Le Relais de Venise 'L'Entrecôte'

Living, as we are privileged to do, in a democracy, choice is held to be totemic of everything that is good in our society. Who we vote for, where we live, what we do for a living, who we have sex with - or not - are all inviolably our choices; their protection is enshrined in law and if we should ever feel that our freedoms are being restricted we have the choice to take to the streets, airwaves or ballot box to make our dissatisfaction known.

Trying to get through to my broadband provider just after Christmas however, to berate them for the fact that, yet again, I had no service, I came to think that choice was perhaps not such a great thing. "OK, " the recorded woman said in a nasal drone that made me want to kill someone and then myself, "you now have five choices..." I listened and pressed the appropriate button. "OK, you now have five choices" she repeated; "No!" screamed I, "I have just made my choice, were you not listening?" But it transpired that these were in fact five more choices; I made mine and waited to be connected to a human being. 

 "OK, you now have five choices..." "WHAT?!" I blustered, "but madame you have already given me five choices, and then another five; what could I possibly want with five more? What could anyone want with fully fifteen choices, when all I want is to speak to one customer 'service' operative and get my broadband fixed pronto?" My blustering was for naught; I had to make a choice - had to - or I would never be afforded the privilege of speaking to one of their highly-skilled 'people' - so highly-skilled that for me to be put through to precisely the right one necessitated the navigation of fifteen choices. I made my choice and waited, all the while eyeing up my living room window and wondering whether throwing myself from it would bring a swift and merciful death or merely cripple me.

With this trauma still indelibly fresh in my mind, I approached lunch at Le Relais de Venise 'L'Entrecote' with an enthusiasm that might be surprising to anyone who has read the to-say-the-least mixed reviews that have preceded this one. The reason you see is that, at L'Entrecôte, there is absolutely no choice at all.

Although a menu displayed by the door cheerfully announces that 'Today' one can have steak 'with its famous sauce, French fries and green salad with walnuts', that is in fact all you can have, any day of the year, and it's this formula that is strictly adhered to at Le Relais de Venise's handful of sites around the world. Black and white-uniformed waitresses ask how you would like your steak cooked (and then scribble this on the paper tablecloth) and take drinks orders from an ultra-concise six bin wine list, but that's where your choices end.

Even how I'd ended up somewhere about which everything shrieks 'Tourist Trap! Avoid!', comes back to choice, or rather lack of it; my lunch date Scott had wanted to take me somewhere else in his Marylebone neighbourhood for a post-Christmas, pre-New Year catch-up, but like in so many other villages, pretty much everywhere was shut. So L'Entrecôte and its entrecôte were our only choices.

And do you know what? It was fine. Not the best steak I've ever had, nor the best chips and definitely not the best (or most exciting) salad, but very far from the worst and, at £21 for the whole lot including a same-quantity-again second serving of steak-frites, indisputably good value. The 'famous sauce', the exact composition of which excites nerds the world over as much as the exact make-up of The Colonel's eleven herbs and spices or the recipe for Coca-Cola, was really rather tasty, creamy and heavy on herbs like a slightly tart pesto.

A half-bottle of house Bordeaux was perfectly drinkable, and at eight quid brought a very pleasant, filling two course lunch for two, with seconds, to just £50 pre-tip. While I wouldn't race back to L'Entrecôte I certainly wouldn't avoid it, and nor it would seem would the moneyed Russian/Arab clientele who, Scott tells me, pack the place out even on days when other choices are available.

To finish off my broadband saga: eventually - after a quarter of an hour on hold during which I was invited to choose which of four genres of tinny piped music I would most like to endure, which struck me as being akin to asking an extraordinarily rendered innocent whether he'd prefer water-boarding or sleep deprivation - I got through to a real-live person who, unable to fix things remotely, booked an engineer's visit.

When she said "Would you like to choose a time-slot?" all I could think was that if only the clever people behind Le Relais de Venise ran call centres, the world would be an altogether happier place.

