Gullets Over Broadway - A Cricklewood Blog

18. Broadway Cafe Restaurant

2010-01-10T00:58:00.000-08:00

126 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 xxxx xxxx

Gourmand writes: In Cricklewood, it isn't hard to find examples of businesses getting it all wrong. There's Lihiniya, the restaurant that's scared of customers, and Cafe Nur, where we weren't even allowed to sit down.

But for me, the Broadway's leading purveyor of inadequacy is the hotel without a name (pictured, just for fun). It's impossible to find it on the internet and if you've got a room there (thanks to some psychic miracle or badly-timed auto breakdown), you can't tell anybody where you're staying. Perhaps it was the first hotel in the world ever, and the name "Hotel" was completely original at the time. Or perhaps it's just rubbish.

Broadway Cafe Restaurant, or to give it its full name displayed on its sign, Broadway Cafe Restaurant Breakfast Lunch Dinner All Day Breakfast (sometimes just called BCRBLDADB by syllable-shy Cricklewodians), is of similar ilk. It's utterly featureless.

I could thumb through a thesaurus all day trying to find words to describe it, but I'd fail because thesauri only contain words with meanings. How could anything be so dull? Was it designed by blind communists? The funeral directors next door looks more exciting. I'm going to give up now because it's simply beneath description.

Inside, a few old codgers were drinking milky tea and listening to the football on the radio. "I've had it up to here with you," they must have screamed at their sagging, nagging wives before truddling out of their Cricklewood griefholes. "I'm going to BCRBLDADB so I can listen to Alan Green on Radio 5 Live in peace!"

As Gormless keenly observed, there are three things almost worth noting: a couple of plastic duck heads kicking around, the worryingly young age of the staff, and a picture of broccoli on the menu when there's no broccoli available to order. Nice try, Gormless, but in my book (although evidently not yours) child labour doesn't win a restaurant bonus points.

Oh yeah, the food. Gormless ate a totally average jacket potato with cheese and I had a distinctly average tuna sandwich. God, this Gullets Over Broadway lark's starting to get depressing.

4/10

Gormless writes: Gullets is a nocturnal pursuit. For this cafe we had to break with protocol. It is only open during daylight hours, perhaps because the staff appear to be schoolchildren. The Broadway is a different proposition when lit by the sun. The passers-by, the dirty streets and ugly signage are all too illuminated; no longer can it be imagined as a backdrop to some Suede-style urban romance. It is Cricklewood, it is a bit of a mess.

The cafe has had its interior designed by a surrealist: plastic duck heads pop up from pot plants, incongruous objects are nailed to the wall, and the menu is illustrated with a picture of broccoli you cannot order. If one can orientate oneself after these shocks then a pleasant time can be had. The Sunday afternoon radio was plying football and local aged lads turned up to listen, despite the game being shown on screens nearby. Perhaps they suffered humiliation at Cafe Nur beforehand.

I ordered a jacket potato with cheese. It was similar to the one I enjoyed at Four Seasons, with a more substantial salad. I ate it without incident and it was fine, although, in retrospect, it would have been more interesting if a sprite jumped out and danced across my face. Maybe next time.

6/10

Overall score: 10/20

BCRBLDADB is average.

17. Chicken Cottage

2009-09-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

105 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8969 5996

Gourmand writes: A foal gallops past my window towards its mother. The aromas of fresh mint and thyme linger in the air. The sun sets behind the mountains.

I'm in a caravan in the hills of northern Tuscany, and I've spent the past hour picking dates and grapes from the trees. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find a cute little abode called Chicken Cottage down one of these country lanes, or whatever Chicken Cottage is in Italian. Il Cottago Pollo? Who knows.

Unfortunately, this review of Chicken Cottage isn't a cute-as-feathers, cluck-happy idyll because Chicken Cottage is the gateway to the arse-end of Cricklewood, a selection of crappy shops by a crossroads where the only feathers are tarred and the only thing nature has to offer is Friday night's tramp's piss.

Nevertheless, Chicken Cottage, with its charming thatched roof made of drumsticks, possesses a magnetic attraction to Cricklewodians. Sure, the food's lousy, the smell's repugnant and the atmosphere's slightly foreboding, but it's often hard to get a table at this chicken-twisting fryhouse. The local lads sit in there day and night, soaking up the oily badness.

To be fair, it's not that shit for what it is. My chicken burger tasted something like chicken, although Gormless' fried plop de poulet thingy scared me. Perhaps it was reconstituted, or reimagined, or regressive, or whatever they do to it in the warehouse, but it seemed so unshapely. Gormless didn't enjoy it much, and remember, this is a man with fewer working taste buds than a vole, so that's some harsh criticism right there, folks.

It's cheap, though. And as Gormless no doubt will mention, they give you the option of Ribena instead of Coke. We love you, Chicken Cottage!
3/10

Gormless writes:

In the course of our Gullets adventure Chicken Cottage has become a symbol. It represents the transition between the two Cricklewoods, a division only the most on-message of Cricklewood unity preachers would deny. On one side of this crud cottage are restaurants, sometimes struggling, but with character and heart. On the other there is a steep decline into the tasteless gaud of McDonalds, Burger King and KFC .

After visiting Chicken Cottage, I have had to revised its symbol status. It is not so much the transition point between the two Cricklewoods as one of the lowest points brought forward; it is an abrupt descent into shit, especially following Zeytoon.

