EATING OUT

Sticks ‘n’ Sushi, Wimbledon

58 Wimbledon Hill Rd, London, SW19 7PA

Telephone: 0203 141 8800

As the summer approaches, and it cannot come quickly enough for me, those of you who love tennis will start to wistfully think about Wimbledon, and its incredibly manicured grass courts graced by the best players in the world. When you do visit, and you really should if you can, after a wonderful day’s tennis, what better way is there to finish off the day, than with a great meal, and I have just the place.

Wimbledon is ‘where the town meets the country’, and is an eclectic blend of chic shops, cafés and bars, set amongst period buildings and ultra-modern mansions, and it is this mix that has resulted in it being named the capital’s most sought after area by Rightmove, pushing the usual suspects into the lower places. It is against this strong background that restaurants need to stand out from the others, and Sticks ‘n’ Sushi not only stands out, it truly excels.

Located close to Wimbledon Station your first sight of Sticks‘n’Sushi is its fully glassed front providing good light to its large space. When I entered, on a cold Thursday, early evening, I realised just how large the space is. It is truly massive, and I understand it used to house horse carts (which explains why the tables have wheels at their ends), and boasts high ceilings supporting Japanese styled hanging lights which provide gentle light to the mixture of longer, large party tables, and smaller ones for couples or families sitting below.

At the far end of the restaurant there is a bar, busy providing a multitude of drinks, along with a number of Japanese inspired cocktails, and beyond that an open kitchen spanning the whole of the back of the restaurant where the chef’s prepare the tasty dishes just bursting with flavour. As we were led to our table our waiter welcomed us to the restaurant by calling out ‘namaste’, which is the customary Hindu greeting meaning ‘I bow to the divine in you’. www.sticksnsushi.com/en/restaurants/ london/Wimbledon

The menu is inspired by the very different cuisines of Japan and Denmark and has something for everyone, and it is nice to know clearly from the name of the restaurant what it offers, namely fresh sushi and yakitori sticks (although there are other delights including crispy salads and moreish desserts).

The menus helpfully provide you with an image of each dish, which I like a lot, as it really helps with ordering what you think you will like, and takes away the fear of what you are ordering, as you can actually see what you are choosing, rather than guessing what some of the dishes are from their names, which is difficult in a Japanese restaurant.

We started with a generous bowl of Edamame Beans (£5) coated with spicy miso and sesame. Edamame are young soybeans harvested before they ripen and harden and are served in their pods. They are usually served with salt, but we chose the spicy sauce as it was something different, and the spice was an able alternative to the usual salt coating as it enhanced the edamame’s sweet and nutty flavour.

Our next course was some Ebi Bites (£9.50) along with two selections from the Uramaki Sushi selection, Nanban (£13) and the Spicy Tuna (£11.10). The Ebi Bites had fresh shrimp covered in panko breadcrumbs topped with a miso aioli and chilli, and were crisp and light, and our Uramaki, or inside out sushi as it is fondly known, as the rice is on the outside and the seaweed on the inside, were packed with succulent chicken (Nanban) or delicately flavoured fresh tuna, both providing a flavour explosion with each piece.

After our cold starters we then moved onto the warm ‘sticks’ and selected the Tsukune Chilli, Chicken Meatballs, chilli dip, teriyaki and spring onion (£3.50), Gindara No Miso, Black Cod & Miso (£11.50) and Shake Teriyaki, Salmon, Teriyaki & spring onion (£3.30), along with a bowl of rice with crunchy chilli (£2.60), and Cauliflower, fried and served with black truffle goma (£6.20). The chicken meatballs had a slightly charred flavour from being cooked on the grill, and the mildly sweet buttery flavour of the black cod was well supported by the salty miso coating. Salmon teriyaki is a firm favourite and it is not hard to see why, as the sweet teriyaki sauce compliments the flaky salmon perfectly. The star, however, was the cauliflower, and is a must order dish. Goma means sesame in Japanese and this rich black truffle sesame sauce and the crunchy roasted cauliflower is a combination made in heaven.

Although we chose from the à la carte menu, there are a number of set menus which will allow you to sample all that Sticks’n’Sushi offers with starters, maki, nigiri, as well as sticks, which is aptly named ‘As good as it gets’ (£115 for 2 people), and these are perfect for larger groups.

Sticks‘n’Sushi’s food appeals to all groups of people, and whilst we were there this was ably demonstrated as there were a number of families in the restaurant with their young children, couples enjoying a pre-theatre meal, and also a number of adult groups all enjoying the food.