Le Relais de Venise 'L'Entrecôte', 120 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2QG Tel: 020 7486 0878 http://www.relaisdevenise.com 

Banana Tree, Soho

I had to admire the chutzpah of the marketing guy who sent me, unsolicited, a pretty-generous gift voucher to spend at the newly-opened Soho branch of growing Indochine canteen chain Banana Tree. "We would like to invite you personally to come and try out our new restaurant in Soho!" went the accompanying email; "If you like us, blog it! - if you hate us - let us know, as we are all about improvement and value all opinions, especially yours."

Flattery will get you everywhere with me, and where it doesn't get you bribery usually will, so an offer comprising both was always going to be pretty compelling. If I felt the slightest hint of righteous indignation at so flagrant an attempt to curry my favour, it was swiftly dispelled by the mischievous knowledge that even if I did love the place I didn't have to write about it, and if I hated the place, I didn't have to not write about it - the very opposite of their desired outcomes and more fool them for sending out money willy-nilly. Talk about sticking it to the (marketing) man.

But such an expensive and potentially risky marketing strategy must have been backed up by as much confidence in the product as money in the budget and sure enough, Banana Tree was, well, pretty top banana. Conscious that readers might not take me at my word knowing that my presence there had essentially been bought, I took along my pal Nicola who, as a director of  a high-end hotel and restaurant group knows her stuff and would, I knew, not hold back with her opinions good or bad. Guess what? She loved the place too.

Byron At The Intrepid Fox, Soho

When Lord Byron - poet, aristocrat, traveller, soldier and politician - died in 1824, his contemporary at Cambridge and lifelong intimate Lord Hobhouse said of him that "No man lived who had such devoted friends." Judging by the praise lavished upon it by critics, bloggers and particularly the Twitterati, it would seem that his namesake chain of upscale burger bars inspires similar heights of fidelity. The enthusiasm generated by this relative newcomer to the ever-expanding gourmet burger market has been almost as frenzied as the 19th century public's reception of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; burger afficionados go no more a-roving in search of their beef-patty-'n'-bun fix.

And yet, despite my usually being a sucker for good word-of-mouth, until this week I'd not been in the least bit tempted to go, for the very simple reason that I just don't give a toss about burgers. Not that I don't like them - I do, very much, and my home-made ones are my fiancé's very favourite meal - but they're just not something I feel able to muster any excitement for or especial interest in. Sure, I care if I get served a really bad one - burned, or cold, or in a stale bun say - and can appreciate a good one, but beyond that I'm really not greatly fussed about the beef used, or what cheese goes in it, and certainly couldn't fail to be less concerned about whether or not there are seeds on the bun.

Someone however who could and does care, very much, about such things is my friend Frankie, who I meet up with every few months for drinks, dinner and general merriment. Frankie loves a good burger (and indeed has very definite ideas about what distinguishes a good burger from a great one), so when it came to choosing somewhere for our latest nosh-up, and given that our main criteria were somewhere central, informal and cheap and cheerful, Byron sprang quickly to mind from some deep recess of my remembering.

The West End outpost of the six-strong chain takes its extended name from the pub which used to occupy the site, and which was known to taxi drivers and locals alike as 'that Goth pub' after its black-clad, white-complexioned clientele.Why the name of the pub has been retained is anybody's guess, the interior having been so completely reinterpreted as to erase any vestiges of its previous incarnation. The result is a very agreeable space with its exposed brick walls, low-hanging lights and Eames-ish furniture.

When we arrived at about 8.30 almost every table was taken; I didn't like the one we were shown to but within a few minutes of being settled at another (which I did like) we were told that it was needed for a group and asked if we would move downstairs. The sourness of my expression as we gathered our belongings must have spoken volumes, as we were offered free drinks as a sweetener; the prospect of free booze completely mitigated our annoyance.

As it transpired, the downstairs room was, we both agreed, actually the nicer of the two rooms, its white tiling, neon signs and modern, sculpted plastic furniture creating an atmosphere of part-Bond villain's lair, part-Berlin nightclub. The effect was spoiled slightly by its also being used partly as a store-room; stacks of trays of pop are not the most attractive sight. A very attractive sight however was our charming young waiter who was attentive, friendly and efficient, and knowledgeable and passionate about the Byron concept without being at all preachy.