I ordered two pieces of chicken, two hot wings and a drink. The chicken tasted as though they had subjected the Colonel's special recipe to another secret stage involving grease injections and lead lining. The place was quite busy, with an exclusively gurning, grinning male cast. Once again, I would like to thank my patron, Gourmand, for taking me to nice places and making me feel out of sorts among 'my people'.

The best I can say for it is that they offer Ribena as an alternative to Coke and Tango.

3/10

Overall score: 6/20
Better than we expected. Honestly.

16. Zeytoon

2009-08-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

94-96 Cricklewood Broadway

020 830 7434

Gourmand writes: Now this is more like it. Zeytoon has everything I hope for from a restaurant: delightfully over-the-top decor, Iraqi wedding parties with Arabic pop music and mass female whooping, a full Persian menu with a few Afghan extras, and consistently delicious food.

Zeytoon opened its doors on a struggling Broadway at the start of a recession and I wondered how it could possibly succeed. It's a big restaurant; twice the size of rivals Noor and Persia, yet it's thriving.

The right half of the restaurant is the party zone, and to get to the toilets I had to duck and weave inbetween the aforementioned Iraqi revellers. The left side of the space attracted just about the most mixed clientele we've seen in Cricklewood. We saw Iranians and Afghans eating their native food, but also a few native Brits including a party of teenage girls indulging in calorific qabli pilau (an Afghan rice dish with lamb shanks, carrots, raisins and almonds).

We ordered five starters for £11 - paneer sabzi (feta with mint, parsley, tarragon and spring onion), hummos, spinach borani (a garlicky yoghurt dip), mirza qasemi (a northern Iranian dish of mashed grilled aubergine with garlic, egg and tomatoes - superb) and the best kashk e-bademjan on the street. We loved the hot crispy bread, which we watched them make from scratch, and moved onto an unfussy but excellent lamb chelo kebab.

My nerdy side loves the fact Zeytoon focuses on food from the Afghan-Persian border. Afghan pasta dishes such as mantu sit alongside Persian stews on the menu. I adore the chandeliers, the stained glass and the mirrors, the colourful Persian miniatures under arches of exposed brickwork.

I can't wait to go back to Zeytoon. Apart from handing us the wrong bill, which the waiter at fault apologised immediately for, they got everything right. This is a seriously good restaurant.

8/10

Gormless writes: This restaurant opened around the same time we started this blog. I was not sure it would survive long enough for us to eat in it. Even in prosperous times, Cricklewood is hardly a good place to launch an upper-middle market restaurant with two rooms.

A quick walk down the Broadway at dinner time shows that its neighbours are in competition to attract the nightly turnout of a couple and a lonely man. How would Zeytoon survive? I needn't have worried. If the night we attended was typical then there are plenty of wedding receptions to justify a second room. The lively toasts and music from the party created an atmosphere that pushed Zeytoon ahead of its rivals Persia and Noor from the start.

Not only this, but midway through our meal, a group of attractive female students entered. Quite what such an incongruous bunch were doing bringing light to the Cricklewood gloom I can only speculate. The only college Cricklewood is fit to host is one that would teach students how to run a faltering electical wholesale shop half-heartedly. Their presence certainly enlivened the waiting staff, but the minds of the Gullets lads were on one thing: this blog!

We decided to replicate our Noor and Persia experiences as much as we could so that this sub-battle would be fairly fought. To this end we ordered, as we did at Persia, the mezze special, and ate these dishes with the kind of made-as-you-wait bread we enjoyed at Noor. To say that it was the best of both meals would be, um, true. The kebab we ordered was less memorable than the one we had at Persia but that was probably because what came before it was so good. I had water. It was served in a glass.

8.5/10

Overall score: 16.5/20

We have a new name at the top of the scoreboard!

15. Broadway Bagel Bakery

2009-08-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

92 Cricklewood Broadway

020 7723 4481

Gourmand writes: I know bagels. I've eaten them my whole life. I grew up in Temple Fortune and Golders Green where Daniels and Carmelli respectively rule the bagel roost. I've eaten bagels in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles. I get smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels from the Brick Lane Beigel Bake all the time. My mother, grandmother and great-grandmother have bagels in their blood.

There's nothing special or unique about Cricklewood's bagel bakery, but I'm glad it's there. Not only because I'm stupidly heartened by Jewish eateries sitting side-by-side with Iranian restaurants, but because it's sometimes nice when things don't change. Cricklewood is no longer a hive of Jewish activity, but a road as multiculutral as the Broadway without a bagel bakery just wouldn't be right.

They've changed the signage so it's no longer called Braodway Bagel Bakery, and therefore I'm more inclined to take it seriously. But it's no contender. The bagels may taste wonderful when freshly baked in the morning, but at 7pm they're a bit dull and chewy. I had mine stuffed with chopped herring and it paled in comparison with its Brick Lane counterpart. A day's worth of refridgeration had made it tough and tasteless. Gormless boldly went for the falafel, which was utterly lifeless. We also shared some bread pudding, which was preternaturally sweet and made me feel a bit dizzy.

So, not particularly good then. But I'm happy to have it around.

5/10

Gormless writes: Gullets purists may be shocked to hear I no longer live in the Cricklewood area. I have moved into central London and now only return to add to this blog.

