

Madera review – the Mexican Treehouse hotel restaurant that’s fallen off its branch
★★☆☆☆ / Mexican

Madera review – the Mexican Treehouse hotel restaurant that’s fallen off its branch

Tacos with views over London, but it’s barely a feast for the eyes Many major cities across the world have restaurants perched on top of tall buildings – quite often rotating ones. Berlin has the TV Tower, while Munich is graced with Olympia Tower and the CN Tower looms over Toronto. However, the rule of … Continue reading

Prairie Fire review – the smoke and fire of American barbecue arrives in White City
American / ★★★☆☆ / Barbecue/BBQ

Prairie Fire review – the smoke and fire of American barbecue arrives in White City

But the embers are already flickering out I’ve watched the growth and rise of Prairie Fire with interest and concern. Originally a street food stall with a stint at the original Mercato Metropolitano, this American barbecue restaurant has now found itself a permanent home in a former railway arch in White City across the road … Continue reading

Arcade Food Theatre review – a guide to Centre Point’s shiny new food court
★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆ / Street food/food court

Arcade Food Theatre review – a guide to Centre Point’s shiny new food court

Restaurants, rather than street food, dominate this glossy middle-class cafeteria Arcade Food Theatre is a food court taking up the entire street-level annexe of Centre Point, the Tottenham Court Road skyscraper that everyone loves to hate. Even more unusually for a London food court, Arcade Food Theatre isn’t filled with street food traders. Its stalls … Continue reading

Mercato Metropolitano review – the Southwark street food hall trying to be everything to everyone
★★★★★ / ★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆ / ★★☆☆☆ / ★☆☆☆☆ / Street food/food court

Mercato Metropolitano review – the Southwark street food hall trying to be everything to everyone

Halfway between Elephant & Castle and London Bridge, but nowhere in particular Updated 30/9/2019 – added reviews of new traders and updated the reviews of Badiani, Duman, Little Sicily and Turkish Garden Updated 16/4/2019 – added hyperlinked table of contents, corrected spelling and grammatical errors The weird thing about street food in London isn’t the … Continue reading

Casa Pastor review – the Kings Cross Mexican trying to make diamonds from coal
★★★☆☆ / Mexican

Casa Pastor review – the Kings Cross Mexican trying to make diamonds from coal

But the result is taco zirconium Most restauranteurs would kill to have the premises that Casa Pastor has managed to snag for itself. The handsome Victorian brick-and-iron building near Kings Cross sits in what was once a coal sorting yard – the plainly named Coal Drop Yards – almost literally under the shadow of a … Continue reading

Tacos del 74 Dalston review – even worse than Tex-Mex food
★☆☆☆☆ / Mexican

Tacos del 74 Dalston review – even worse than Tex-Mex food

You couldn’t pay me to eat here again. People like to sneer at hipsterish restaurants and bars in Shoreditch and Dalston. They’re seen by many as faddy, shallow trend-chasing establishment serving up fare that’s incomprehensible and inedible to ‘normal’ folk. I have little time for such half-baked nonsense, preferring to judge each establishment on its … Continue reading