The concept is, as it happens, remarkably simple and unpretentious consisting of just five points: burgers will be good beef, from small (Morayshire) farms, freshly made, cooked medium and served in proper buns. We both ordered the Byron Burger ('dry cure bacon, mature Cheddar, Byron sauce') and a portion each of French fries and courgette fries. Other options include chicken and veggie burgers and a few salads. There's also a selection of desserts but no starters - at all - unless you count 'proper olives ' (as opposed to what, I wondered? 'Pretend' olives? Parvenu olives?) or tortilla chips, which I don't.

Depending on which one of us you ask - and as it's me writing this review, which rather limits your options, I reproduce Frankie's opinion here too - we enjoyed either 'a very nice burger served simply without being three-feet high and held together with a skewer like in some places' or 'a really fantastic burger, 5 out of 5 for everything, absolutely delicious'. No prizes for guessing which of those accounts is Frankie's.  He loved the bun, commenting on its softness and freshness, whereas I just noticed that they were nice and flat and didn't need squashing or cutting. He liked the tasty cheese and crispy bacon, and noticed the crunch of the lettuce and thick-but-not-too-thick slice of tomato; my assessment was less forensic, focusing more on the (admittedly very palatable) whole rather than appraising the composite parts.

Most importantly, my gourmet guest was very impressed by the excellent meat (a blend we were told of chuck, skirt and brisket, which I thought sounded rather like a 60s California boy-band) and how perfectly it was cooked - it was, as promised, cooked medium, beautifully pink, moist and oozing. Neither of us could detect any discernible flavour to the Byron sauce - vaguely tarragon-y, and were those chopped capers I could see? - but it was perfectly pleasant, as was the tangy quarter-gherkin served with each burger.

The fries both French and courgette were good; crispy, hot and abundant if in the case of the courgette fries a little on the oily side. We drank a very nice bottle of South African Chenin Blanc, from a list which offers a choice of 'Good', 'Better', 'Great' and 'Best' at prices ranging from £13.50 to £21.00. There's also a lengthy selection of soft drinks, shakes and beers and ciders.

So, the dinner and the soiree too were done, and the bill - less our side orders, rather than drinks, by way of apology for the earlier table-changing nonsense, plus a coffee and including a definitely well-earned 12.5% service - came to a very fair £18 each. It had been a very enjoyable meal, and was just part of a long boozy evening which began with cocktails at Quintessentially Soho and ended with karaoke in a tacky-but-favourite gay bar. The notoriously high-living Byron himself would probably have liked to have come along for the ride. I'm still no greater a fan of burgers than I was before, and there was certainly no Damascene conversion as one fellow blogger had suggested there might be, but based on my wholly enjoyable experience I'll happily be recommending Byron to my, I hope devoted, friends.

Byron At The Intrepid Fox, 97-99 Wardour Street, London W1F 0UD Tel: 020 7297 9390 http://www.byronhamburgers.com

Leon, Spitalfields

Leon Restaurants and I go back a long way. Back, in fact, to the first few weeks of the first restaurant opening on Great Marlborough Street, when a group of us enjoyed one of the earliest stabs at providing a dinner service in what had until then been only a daytime destination. Unprepared for the high demand, two of Leon's three co-founders, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, found themselves press ganged into providing waiter service - which they did with great charm and charming inefficiency - while the third member of the founding triumvirate, Allegra McEvedy, took charge in the kitchen.

I loved Leon from the off; the unique food offering - healthy fast food - and the cracking quality of it; the quirkiness of the decor with its photos of the founders' families; and the feeling of being a member of a very groovy but very egalitarian club. I remember feeling then, very strongly, that Leon would be a success and would not stay a single-shop affair for long. Since then I've eaten many a time at many a Leon; when last autumn I joined Henry and friends to celebrate Leon's fifth birthday, it was at their vast Ludgate Circus flagship, one of the nine-and-counting strong chain that that single-shop affair has grown into.  