This bakery is in many ways the transition point between the two Cricklewoods. We have been spoilt, so far, by proper restaurants with chefs and cutlery. The bagel akery retains a welcoming small business veneer, but is not geared towards on-site consumption. Indeed, we took the only table in the place and were clearly lower priority than bread-buying customers.

I had a falafel. It was not that good and took an age to prepare. The falafels were quite rough on the roof of my mouth and the salad was nothing special. I had a Coke and a Coke is the same everywhere and makes everywhere the same.

Most of the Gullets stops after this are either Net Cafes or various forms of Chicken Shack. Surely our winner must come soon if it hasn't already. This was a fitting choice as we prepare to enter the 'other' Cricklewood.
4/10

Overall score: 9/10

There's more than one hole in this bagel...

14. Vali's Four Seasons

2009-05-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

73 Cricklewood Broadway,
020 8621 4755

Gourmand writes: As far as I can tell, this Polish-run Cricklewood caff has nothing to do with Frankie Valli (note correct spelling) and his group the Four Seasons. There's nothing relating to 60s pop music on any of the walls. Perhaps it's just a coincidence; an owner called Vali naming his cafe after a famous international hotel chain.

Apart from it's complete unrelatedness to 60s pop music, there's little else to say about this friendly cafe. They screened the BBC's Watchdog on a overhead TV screen, a feature Gormless particularly appreciated, and there appeared to be a family playing in the garden at the back, prompting speculation that people lived in the kitchen.

I took a punt at a Polish off-menu order and was rewarded with a delicious pork escalope. It felt and tasted wholesomely meaty and came with a generous portion of mashed potato and a Polish salad (everything pickled). Gormless' jacket potato looked a bit rubbish.
6.5/10

Gormless writes: I often refer to the Beaten Docket immigration debates on this blog. You would be wrong to think they are all petty racism and gloomy sniping. Frequent tribute is paid to Eastern Europeans who come over here with a good set of tools and a work ethic.

A trip to Four Seasons proves that Poles can run a restaurant as well as build things. The café is across the road from Cafe Nur and will provide counter evidence come the next B.D.I.D meet. Indeed, you might say the proprietors have gone too far and effaced their national identity. Gourmand had to make a special request for Polish food as the menu only offered stateless café fodder.

The prominent TV was showing Watchdog, that fine bastion of British petty-mindedness, mock outrage and "no nonsense". I ordered a jacket potato with beans and cheese. It was a good meal and I can only blame myself for not trying to push the operation to see what it could deliver. Gourmand's pork escalope was tasty.

So, in lieu of much else to say here are four reasons why you could be forgiven for choosing Four Seasons. Firstly, there is a big TV and you might not have a TV. Secondly, there is a bar. Thirdly, they have a secret menu that can only be accessed by the select few, like Gourmand. Since the collapse of Communism the Eastern hordes' propensity to espionage has had to be channeled into such outlets. Fourth is the beautiful, spacious garden you can glimpse out the back of the building. Truly, Four Seasons supports a happy home life.
7/10

Overall score: 13.5/10
A solid performance by Vali's Four Seasons. We recommend going Polish here.

13. Cafe Nur

2009-05-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

70 Cricklewood Broadway

Gourmand writes:
they conquered the broadway, stuffed their gullets
in old man pubs while men with mullets
argued the ins and outs of immigration
food goes in, won't come out - such wretched constipation!

straight from the freezer, direct from the can
the deep-fried slop of mr chan
bolo's spicy sauce, a flame from nigeria
cricklewood pizza topped with bacteria

but we'd need the diplomatic skills
of boutros-boutros ghali
to pry a single samosa
from the hands of a somali

we came in search of food
they rudely sent us packing
we have no choice but to conclude
café nor was totally lacking
0/10

Gormless writes: One thing guaranteed to ignite The Beaten Docket immigration debate is racism against whites. We are far from racist: I won't post transcripts, but frequent tribute is paid to helpful foreigners who make us food or build our houses. I've said it once and I'll say it again: curry is our national dish. However, when they come over here, shut themselves off in unfriendly enclaves and tap into our football (football that we have to pay for!) then… well, anything goes.

We tried to dine at Nur Café, a new venture on the Broadway that appears to be run by members of the Somali community. We approached with trepidation. From a distance it is clear that this is a closed shop and probably the site of many dodgy deals. One of those gathered even had a tea towel on his head in lieu of his tribal what-not: THIS IS NOT A RACIST CHARACTURE.

Gourmand, never one to be cowed by uppity foreigners, took the lead and stepped through the door with confidence. The possibility of food was quickly and aggressively denied, despite the presence of fridges well-stocked with samousas. So where does this leave us? Forsaken on our own high street, unable to order the goods we want, when we want?

As I hinted in the Noor review, I am all for playful subversion of the free market…but not by them. Plus, they were watching football (our football…the kind of game you have to pay a satellite service to access) on the biggest screen on the Broadway. Wrong.
0/10

Overall score: 0/10
By refusing to let us into a cafe that was clearly open for business, Café Nor gets a barely deserved zero. Losers.

12. Top Wok

2009-05-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

74 Cricklewood Broadway
020 8452 9988

Gourmand writes: I expected nothing less than the toppermost of the wokkermost on the Broadway. Considering Top Wok's only Chinese competition is Mr Chan, whose sweet and sour dishes are marginally less appealing than eating the scabs off the face of a badly-burned war orphan, my expectations weren't exactly sky-high.