Sticks‘n’Sushi provides the best that Japanese and Nordic cuisine offers, and does it in a stylish location with knowledgeable staff who care about you having a good time, and this is an intoxicating combination that will have me returning again and again.

Big Easy Canary Wharf

Park Level, Crossrail Place, London, E14 5AR

Telephone: 0204 580 1172

There are many restaurants offering American food in the UK, and one of the foremost is the Big Easy, which was established in Chelsea in 1991. As well as serving American-style food, it also serves it in the portion sizes I remembered from my numerous visits to the US! This chain currently has several restaurants in the UK, the largest of which is in Canary Wharf, which impressively sits atop the Canary Wharf Crossrail terminal looking imperiously down on the myriad of waterways that make up the Wharf. We visited on a Sunday afternoon and the restaurant was buzzing, as it was full of groups of adults enjoying a meal and a Sunday drink, as well as lots of families treating their offspring to traditional American fare.

The entrance into the main restaurant and bar takes you past the vast kitchens where ‘the magic happens’, and then the space opens up to the Rum Bar & Lounge, which is inspired by the melting-pot of cultures found in the American Gulf Coast, with the feel of Jamaica’s Port Royal in the 1700’s. The Lounge has an impressive 10-metre bar with over 550 bottles of spirits (100 of which are of rum, well what would you expect in Jamaica in the 17 hundreds?), and is where the bar staff create a vast number of tipples, including the Big Easy’s world-famous frozen Margaritas, boozy juices, grown-up milkshakes and cocktails on tap. The Big Easy also have their own exclusive Big Easy Brew, and an extensive wine list, so you will certainly find something to drink whilst you enjoy live music, every evening at 7pm, as you unwind after work.

The menu is simple and offers you everything you were imagining you would like to eat whilst travelling to the restaurant, with the starters including Chicken Wings, Ribs, Fried Chicken and Shrimp. My wife chose the loaded Potato Skins (£7.90) and added bacon (£1.90) for good luck. The skins are twice-baked and topped with mature cheddar and spring onion and with the addition of the bacon were spot on. My choice was a no brainer, as when I see chicken wings in a spicy sauce I just can’t help ordering them, and so the Original Voodoo Chicken Wings was my selection. The wings were crispy and coated with the Big Easy’s voodoo sauce and a light blue cheese dipping sauce, and tasted just like wings I have eaten in the US, with the voodoo sauce being the star of the dish, providing a good zing which can be countered by the creamy blue cheese dip.

Choosing what to order for your main is very difficult as everything sounds so appetising (I guess I will just have to come back a few more times then!), and the choice is extensive.

What makes the food here good? Well, the simple answer is the quality of the produce and the way it is cooked. Their steaks are hand cut quality beef, and the pork is taken from Gloucester Old Spot and Saddleback breeds renown for their flavour. The Lobsters are fished from the icy Nova Scotia waters and flown in by Air Canada three times a week to ensure the lobster is as fresh as possible. I am not sure where the chicken comes from, but I do know it tastes wonderful! These quality ingredients are enhanced further as they have all been cooked the old fashioned way, slowly over a wood fire, which maximises the flavour even more.

Big Easy has a special daily deal every day of the week starting on Monday’s with the wonderfully named ‘The Big Pig Gig’ (£25 per person), providing unlimited Pork Ribs, Pulled Pork and BBQ Chicken, served with slaw and beans and a 2 pint stein of Big Easy Brew or a glass of wine, through to Thursday’s where the deal involves Steak, Lobster and Wine. The weekend deals offer Whole Lobster or Unlimited BBQ Brunches (up to 4pm) for £29.50, which again includes a drink, or for an additional £5 for unlimited drinks which is a fantastic deal. These specials are not just for the evenings or weekends, there are some available for lunchtimes, as well starting from a very generous £10 for one course with a drink.

Although the Big Easy is a large venue, (it has space to accommodate 5,000 people for a standing event), the space is well laid out into sections which gives the diner the feel of a much smaller venue, so couples can enjoy their meal as much as the larger parties that Big Easy caters for. It also has an extensive outside terrace so, when the summer comes, diners and drinkers can enjoy lovely views of the docks whilst enjoying a drink or bite to eat, and if you want a little more privacy for your group. The Big Easy also has a private dining room called the ‘Captain’s Table’, which has a big TV and sound system and is perfect for a special family event.