Tonight's dinner, with my long-time fellow Leon-lover Kate, was at the Spitalfields branch, a large space in the shiny new restaurant complex which replaced - controversially - a large swathe of the old market. It's a nice room, decked out in Leon's signature style of bold colours, refectory-style tables and chairs, and walls adorned with homely books, photos and travel paraphernalia. A particular quirk is the communal toilet, which divides opinion if not the sexes. 

We'd chosen this branch over our usual - the original - to check out the new menu which Leon are in the process of introducing. The 'new' menu, it transpires, is in fact the old menu served in grazing portions; the Emperor has new clothes, but in smaller sizes. There are ten dishes to choose from, all Mediterranean or north African-influenced and all about £4, a half dozen sides - though how 'grazing dishes' can have 'sides' is a mystery to me - and the same selection of full size soups, salads and wraps as is available throughout the day. There are no main courses as such, so if grazing isn't your thing, you're done for. 

Fortunately Kate and I are not averse to grazing and recognised most of our favourite dishes, albeit miniaturised, on the £25 'Feasting' menu. There's also a slightly smaller 'Classic' set menu at £23; a quick mental tot-up worked out each offers a saving of about 10%. Both are heavy on meat and there's no veggie alternative, which I thought was quite a serious omission. Most of what we ate was very good; chilli con carne was rich and punchy, the grilled chorizo was salty and gorgeously chewy, and Leon mash of sweet potatoes and carrots was unctuous and comforting. Moroccan meatballs, and hummus with Greek flatbread, both Leon staples, were excellent. Less successful was chilli chicken, the dark, cheap thigh meat used tasting almost gamey, and garlic and chilli broccoli which tasted only of broccoli. 

Unsurprisingly, we were too stuffed to contemplate puddings but I can vouch from past experience that the brownie with organic ice cream and lemon and ginger crunch are both sinfully delicious. There's a decent if unexciting wine list, all Old World and with one or two choices available by the 500ml carafe; we chose the one rosé, a L'Emage Shiraz at £15, which was fine. A range of refreshing sounding long drinks, both alcoholic and non, is on offer for non-wine drinkers.

Staff are universally polite and friendly, if engaged only to bring things to your table; along with the 'new' menu, Leon has adopted a new service model, Nando's style, of ordering at the counter with ones table number. I don't like this, but I'm sure there are reasons for it. Our set menu and wine came to under £40, which for the quantity we'd enjoyed and the quality of both the food and its presentation felt very reasonable. Note that if you want to leave a tip - for example, if the food has been brought to your table with particular efficiency - you'll need to find a way of doing it; no money changes hands at your table as bills are paid at the counter and there's no visible tip jar or similar.

I'll declare here, to avoid any accusations of shilling, that I do know Henry moderately well, but my role throughout our acquaintance has always been one of critical parent to his bouncing culinary baby. Leon's come in for a bit of flak lately from some quarters; the food has been criticised as bland - it's not, although much it does rely more on aromatics than seasoning - and the publication recently of comprehensive nutritional information caused more than a few raised eyebrows, mine included, at the calorie content of several dishes. But for all that there may have been growing pains, Leon is a fantastic endeavour, still miles ahead of any competitor for quality, consistency and innovation, and deserves to continue to grow and thrive.

Leon, 3 Crispin Place, London E1 6DW Tel: 020 7247 4369 http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/

Palm Court Brasserie

Ordinarily, Palm Court Brasserie in Covent Garden isn't the sort of place I'd go. On a touristy street in a touristy part of town, overlooking the busker-infested hell of the Piazza, it's aimed firmly at the visitor who, seeking brasserie staples in nice surroundings at fair-ish prices, hasn't had the good fortune to stumble on a branch of Brown's (more on which topic later). That said, I'll give anywhere a whirl when there's free food on offer and having accrued enough Toptable Rewards points for a free dinner for two, with Palm Court being one of the venues where the offer could be redeemed, Andrew and I decided to give it a shot. My expectations weren't especially high and it's not being deliberately uncharitable to say that my expectations were met.

That's not to say that there's anything at all wrong with Palm Court. Notwithstanding that I was less than impressed when my pointing out that our table was wobblier than a Crossroads set was met with the response 'Yes they're all like that', service was fine, although Andrew had to reassure me that it shouldn't worry me so much that the adjacent table had to wait what seemed like aeons for their main courses, whereas ours appeared mere seconds after our starters had been cleared away. The decor's none too bad either, in a harmless Paris-by-numbers kind of way, although lighting fell on the squinting side of subdued.