Needless to say, Top Wok slided past the greasy opposition with ease by cooking serviceable, fuss-free Chinese chow. The crispy duck pancakes we shared as a starter may have been cooked from frozen, but they were full of flavour; and the crispy seaweed - while also requiring approximately zero talent on the chef's part - was crispily moreish. The squid in ginger sauce was slightly on the tough side, while a generous portion of pork in black bean sauce tasted like something out of a jar, but at this price we had no complaints. Service is friendly enough, and the non-existent decor is, well, exactly what you'd expect at these prices. In a word: functional.
6.5/10

Gormless writes: If you click on some of the dates over on the right and navigate around this blog you can return to our first ‘Oriental in Cricklewood’ experience. True Gullets fans can recite this foundational text from memory. For many, it is what hooked them in the first place. Here, the erudite toff (“To expect a satisfactory dining experience at a restaurant with either of the words "Mr" or "Chan" in its name would be naïve…”) meets his clueless (“what value”) companion.

Looking back I feel ashamed at my extreme culinary gormlessness. Mr Chan’s delivered the worst meal we have endured, yet I gave it five out of ten. Top Wok would not have to do much to take the barely contested title of Best Chinese on the Broadway. It was quickly apparent that we were dealing with a higher class of Chinese. There were tables, menus and an attentive skeleton staff. It was all reasonably priced and we went for seaweed and crispy duck as a starter with pork in black bean sauce and squid with ginger as main courses.

The crispy duck wasn’t fresh but it tasted fine, although we could have done with a few more pancakes. The main dishes were tasty and I wolfed my share down quickly. Too quickly. Soon after the meal I started feeling sick. I attribute this more to my extreme eagerness to stuff my face than to the food itself.

Top Wok is a pleasant place to spend an hour and has some of the endearing flaws that mark the best places on the Broadway. There is a side table in the restaurant that has a plant pot and a yellow pages on it, like a bed and breakfast reception might.
6.5/10

Overall score: 13/20
A big fat 'meh' for Top Wok, then

11. Noor

2009-04-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

67 Cricklewood Broadway
020 8830 6688

Gourmand writes: For some inexplicable reason, I once took a date to Noor. For reasons I wouldn't dream of going into on this public forum, it ended badly. My second visit to Noor - cue nasty flashbacks - ended even more disastrously, but at least on this occasion I didn't have a tablemate I wanted to kiss.

"Gormless," I said, pointing conspiratorially at the menu. "They charge for bread." I tutted loudly. Persia Restaurant doesn't charge for bread. But my tuts were premature because the bread, cooked from scratch in a clay oven by the window, is absolutely wonderful. We used it to mop up a faultless kashk o-bademjan (mashed aubergine with curdled milk) and a great borani (spinach and yoghurt).

The main courses were even better. The chelo lamb kebab melted in the mouth and the chelo khoresht fesenjan was even better, a stew with chopped walnuts, pomegranate sauce, chicken and saffron rice. It was, I asserted, the best food we'd had on the Broadway. But there was absolutely no atmosphere to speak of inside its exposed brickwork walls. The service was a bit grumpy, too.

The meal ended with a black bug, about an inch-and-a-half long, jumping onto my head, then onto my shoulder, and then crawling down my back. I can't rule out the possibility Gormless bought it from a Socialist Worker at the G20 protests and threw it on my head as payback for my spectacular April fool, in which I said I was quitting Gullets. There may have been some other perfectly logical explanation, but the black bug took the gloss off an otherwise excellent performance.
6.5/10

Gormless writes: I am assured by some of my anarchist friends that this week's G20 protests represented "a significant reversal of unilateral dictats, issued arbitarily by our capitalist overlords". On April Fool's Day my personal representative of the "system", Gourmand, cruelly joked that he was going to remove one of the few joys that brings light to my browbeaten days: this blog. I fell for it, to his great mirth, and confirmed him in his low opinion of the working man: a gullible beast, fit only for contempt. Little did he know that I had payback plans, a stunt rich in symbolism, one that asked "who is the real parasite here?"

I put it into action at Noor on Friday night. Of course, the food is what you are interested in and I can report that it is good. Indeed, I would say Noor is up there with Abyssinia in producing tasty and diverting dishes. The chicken stew was far from the dish I make under this name; it was much more like a curry. The lamb kebabs were perfectly cooked and the rice plentiful and light. The bread was cooked in front of us and was well worth the pound or so it cost. The interior brick work reminded me of the inelegant murals in my childhood swimming pool.

Although low on customers, atmosphere and engaging staff, it was an enjoyable meal...although the best was still to come! As the meal came to an end I released a bug Wazzo sourced from the ditch round the back of his house, by the shops. It climbed up Gourmand's jumper and caused him discomfort comparable to that expereinced by the working man under the hegemonic parasitism of him and his class. Forget the G20 or the RBD: classy Noor saw real class war.
7.5/10

Overall score: 14/20
Noor will be bugged - ha! - they're not competing near the top of the table

10. Khana

2009-03-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

68 Cricklewood Broadway
020 8452 2789

Gourmand writes: Rumours of this blog's death are greatly exaggerated. After selling his soul to science, Gormless has cobbled together enough coppers to purchase a bowl of curry and half a peshwari at "north-west London's number one Indian restaurant" (their words, not ours). I downed a celebratory lassi, salty not sweet; toasted Gormless´ renewed solvency, and was overcome with emotion thinking about London's most obscure food blog stumbling sheepishly into double figures.

