Tiramisu - why not!

Quietly located on South Ealing Road, the Tiramisu Cafe sits on the corner of Sunnyside Road (also neighbour to one of our favourite eats - Butlers Thai). Just outside the main hustle and bustle of the Broadway, Tiramisu makes for a peaceful spot.

Inside it is much brighter than you might expect, its large windows and light decor make it feel light and airy. A good spot for some work during the week, or a weekend brunch - as we tested ourselves.

The highlight on the menu, and a first for me, was their 'savoury' porridge. Among other light traditional Italian dishes the porridge stood out and tasted as good as it did intriguing. Warm and full of mushrooms and chicken it reminded me of a yummy risotto or a soup.

The menu isn't very large but has a good range of hearty and homemade choices, and also includes some wonderful daily specials displayed on the black board that regularly changes.

Service here is friendly and non-intrusive, and like lots of local independent eats it is closed on Mondays.

The toilet is located at the back of the cafe outdoors, and doesn't have a baby changing station (at last check), but if you are looking for a new spot by yourself or with your family and friends we'd recommend giving it a go.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	4
Drinks Tastiness:	4
Service Skills:	4
Atmospheric Vibes:	4
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	N/A
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	2
Total average score:	3.6

Nuki Nuki

We are having  some work done on our kitchen, so what better excuse to try a new local eat.

We fancied a Thai and had recently tried Butlers Thai for a takeaway, so were keen to try it 'eat in' - however they weren't open on this lovely bank holiday, so we looked elsewhere. We'd heard of the newly opened Thai competitor - Nuki, on Northfields Avenue which had so far been spoken fondly about - so we gave that a go.

So new, they only so far have a Facebook page and no website, Nuki's operates much like a cafe during the day and restaurant by night. With a 'Cafe Open' sign stood outside, not quite to the same theme as its stylish exterior.

The inside is cosy, and a bit more cafe like - but also pleasant for an evening's dinner.

We had luckily called ahead and reserved, as it seemed most other tables had also done... each had a reserved sign on it when we arrived, and the space quickly filled. All evening there was also a steady stream of customers coming to collect their take-away (it made us think that perhaps they don't offer delivery yet - which has been confirmed on their Facebook update on March 7th, something they will look at in future). It is also bring your own bottle (BYO), though they are now charging £2 per head for this, and applying for a liquor license in the meantime.

The menu was great, and seemed to offer most of the fresh Thai dishes we like, except for a lime chicken salad which we've sampled in a few other places before.

We ordered the dim sum and chicken satay to start... so were surprised to be brought (in error) someone else's Tom Yum soup... which was relatively quickly corrected. The starters were delicious, and we particularly liked the little heart dishes of soy that the dim sum arrived in (very practical for pouring that last drop of sauce on top of the Dim Sum on your plate).

For mains we shared a chicken Penang curry (coconutty and creamy), a Som Tom salad (limey and fresh), Pad Broccoli (nicely crisp) and some egg fried rice and steamed rice. This was more than enough for us both with the starters too. It was all really good, except for the steamed rice which was a little on the under-cooked side. We also observed that the salad, although amazing in taste was not quite as delicate as some others we'd had in more upmarket places in the past - perhaps to be expected for the reasonable prices.

As for dessert, the menu was amazing - a full array of Thai options. We ordered the bananas in hot coconut milk, but this somehow got lost in communication at some point and we instead had the banana fritters with ice cream - which weren't a disappointment.

Despite some teething issues perhaps in the service, the food was tasty, and I'm certainly tempted to head back soon for their £5 lunch deals and to tick off some more of the dessert menu.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	3.5
Drinks Tastiness:	3
Service Skills:	2
Atmospheric Vibes:	3.5
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	4
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	3
Total average score:	3.2

WA...a cafe!

Seeking a new place to meet last Saturday afternoon we arranged to check out the recently opened Japanese WA Cafe. The website is pretty trendy, and accurately represents the cool and fresh vibe that is also present inside.

The large glass door at the entrance has a funny little pink button to the right to automatically open it, but before you enter you can already see the beautiful line up of glamorous looking pastries and cakes at the counter. The decor is extremely bright, elegant and modern - providing a lively space to entice you into the unusual section of treats to take away or enjoy sitting in.

We met at 2:30pm and the cafe was pretty busy - but we found a small table and the turn over seemed to be relatively fast so we also nabbed another to make enough space for the four of us. It was bustling in a nice way, and not such that it intruded with our own conversation.

As for the food, an exciting array of unusual cakes, pastries and snacks were lined up in rows, full of colour and unusual names. The staff were good and explained anything we didn't understand. One online review summed it up well I think - the cafe has is something of a French influenced patisserie by sight, but uses Japanese ingredients we are less familiar with. Soba tea - made with buckwheat, some coffees, the sesame cheesecake, bread and butter pudding and a Japanese style sausage roll were on our order. All beautifully presented. The cakes certainly delivered, and provided an unusual sweet treat, but were well balanced. The sausage roll was a sausage cut in two and embedded in both ends of the pastry - so sausage-less in the middle - which was a bit of a surprise.

 

The website has a menu so it will entice us go back and try some more of the cakes on offer soon. All in all a great and different way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	3.5
Drinks Tastiness:	3
Service Skills:	3
Atmospheric Vibes:	4
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	4
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	5
Total average score:	3.75

Papaya feasting

We’ve been to Ealing’s Sri Lankan special nearly three times this year – so it is about time we blogged about it :o)

As some of you may know, Sri Lankan restaurants are in fact hard to come by, even in our cosmopolitan London town. The new, and trendy ‘Hoppers’ restaurant in Soho has recently drawn more attention to this much understated cuisine, although with its no-booking approach it is often hard to get a table. We have also been to another restaurantin Tooting, and heard about some authentic Sri Lankan eats on Sunday evenings at a pub in Sudbury Hill. However our Sri Lankan friends tell us that they aren’t as common as we might have expected.