As for the food, it was fair-to-middling for the most part; not bad for a freebie but perhaps not the best showcase for what the kitchen can do (which I would have thought to be the reasoning for offering these reward meals - to impress people enough to want to come back, or perhaps I'm oversimplifying things?) Andrew's starter, a Greek-ish salad of feta, tomato and spinach, was fresh and colourful on the plate; mine, a very ordinary, bought-in chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche (chewy) and onion marmalade - about a teaspoon thereof - was alright but certainly didn't justify a £2 supplement. We got luckier with our mains, both opting for braised gammon ham with mash and grain mustard sauce, which was very pleasant if a little more pub-grub than brasserie-fare. Puddings, from the main menu, were good if not great; Andrew's sticky toffee pudding elicited a 'very nice', and my cheese plate was good on choice and quality but let down by no warning being given that the promised quince paste accompaniment - one of my favourite things - had run out.

When the bill came, our one extra course each, bottle of house red, side dish of green beans and 12.5% service had added £20 a head to our starting balance of £0 - quite a hike. Still not too bad for a three course dinner you might say, but ultimately I can't not compare Palm Court Brasserie with the vastly superior Brown's. I've been eating at Brown's rather a lot of late - it's pretty much become my default destination for casual, quality dining - and everything has been consistently excellent (OK, some duff shallot vinegar with my oysters let things down a little bit the other day, if you really want me to get picky). What's even better is that if you register as a 'Friend of Brown's' on their website right now, you can download a reuseable voucher entitling two people to a two course dinner including a bottle of house wine for just £29. Even adding a couple of puds won't push that figure too far north of the £40 we ended up shelling out at Palm Court for an experience that just wasn't as good.

Joe Public however can't seem to get enough of Palm Court Brasserie; whether it's the special offers, or the location, or some seriously good food that just didn't reach our table this time, something brings the punters flocking in - the entire room was completely packed, with vacated tables being reoccupied in rapid succession. And with that level of business, it's clear that the ones really reaping the Rewards here aren't the Toptable faithful, but the people behind Palm Court Brasserie.

Palm Court Brasserie, 39 King Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8JS tel: 020 7240 2939 www.palmcourtbrasserie.co.uk>

Brown's, 47 Maddox Street, London W1R 9LA and branches. www.browns-restaurants.co.uk

Feng Sushi

Well my new found love of Ping Pong (see ‘Chains Round-Up’) looks set to be short-lived: wanting a quick bit of sustenance before sitting through two hours of Phèdre at the National Theatre, Simon B and I popped into the South Bank branch only to be told that despite all visual evidence to the contrary (i.e: empty seats aplenty) there would be a wait of half an hour for a table. Not by us there wouldn’t be; neither of us had any intention of risking indigestion with Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper waiting for us, so off we buggered to Feng Sushi a few doors down and - dreadful name notwithstanding – it wasn’t a bad performance.

It has to be said that for a casual diner – generic modern-Oriental elements including white walls, bare wooden tables and disposable chopsticks all present and correct – the menu struck me as being not only fairly expensive, but also haphazardly priced. The wide but incohesive range of starters, bento boxes and sushi and sashimi in both selections and individual servings roller-coastered from four or five quid to around £20, eschewing the familiar pricing structure of comparable places such as Satsuma and Wagamama where the distance from cheapest to dearest dish is no further than about a fiver.

Stability was better however in the main courses section, where from a short selection all around the £12 mark Simon and I both chose ‘Japanese Fish and Chips’ for £11, three fat goujons of cod tempura served with hand-cut potato and sweet potato chips. It was a hefty portion - never a bad thing in my book – and completely delicious. The full-flavoured cod retained all its firmness under the light crunchy batter and was accompanied perfectly by a generous mound of tasty, chunky chips, sweet chilli dip and Feng Sushi’s own special, herby mayonnaise. It was a clever, well-executed take on a quintessentially British dish, and something I’d definitely go back for.