A week later and here I am in Portugal, trying to find the comma button on a demented keyboard, looking longingly at the beautiful River Douro, drinking ludicriously cheap tawny port, and trying hard not to think about the drab interior of 68 Cricklewood Broadway. But as the humble, hideaway comma slowly reveals itself with the help of the mysterious Alt Gr key, and lunch's cream-topped bacalhau and green wine distributes its calorific charms to rosy cheeks and a fresh bump of Portuguese port-belly, I regretably recall a table of lads furiously debating the merits of Tottenham Hotspur's new left-back. Yes, it's all coming back to me. I remember reading the menu, seeing they served curry-flavoured curry, and wanting to punch the waiter.

I recall my surprise that we ate decent, perfectly acceptable post-Beaten Docket Anglo-Indian grub, although, as a Briton, I was only claiming my birthright and reasserting my national identity. The chicken jalfrezi was predictably low on the green chillies; the Pakistani lamb was surprisingly mild for something made with "the chef's special blend of 12 spices" (maybe they all cancelled each other out?), and the peshwari nan was exceptionally sweet, like it had been melded together with marzipan. Yum, kind of.

Portugal has nothing on the Cricklewood Broadway. I yearn for the flavours of home.
7/10

Gormless writes: Sorry, readers, but the Gullets hiatus was caused by my lack of money. Gourmand, always keen to combat the "fecklessness of the working class", has invested my Giro in gold bullion. He assures me that this will bring a return of two Gullets trips a month, for life.

The first of these trips took place last Friday. It was an Indian, which means another of those popular Gullets sub-battles: Pink Rupee versus Khana. Unloved Pink Rupee drew heavily on its Indian/Nepalese heritage; Khana is very much an English Indian. Not only did they play beer and cheer indie anthems, but the customers were either lads sharing football insight or dining families. I've always said that "curry is our national dish" (ref: Beaten Docket Immigration Debates, 1992-present) and places like Khana are set up to make the most of this. I am not saying this is right or wrong. It is just the way it is.

We ate three curries and their usual accompaniments. Apart from the spinach and cottage cheese dish it was pretty predictable fare. It was all tasty, everything ran smoothly and it passed without incident. A nice meal, then, but Khana's professionalism, efficiency and ambition (their aim is to be the best Indian restaurant in north-west London) does not fit comfortably onto Cricklewood Broadway and some character has been sacrificed.

7/10

Overall score: 14/20
Khana cruises into third place

09. Lihiniya

2009-02-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

Lihiniya
66 Cricklewood Broadway
020 8208 2658

Gourmand writes: With no staff in sight, we edged towards the back of the restaurant. Surely somebody worked at Lihiniya? Eventually, a confused-looking woman emerged from the kitchen.

"Can I help you?" she asked.
"We'd like to order food, please."
"Khana Indian restaurant is next door."

It's never a good sign when a restaurateur assumes you've gone to the wrong place.

"No, we don't want Indian food. We want Sri Lankan food."
"Not now. We're about to go out"

It was 7pm on a Saturday. There was a pause.

"What food do you want?"
"Hoppers, string hoppers," I replied.
"OK, no problem," she said, gesturing towards a table.

I hope I'm not making our host sound unpleasant. She was polite and sweet, but it still felt like we'd unwittingly stumbled into her private residence. Unopened envelopes and crumpled napkins sat on the tables and at the back of the restaurant there were a couple of chairs, a computer and a load of videos. This was their living room.

Twenty minutes later a large tray of food arrived. String hoppers (rice noodle pancakes), egg hoppers (bowl-shaped rice flour pancakes cooked with an egg), coconut and seeni (sweet onion) sambols, and lamb and chicken curries. The meat wasn't fantastic, but for £5 each it was a bargain.

"I thought you had the wrong restaurant," our hostess chuckled as we settled the meagre bill.
"No, we like Sri Lankan food," I replied, hoping Gormless wouldn't reveal we had to visit Lihiniya as it was the next restaurant on the street.

Oh, Lihiniya. Insecure, confused Lihiniya. Here's some advice from the Gullets lads. Design a menu. Put up a new sign or two. Don't be so scared of customers. Have some self-belief. Look deep inside yourself and you'll find an real-life restaurant just bursting to get out. You can do it. We know you can.
6.5/10

Gormless writes: I'm sorry to demystify the Gullets process, but this was not our first visit to Lihiniya. We called into the restaurant a couple of weeks ago to see when the advertised Hopper Night took place. In the course of our conversation it became apparent that Lihiniya staged a nightly paradox: every evening is Hopper Night, yet Hopper Night never occurs. There are never any customers to make it happen. On Saturday night we turned years of on-standby hopper readiness into a real, existing meal situation.

I have been to a Hopper Night once before. It was a high concept mishmash of Easy Rider (starring Dennis Hopper), space hoppers and pogo sticks. This one was all about the pancake or noodle-style bases we were invited to combine with curry and other dishes into a layered meal. I enjoyed ripping fragments from my egg hopper and pinching chicken bits with them.