We first tried Papaya before we really knew what Sri Lankan food was. Having dined in many Indian restaurants and having spent time in South India, some of the dishes on Papaya’s menu seemed familiar. With over 11% of the national population being Tamil, Sri Lankan cuisine shares many dishes and influences from South Indian Tamil traditions. On our first visit we un-adventurously ordered those dishes that we were familiar with, such as dhal and curries. 

Earlier this year however, we were fortunate enough to attend a friend’s wedding in Sri Lanka and get to sample the culinary delights and delicacies that it has to offer. One thing that was striking to us was the delicate flavours and textures that Sri Lankan dishes host – of course this is in comparison to our experiences of Northern Indian British restaurants which just don’t seem quite as fine or well tuned.  Several Sri Lankan dishes are made up of finely chopped ingredients and a multitude of aromatic spices and flavours.

Photo: Papaya's Kothu Roti

In Sri Lanka itself our British appearances prompted the question at each mealtime “how spicy would you like your dish”. We mainly went for medium, although the one “spicy” dish I did try was really pleasant, and with a few breathers in between made for a delicious meal. This is one thing Papaya doesn’t match to its heritage roots – a few of the items on the menu are labelled with “Mild”, “Medium” and “Hot”; however by our measure the one “Hot” dish (the chicken madras curry) did not live up to the chilli used for in-country dining.

One of our favourite dishes is the Kothu Roti. Imagine an Indian flat bread (the roti) copped into strips of about 1cm wide (or less) and fried up with meat, vegetable and those aromatic spices we mentioned...and there you have it, the Kothu Roti. Traditionally eaten in the evening in Sri Lanka (rice and curry are reserved for lunchtime sittings), we would argue that Kothu Roti goes down a treat at any time of the day. Since having been in Sri Lanka, this is now a regular on our order when we visit Papaya.

 

Photo: Kothu options at Papaya (string hopper is a bit like vermicelli)

Another traditional dish is the Egg Hopper, a south Indian pancake made from fermented rice, cooked with a fried egg in the centre. When I first saw this in Sri Lanka I was convinced it was a breakfast fusion of Indian Dosa (the pancake) with an English breakfast fried egg! How wrong I was – hoppers, and egg hoppers are a traditional eat for any meal all over the island.

During our most recent trip we went with some friends excited for a Sri Lankan feast. We ordered a lot of food and decided to also sample the starters. Most of the starters tended to be dry-ish fried bites – such as fishcake cutlets, lentil balls, samosas and so on. I thought they were delicious, but one of our guests did comment that she wished she’d saved more space for the phenomenal curries instead.

 Photo: Dahl, curry, rice, and another favourite - coconut sambal (finely ground coconut with spices to sprinkle on any dish)

By its own measure Papaya is “The best Sri Lankan Restaurant in the UK” (as it states on its restaurants homepage, claiming the Sri Lankan Community Award). Aside from the homemade Sri Lankan food we’ve been lucky enough to sample by the mothers of our good friends, we would agree that Papaya has been a delight to return to every time we get those Kothu Roti cravings.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	4.5
Drinks Tastiness:	4
Service Skills:	4
Atmospheric Vibes:	3
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	5
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	5
Total average score:	4.25

Chick chick chick...Chooks!

A rare lunch catch up with my sister and her boyfriend at the weekend, offered the perfect opportunity to try something new, and knowing them to be connoisseurs of trendy urban eateries, burgers and the like...I booked us into Chooks

Chooks is the new diner style restaurant on Haven Green, the second site for the restaurant originating in Muswell Hill. Chooks is Aussie slang for Chicken. Funnily enough, hubby and I were trying to figure out what exactly is Australian cuisine...and despite the name, we are none the wiser. But whilst the name is just about the only Aussie thing about the restaurant, they do do some 'beaut' chicken.

At 1pm on a Saturday we arrived to find the place pretty empty, so there was no trouble taking our table for the 4 of us plus baby in pram. However, there were a number of bookings that filled the place up over the next hour or so. The atmosphere was relaxed, the music was loud but ok and we settled in to look at the menus.

Perusing the menu

Between us we sampled a good selection of food. I had the High Noon Chicken Tacos, Hubby had the 'Hog 'n Chook combo', my sister had the buttermilk chicken with mash 'n gravy, and her boyfriend had....the burger! We all agreed that the buttermilk chicken was really delicious, and better than other similar dishes we've sampled in the local area. Even the self-declared chicken hater relished the juicy meat and nicely spiced batter. The ribs were sizable, the chips fairly average. The mash was good and creamy, and the slaw interesting and a nice variation on the normal.

High Noon Chicken Tacos

Hog 'n Chook Combo

For drinks, 3 of us ordered milk shakes. These came in the usual flavours vanilla, chocolate etc as well as banana maple which was yum. These were extremely filling though and didn't leave much space for dessert. 

The one dessert we did try was the peanut chocolate cheesecake donut. Quite a mouthful in more ways than one. It was a nice size, and a tasty indulgence to end the meal. We will return though as on the menu was a deep-fried mars bar...definitely one to try another time!

Service was excellent, good fun and attentive. They were also very accommodating of our pram and welcoming of children with colouring in sheets available. Decor is modern but not overdone. 

Chooks is a welcome addition to ever expanding Ealing restaurant scene.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	4
Drinks Tastiness:	3.5
Service Skills:	4.5
Atmospheric Vibes:	3
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	4
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	3
Total average score:	3.6