The Big Easy provides its diners with an authentic American dining experience in London as it provides quality food cooked in the traditional way in authentic surroundings with swift and friendly service. That combination makes it a great place to enjoy a meal out with a group of friends or to treat your kids, all at a wallet pleasing price. www.bigeasy.co.uk

Dishoom

Dishoom Canary Wharf

13 Water Street, London, E14 5GX

Telephone: 0207 420 9326

Every time I go to Canary Wharf there seems to be a new part open, and from its origins, seemingly a lifetime ago, when there were only a few firms here and fewer restaurants, and bars, Canary Wharf is now one of the places to live, and there are restaurants a plenty.

Dishoom is a new comer to the thriving Canary Wharf scene, and its eclectic menu is fast becoming a firm favourite, if our visit early on a Friday afternoon was anything to go by.

The vibe is buzzy with trendy music, and the aromas coming from the kitchen are to die for. Dishoom is a chain, and Canary Wharf is its latest offering, as it looks to bring back to life the glittering-shimmering, big business metropolitan scene of 1970’s Bombay, India. The design mirrors the Irani cafés that surrounded the Bombay Stock Exchange where fortunes were won and lost and, although it is the largest of Dishoom’s restaurants so far, it still retains its authentic feeling of such a 1970’s café.

It is a testament to the quality and value of the food Dishoom serves, that those who have been to one before, will know that you sometimes have to wait for a table, but the stylish bar area and the outside seating are perfect to sip a drink whilst waiting, despite the fact that it always seems to be windy in Canary Wharf!

Irani cafés, on which the Dishoom premise is based on, broke down barriers at that time and promoted bringing people together, and that feeling of togetherness does permeate throughout this restaurant. We luckily arrived early afternoon, so just before the Friday evening rush (although the restaurant was almost full even then), and were shown to our table where we were given some water from metal beakers, which took me back to my student journeys across India (albeit later than the 1970’s as I am not that old!), and an extensive menu from which to choose from.

Dishoom is open from 8am weekdays and 9am at the weekend, so offers you the option to start the day with a Parsi Omelette a bowl of Date & Banana Porridge, or my personal favourite, the Bacon Naan Roll.

I want to let you know that for every meal you have at Dishoom they donate a meal to a child in the UK and India. So far, over 15 million meals have been provided to children in schools to give them a meal so they can focus on learning, so hats off to Dishoom for supporting such a wonderful charity.

The menu is extensive and includes all the Dishoom favourites from their other restaurants, so making selections is tricky. One tip I can impart is to order each course one or two at a time, as the dishes you order will come out when they are ready, not when you are! Therefore, if you don’t order in stages you may well get your main course only a few minutes after your starters which forces you to eat the food too quickly to ensure you eat it hot. www.dishoom.com/canary-wharf

For our starters we choose the Pau Bhaji (£6.90) the Bhel (£6.20), the Dishoom House Chat (£7.90), the Chilli Chicken (£8.70) and the Prawn Koliwada (£9.50). The Pau Bhaji was a wonderful mix of mashed vegetables Chowpatty style, which was rich and warming with a hint of heat, served with hot buttered buns. The Bhel is cold and was crunchy and light with the mixture of puffed rice, crushed peanut and Bombay mix countered by the sharpness of pomegranate, onion and lime. Chat is a staple diet of Indian’s, and this was a cut above the many I have tasted, and the prawns were juicy and well spiced. The only real imposter (although still good) was the Chilli Chicken, which is really an Indo-Chinese dish, but its place on the menu is secured by the flavour of soy and ginger that bursts through.

Our mains, please remember, don’t order these until you have finished your starters, were the Dishoom Chicken Tikka (£11.50) and the Mutton Pepper Fry (£16.90) with basmati rice (£4.20) and a Tandoori Roti (£4.20). The Chicken Tikka is, I believe, a family recipe, and whether it is or isn’t, it is very, very good, with succulent and well charred chicken which has been marinaded in a sweet vinegar rather than yoghurt and well spiced. However, the star was the mutton. Mutton is usually the meat of a female sheep over 2 years old, but in the Indian subcontinent the term mutton refers to goat meat. Either way, there may be a slight snobbery about the cut of meat (think of the phrase mutton dressed as lamb), but please ignore those prejudices and select this dish, as you will not be disappointed. Here, the finest mutton has been marinaded in chilli, garlic and ginger and slow cooked to make the curry rich and meaty which is a perfect foil for the light and fluffy rice and the crumbly Roti.