We sat on the lower of two levels. The eating area was dressed to host a Christmas wedding. The higher level featured a neglected beach bar. The whole place is like an installation designed to illustrate themes of abandonment, neglect, potential… that sort of thing. Yet, we roused this dormant operation and it delivered. Fine Sri Lankan music filtered through the PA, the bewildered staff turned chatty and the food was very good and very cheap. Truly, this is the kind of eventual eating the Gullets team thrives upon.

7/10

Overall score: 13.5/20

The Sri Lankans enter joint third place with Mango Grills

08. Mango Grills

2009-01-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

Mango Grills
58 Cricklewood Broadway
020 8450 9999

Gourmand writes: It may surprise you to learn that I, Gourmand, have my detractors. These critics allege I'm not the food expert my pen name suggests. On a handful of obscure sub-Saharan cookery techniques these jealous fools may have a point, but challenge me on my command of the Arabic kitchen and I'll point to numerous case studies demonstrating my commitment to my research. I've eaten whole sheep's heads, raw livers, sheep's testicles and enough raw lamb to red carpet next month's Academy Awards. Having eaten at hundreds of Lebanese restaurants, including the best places in Beirut, I can confirm that Mango Grills is, well, a little above average.

Sadly for me, there are no adventurous dishes on the menu (what, no bollocks?), and the two dishes I really wanted (muhammara and fried kebbeh) weren't available. The unavailability of the former is understandable - it's a Syrian dish - but no fried kibbeh? Not good.

But apart from a soggy, microwaved lamb sambousek, the food we ordered was very good. Sorry to harp on about my impeccable credentials, but I've eaten more hommus than Terry Waite and am confident that Mango Grills' creamy, tangy 'Beiruty' version, with hot peppers and parsley, belongs up there with the best of them. The warak inab (stuffed vine leaves) were perky, fresh and sweet, the fattoush bristled with mint, onion and sumac, and the beef sujok (spicy sausages) were delicious too.

As with finished the meal with gloriously good baklava, I looked round the empty restaurant and wished Mango Grills had more customers. It's a clean, if rather bare, place with friendly service and reasonable pricing - we paid £15 for two. Just don't expect any (nasty) surprises.
7/10

Gormless writes:
How Gourmand has changed my life, Part #2567. On the morning of the day that would conclude with this meal I woke up in a gay art house. Before I started collaborating on this blog I would be more likely to target such an establishment with stones and spray paint than sleep in it.

I mention this for two reasons. First: I nursed a giant hangover throughout the day, which may prejudice this review. Second: Well, waking up in a gay art house and eating dinner in a Lebanese restaurant is some sort of bohemian dream, isn't it? In fact, I think you can buy it as one of those 'experience' days in Debenhams. Fuck that, ladies and gentleman. Here I am, living it!

On closer examination, however, my narrative collapses. There was only one gay in the house and the art was at best mediocre and at worst articles cut out of Metro. The Lebanese restaurant was called Mango Grills and had no atmosphere, nor customers to speak of. Indeed, in terms of restaurants we have visited so far it was most reminiscent of Mr Chan's - never a glowing comparison - because it functioned largely as a takeaway.

So geared were they towards over-the-counter service they even managed to 'take away' two of the menu options we wanted to order. We persevered and managed to order the decent mezze Gourmand has described to you above. For me, the only weak dish was the sambousek, which looked and tasted like a Birds Eye rendition of the Lebanese favourite. Our host was knowledgeable and personable, and happily gave us a big jug of tap water.

The moral of this review? Next time someone boasts to you about their gay art house/Lebanese restaurant 'experiences', remember that the reality often fails to live up to the billing. Good service, discretion and efficient transactions are all you can really expect from either.

6.5/10

Overall score 13.5/20

Mango Grills cruises into the bronze medal position

07. The Windmill Gastropub

2009-01-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

The Windmill Gastropub

57 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8450 4270

Gourmand writes: "You're more likely to find a synagogue in Gaza City," I wisecracked when I first heard rumours of a gastropub in Cricklewood. And, naturally enough, The Windmill is about as much of a gastropub as Gormless is a gourmand.

To be fair, we didn't eat from the gastropub menu, although this wasn't our fault. We presented my Taste London card, which is meant to get me half-price food, but it was rejected by the (very pleasant) woman behind the bar after she called her boss to check, and five minutes after she told us it would be fine. Not her fault at all, but by glancing into the open kitchen and listening to the whirr of the deep-fryer we got a strong feeling that ordering the pork belly would be a mistake.

There are two rooms at The Windmill - a quiet dining room totally lacking in atmosphere and a pub with football on big screens you can't see from most of the seats. We sat in front of an Everton game and ordered from the bar food menu. The food was poor and crazily overpriced. The nachos were puny tortilla chips with bargain basement salsa and a tiny portion of melted cheese; criminally guacamole was nowhere to be seen. My sausage sandwich was even worse. A single sliced sausage was presented in limply toasted rye bread with a few scraps of salad. We'll go back and eat from the main menu when they decide to accept my card, but after such pathetic pub grub our expectations are very low.
3/10

Gormless writes: If The Windmill had a description of their perfect customer, he would probably resemble me. For I am proud I choose FHM over Nuts, I tend to dress 'smart-casual' and not in sports gear and I look down on Wetherspoon's as a populist snare. I am also the kind of gormless twat who is content to sit in a low-concept gastropub and order overpriced food to accompany a neck-craning football 'experience'. Truly The Windmill and other pubs of its ilk have me stitched up: flatter my good taste and then present me with a weighty bill.
I had a plate of nachos while Gourmand suffered a sausage sandwich. The chef was more interested in flirting with the waitress then in preparing our food and both dishes - hard to get either that wrong - suffered. My nachos lacked the guacamole that's their birthright while Gourmand received a single sliced sausage for his outlay. We may return for full meals, but these items on the pub menu were very poor.