And speaking of quintessentially British dishes of which I’d most definitely like a large portion, Dominic Cooper as Hippolytus was amazing – brooding, angst-y, strong and – in a little black singlet and army trousers - tastier even than cod tempura.

Feng Sushi, Unit 9, Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 8XX and branches tel: 020 7261 0001 http://www.fengsushi.co.uk/

Chains Round-Up

While chain restaurants aren't necessarily as interesting to read, or indeed write about as other more high-falutin' places, I still believe that if somewhere does something well it's worthy of recognition. So, here's just a brief round-up of a few good chains I've enjoyed eating at recently.

First was Prezzo in Norwich, which Alyn and I popped into for a quick pit-stop supper to line our tummies before a night of heavy revelling to celebrate Norwich's first ever Gay Pride last Saturday. Like the festival itself, the meal surpassed expectations; we shared some excellent calamari fritti, a fresh, crisp mixed salad and a tasty Vesuvio pizza, as spicy as the name suggests (the heat provided by pepperoni and red chillis) without completely blowing the mind like Pizza Express's crazily-hot, similarly volcanically-named Etna. Service was kind and charming, the decor chic and modern, and the bill pleasingly tiny considering the excellent quality.

In much the same vein, and in much the same name, Zizzi in Surbiton delivered a very pleasant casual dinner experience when Andrew and I dropped by this week for a can't-be-arsed-to-cook meal early one evening. Already busy when we arrived, by 8.30 the large, long room was packed to the rafters with suburbanites enjoying, as we were, the generous helpings of imaginative pizzas and pastas. The dough sticks with aioli which we ordered to nibble while waiting for our mains were excellent, salty and pleasingly chewy and especially moreish when dipped in the sweet, punchy aioli. Mains were both good, Andrew's rigatoni pollo e funghi offering up plentiful amounts of both chicken and mushrooms in a good tomato sauce, and my spicy meat calzone - looking for all the world like a giant Cornish pasty - was a delicious, rich parcel of meatballs, bolognese sauce, pepperoni and crunchy green chillis. Although some of the menu descriptions bordered on twee, the wine list impressed me with its concise, helpful descriptions of the mostly Italian wines; our 2006 Rioja Crianza was, as stated, 'filled with fruit and vanilla' and a great robust accompaniment to our hearty, heavy meals.

Finally, and bringing things bang up to date, I enjoyed a very good dim sum lunch with Paulie today at the branch of Ping Pong handily located just seconds from both our offices. My first, and until today only, experience of Ping Pong at another branch had been marred by atrociously slow service, but today's meal had no such problems. After an oddly laborious negotiation process as to where we were going to sit - it took two staff to agree on where the 'nicest' place to sit was - we ordered half a dozen dishes and some green tea, all brought to us quickly by smiling, efficient staff. Our selection of steamed dim sum included prawn and chicken shu mai and pork and chicken and cashew dumplings, all very good, some wonderful seafood sticky rice and a little indulgence of fried duck pancakes which disappeared in seconds. The green tea, made with fresh leaves in a pouch suspended atop tall glasses filled with hot water from a copper kettle, was theatrical in its presentation, delicious and cleansing in taste, but slightly labour intensive to actually drink. The bill for two of us including service was comfortably under £30, although Paulie had to pay this (thanks babe!) because annoyingly - and for a chain, surprisingly - Ping Pong have ceased to accept American Express which was the only card I was carrying.

None of the above were necessarily the most exciting meal I've had recently, but they were all good enough in their own way to earn a recommendation. I'd happily return to any of these restaurants or one of their branches next time I want good, quick, cheap food and can confidently recommend that you consider doing the same.

Prezzo, 2-6 Thorpe Road, Norwich, Norfolk NR1 1RY and branches. tel: 01603 660404 http://www.prezzoplc.co.uk/

Zizzi, 38 Victoria Road, Surbiton KT6 4JL and branches. tel: 020 8399 4160 http://www.zizzi.co.uk/

Ping Pong, 3 Appold Street, London EC2A 2AF and branches. tel: 020 7422 0780 www.pingpongdimsum.co.uk