If you have eaten too much of the starters and mains, rather than a dessert, you can select a number of clever dessert cocktails, including the Velvette Fogg (£11.20) which my wife chose. This is a heady mixture of chai ice cream, coffee liqueur and vodka, a wonderfully decadent end to a meal. I, however, had enough room, and despite the pull towards the Dishoom Chocolate Pudding (£8.90) I chose a more traditional dessert of Basmati Kheer (£7.90). The silky caramelised rice pudding had hints of coconut, vanilla and cardamon running through it, and perfectly calmed my taste buds after our spicy meal.

Although a chain, each restaurant has its own specific feel, whilst still serving those signature dishes Dishoom is famed for, and the value for money just can’t be faulted, and neither can the food.

Flight Club

6 Sir Simon Milton Square, London, SW1E 5DJ Telephone: 0203 019 3093

Since the set-up of the PDC (Professional Dart Corporation), the image of darts as being a game that is played in a dingy smoky room by overweight men drinking heavily has been erased, and darts has now become a more mainstream game which can be played by everyone.

For any game to be accessible to the whole population it is important to make it simple for everyone to play, regardless of their ability, and Flight Club does just that, with its innovative electronic darts and dart board, and variety of games available to play.

When I started to play darts at a very early age, rather than playing 501 with a double finish which is what you see on the television, I started by playing a few games that weren’t so difficult, and a number of these are now part of the Flight Club offering, (although when I played them they were not so high tech!), and this is the best thing about the Flight Club, as you don’t have to be a darting or maths expert to enjoy your time there, as it is all electronic, so you don’t need to count or score, it is all done for you.

Flight Club set up in 2012, when the co-founders Steve Moore and Paul Barham were in a Devon pub, and saw a crowd of people enjoying a game of darts, and realised the potential of social darts as it really is great fun. From those small beginnings. Flight Club now has 12 sites around the country, introducing a considerable number of people to the joy, and the pain, of darts!

I visited the Victoria venue on a Sunday evening with my wife and a friend, all of differing darting abilities, and we were all struck immediately by the décor of the venue before you even enter the main area. The staircase has been decorated as if it were a helter-skelter, and once you reach the top the room opens out to a mixture of dartboard areas and seating surrounding the bar, all in the style of a fairground.

You do need to book a time slot for your darts games, and at our designated time we were taken to one of the 18 oches they have and given a quick guide as to how to play. The first, and probably the most important choice, is to take your photograph for the system, as it is critical to at least look good, even if your darts aren’t, as your picture comes up over and over again during your games. Once that is over you select from a number of games including ‘Killer’ and a really fun game of ‘Snakes and Ladders’, where the number you move is determined by where your dart lands in the board. Although it clearly helps to be able to throw a dart, the games are designed in such a way to even out the differing skill levels of the members of your group, so the games are always close. Our group included a regular darts player, a casual player and a total beginner, and the games enabled all of us to have fun and to compete which made the evening fun for each of us.

In addition to the darts, the food and drink adds to the enjoyment of your Flight Club experience. The drink’s selection is extensive and is served from a central bar in the middle of the room, but whilst you are playing if you press a button on your dart system a server will come and take your order, so we were never short of liquid encouragement! www.flightclubdarts.com

After our time was up, bringing to a close our glorious journey into the world of darts, we retired to the buzzing bar area to have something to eat and relived our amazing treble twenty and bull shots.

The food, like the darts, is based on a sharing concept, and so most of the food is designed to share between your group. We selected the Mac and Cheese Croquettes with cheese sauce (£5.95) and the Salt and Pepper Squid with green chilli aioli (£8.50) as starters, and what better than to combine macaroni cheese and a crunchy batter to make a dish? The squid was also well seasoned and a great start to our meal. To follow you can select individual dishes like burgers etc, but we continued our sharing theme and selected from the sharing pizza paddles the Pepperoni Pizza with red pepper relish (£15.95) and the Meat Feast Pizza with pepperoni, nduja, bacon, smoked cheese and oregano (£16.95). The pizzas are thin and crispy and packed with toppings and are definitely to share, as the three of us struggled to finish the two we had ordered as they are so big, and at least two of us are hearty eaters!

Darts has now become one of the fastest growing sports in the world, and when you watch it on TV it seems so simple, but unfortunately it really isn’t! Despite this, and regardless of your skill level, Flight Club makes playing darts fun and provides a great and original night out accompanied with great food and drink all at very reasonable prices, for both large and small groups.