3/10

Overall score: 6/20
A rubbish effort by The Windmill

06. The Beaten Docket

2008-12-11T16:20:00.000-08:00

The Beaten Docket
50-56 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8450 2972

Gourmand writes: "This country. It's getting worse all the time," moans the corpse at the bar. "It could be worse," replies the corpse to his left. "It could be Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe."

At its best, this JW Wetherspoon pub is a place where sixty-something male alcoholics congregate to drink real ale and moan about the state of things today. At its worst, it's a place where lonely, depressed sixty-something inebriates sit alone, stare at the wall, shuffle in their chair occasionally, stumble home at midnight and return the next morning to do the whole thing again. Whether they're angrily lamenting "Brown's Broken Britain", sipping the head of a Goffs Merlin (4.3% ABV) or dribbling down their chin dementedly while arguing with their dead wives, everyone's foaming at the mouth at this undeservedly popular old people's home.

There's no background music or sports TV at Wetherspoons, which means you can hear your fellow customers dying. The man sitting behind us summons every ounce of strength to keep his nose from drooping in his pint glass. The tinsel and glitter adorning the walls seem wholly inappropriate. It's Christmastime at the morgue.

The food is cheap. Straight from the packet, cooked from frozen. The tortilla chips with salsa are passable, as is my sweet potato, chick pea and spinach curry, although the naan bread is cold and tough. It's his birthday, so I treat Gormless to a 'gourmet' burger (a poor man's burger with extra cheese and bacon). The meat is tough, chewy and miserable. You get what you pay for.

There's a silver lining. As Gormless completes another journey round the sun and joins me on the precipice of a fourth decade, we bask in the glory of being the youngest people in The Beaten Docket by at least 20 years. Worth a toast, I think.
5/10

Gormless writes: Five restaurants in and I think now is a good time to pay tribute to Gourmand. He has introduced me to new cuisines from around the world on my doorstep. Nigerian, Persian, Ethiopian… what, I wondered, would he have in store for me on my birthday?

It was Wetherspoons. I’m not complaining, but a night spent dodging the despairing glances of broken men is the kind of ‘experience’ I look to my patron to liberate me from. I fell in, though, and in a desperate play for finesse ordered the gourmet burger with its predictable chip and onion ring companions. It was all barely serviceable stodge enlivened by conversation and fellow diner speculation; all washed down with super cheap gin and tonic. I had some of Gourmand’s chick pea curry. It was borderline fine.

It was a night at Wetherspoons. What would you expect?
5.5/10

Overall score: 10.5/20
The best pub so far, out of one

05. D'Den

2008-12-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

D'Den
47 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8830 5000

Gourmand writes: I've often wondered what's behind those tinted windows. There's a clue in D'Den's charmingly home-cooked videos on YouTube, in which owner, head chef and all-round Cricklewood micro-celebrity Balo talks enthusiastically about the "governors, senators, footballers - all walks of life" that make up his restaurant's clientele. Tonight, I hoped, we'd spy on top-ranking Abuja officialdom - and maybe even Efan Ekoku - mired in a D'Den of sleaze.

I've had Nigerian food before and it wasn't great. Ferocious spicing annihilated any subtleties of flavouring, the meat was chewy and the sauces glooped weirdly like hot mozzarella. We avoided gloop on this occasion due to D'Den's confusing menu. Every dish appears to be a soup; these cost around £6, but don't include meat (£5 extra for goat, for example). We're hardly Nigerian oligarchs, so we asked our server if she could give us a selection of the country's cuisine for £25. Baffled, she nudged us in the direction of grilled fish, fried plantain and jollof rice - what everyone else there was eating.

The croaker was char-grilled to perfection, with either a hint or a hurricane or spiciness depending on how much of the accompanying, debilitating salsa ended up on the fork. The jollof rice (with spices and tomatoes) and fried plantain were both tasty, but unexciting. We watched TV ads promoting seatbelts and condoms in Lagos, and, disorientatingly, D'Den on Cricklewood Broadway; drank Star Beer, brewed in Lagos; and eventually met Balo, who was as nice as he appears on the internet. It was an evening without sleaze, though, until a prostitute introduced herself to us on the street just outside Mr Chan's.
6/10

Gormless writes: D’Den promised the kind of dining experience this blog was made for. Not only is the Nigerian cuisine exotic, but the premises are strikingly unfamiliar. Blacked out windows, a lion logo, blood red lettering, goat stew; these features combined to raise it above its competitors in my imagination. My expectations built D’Den into something it could not live up to. For these days any food outside of the Sainsbury’s Basics range is strange to me; any venue other than my poorly-lit room a blessed relief. Lo! How the gormless have fallen.

