Tonight I had one of the best meals I’ve had in months at Ba Shan, a Sichuanese restaurant on the edge of Soho and Chinatown. It is not a vegetarian restaurant, but its menu has many clearly labeled vegetarian options. Seafood dishes aren’t labeled vegetarian, so the menu appears to have been written by someone who understands that vegetarians don’t eat fish, unlike many of the menus at nearby restaurants in Chinatown.
The food is strongly flavored, heavy on Sichuan peppercorns and chilis. I got a rose-flavored drink, which was tasty but very sweet; slivered potatoes in a vinegary dressing with Sichuan peppercorns and toasted dried chilis; exceptionally good marinated tofu with what was described as celery on the menu but actually must be some slightly similar green vegetable that is more common in China than Europe; and perfect steamed rice.
The restaurant is very clean and pleasant, and the staff were very attentive and friendly. I hope to eat there regularly.
Afterwards I went to Golden Gate grocery nearby on Shaftesbury and bought some gai lan, durian and jackfruit sorbets, peanut and sesame glutinous rice balls, mixed flower tea, and a bag of kumquats, which were globular unlike the the egg-shaped ones I’m used to seeing in the States.
Here are some other reviews of Ba Shan from Time Out and the sadly defunct World Foodie Guide.
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It’s named Itadaki Zen, and it needs customers. I got the set sushi lunch menu (sushi, rice, inari, potato salad, and kakiage tempura), tea, and a side of okara (total: £12.30), and it was pretty good. I was the only person there on a Saturday afternoon, though. Hopefully more people will stop by and keep them in business. I’m giving it three stars for now because the food and service were a little weird in the ways that you’d expect from a restaurant cooking for one person, but I suspect I’d be happy to give them five stars if I went back for dinner with a few people.
They’re closed Sundays.
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Last Sunday I went to Saf for their Sunday roast. For whatever reason, they still haven’t posted their Sunday roast menu online, so I thought I should describe what I can remember of it here.
I got a macadamia nut roast, which was fairly good. The roasted potatoes that came with it were perfect–maybe the best I’ve ever had. On the menu, there was also an Italian-style scrambled tofu with sundried tomatoes that sounded good. Unfortunately I don’t remember much else of the menu!
The drink I got–a Moroccan mojito–was great, as drinks always are at Saf. However, I always expect the food at Saf London to be better than it is. I was very impressed by the cauliflower risotto and beetroot ravioli with cashew cheese that I had at Saf’s Munich restaurant, and after that, all my visits to Saf’s London restaurant have been slight disappointments, despite the food always being at least decent, with the exception of a really weird raw Swiss chard wrap I had once.
Anyhow, it is great to have another option for vegan brunch in London.
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Pho is a chain of Vietnamese restaurants in London with locations in Shepherd’s Bush, Clerkenwell, and Fitzrovia. The Shepherd’s Bush branch is in Westfield London Shopping Centre, which is a surprisingly decent place for vegans to eat. In the food court, in addition to Pho, there is a good Lebanese place (Comptoir Libanais), Chinese and Indian places that look passable, and an Italian place that appears to have an option for vegan risotto (Ooze). Outside, there’s a Wagamama. Anyhow, Pho only has a couple vegan options, but at least one of them is very good–the Bun Chay Hue, which is a spicy soup with rice noodles, leafy greens, bean sprouts, mushrooms, fried tofu, and chilis in a vegetarian broth. I’ve found the non-spicy vegetarian pho–the Pho Chay–a bit boring. Here is the Bun Chay Hue:
I don’t know how similar it is to pho or bun served in Vietnam, but it is very good, although messy.
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Adam’s Café is a Tunisian restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. The tagine I got there was a little bland. Some of the nonvegetarian tagines on the menu are cooked with fruit and nuts, which sounds more interesting than the vegetarian tagine. This place seems like a nice neighborhood restaurant and has reasonable prices, but I doubt I’ll go back unless I hear the vegan options have gotten better.
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Adulis is one of my favorite restaurants in London and the best Ethiopian or Eritrean restaurant I’ve been to here. I got the vegetarian plate, which is, according to the waitress I spoke with, non-dairy. Everything on the plate was well-prepared and flavorful, and it was served with a reasonable amount of injera. Some of the other Ethiopian restaurants I’ve been to gave me too little injera or lots of injera with tiny portions of other food.
Adulis is an Eritrean restaurant, but the food is very similar to Ethiopian. I’m not sure what the differences are.
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