Upon entering D’Den, most of my illusions were undermined. It was a restaurant like any other; albeit one in love with its own on-screen advertisements and raucous enough to be a social club. The menu was so confusing we asked our waitress to pick for us and, when she declined, we fell into copying our neighbours in ordering a big, dirty-looking fish. They appeared to eat the whole thing, including the head, bones and plate, and after a long wait we were primed to do the same. The grilled choaker was served with jollof rice, plantain and some chilli sauce that certainly made it a memorable meal (masking its dubious quality). I drank some Nigerian Star beer and enjoyed pulling the requisite poses with the complementary toothpick.

This is my first Gullets review to take the ‘longer view’. The morning after I woke up sick and suspect the fish may have been to blame. A mark off for that - the one that was added mid-meal when D’Den honcho Balo entered and demonstrated his extreme affability.
6/10

Overall score: 12/20
Nigeria lies second out of two in Cricklewood's African Cup of Nations

04. Persia Restaurant

2008-11-30T11:16:00.000-08:00

Persia Restaurant
45 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8452 9226

Gourmand writes: Christmas arrived early this year. The fairy lights draped along Persia Restaurant's walls and windows glistened with festive spirit, but it's the friendly service, good value menu and excellent food that makes this Cricklewood's winter wonderland.

The mezze special, a £10 platter of starters, was almost enough to sate us. We started with sabzi (fresh mint and basil, walnuts and feta cheese), warm flatbread and fantastically thick, creamy hummos. The chicken livers zinged with fennel, the borrani esfenaj was a piquant aubergine dip, and the salad olivieh was, rather less exotically, a solid rendition of the potato salad. The only disappointment was the kashk-e-bademjan, one of my favourite Middle Eastern dishes. I like it when it's made with plenty of kashk (fermented whey) and has a deep, smoky taste. We shared a main course, the chello chengeh kebob, cooked to perfection with a juicy saffron marinade and a blushing red centre. Doogh, a carbonated yogurt drink, seemed to alienate Gormless, but he enjoyed the falooda, a weird but wonderful desert of rosewater and frozen vermicelli.

Despite spending much of the evening fending off daft questions from an irritating couple who made Gormless look well-informed ("do you serve sushi here?"), our host was smiley and chatty without being intrusive. Extra points for the BYOB policy and the two-for-one voucher that came with our £26 bill, and I'll be back for the belly dancing and live music on Saturday nights. With or without the fairy lights - Persia Restaurant shines.
8/10

Gormless writes: Gormless I may be, but I am as capable as being moved by delicate beauty as the next man. So long as the next man is not Wazzo, that is, who only really likes big tits. As we ate in the workaday environs of Pink Rupee I glanced across to our next stop and was charmed by its interior of twinkling fairy lights. Since then, Persia Restaurant had grown in my imagination. I anticipated dusky Middle Eastern beauties pouring wine from bottomless jugs, soft music, an ambience; everything that had been missing from the restaurants so far. Was I disappointed? A little, yes.

Persia Restaurant is certainly a well maintained, pleasant space, but it fell away from my romantic image. The fairy lights were joined by loads of lamps and bulbs that combined to over-illuminate everything. Our waitress was less the enigmatic temptress of lore and more a bright, engaging presence who played the lady-gourmand and guided me through the menu. We started with mezzeh - six dishes including chicken livers and potato salad, eaten in combination with bread. This tasty pick 'n' mix was followed by a kebab that had no pita and no skewer, simply beautifully cooked lamb chunks with rice. We drank doogh, a yoghurt drink I failed to acquire the taste for, and finished with falooda; rosewater ice flakes with thin stands of vermicelli.

There is no doubting the quality of the fare on offer at Persia Restaurant, but I expected a bit more than a night making the noises you make at a good restaurant. Perhaps it was the lumpen fellow diners, perhaps the distracting plasma screen… I don't know, but the night lodged at the level of a dully familiar restaurant trip and never really got off as an adventure, culinary or otherwise.
7/10

OVERALL SCORE: 15/20

In a clash of restaurants with pre-WWII country names, Abyssinia leads Persia by a precious half-point!

03. Pink Rupee

2008-11-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

Pink Rupee, 38 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8452 7665

Gourmand writes: Our expectations fell dramatically the moment we entered the restaurant. Tinny, noisy and hugely irritating Hindi pop leaked from the kitchen through an open door, a jarring racket that continued throughout the meal. It was like 4am at a minicab office in Archway.

The plastic flowers on the wall seemed to be dying; the Nepalese tourism posters next to them were yellowing. Pink Rupee (not as in 'pink pound' - we ruled out homosexual involvement when we saw the decor) is 23 years old, our mop-headed waiter told us, but it isn't growing old gracefully. For its 25th birthday I'll buy the owner a tub of paint and the chef some headphones.

The words 'Nepalese Tandoori Restaurant' are printed on the front of the menu, but our waiter, who must be bored of the view by now, confessed that only a few dishes would be found in Kathmandu. One of these was our starter, momo (pictured) - steamed, spicy and very tasty minced beef dumplings. The main courses were also solid. We're not convinced it's an authentic dish, but the fish nepal, in a cream and mango sauce, combined well with a sprightly lamb bhuna, pilao rice, naan bread and imported Nepalese beer. All perfectly good (if a bit pricey at £26 for two). We'll get it delivered next time...

6/10

Gormless writes: When Gourmand said our next stop showed football and encouraged a "bit of a smoke", I thought we were going round Wazzo's for a night in. I was wrong, but so was my patron, for the Arabic 'café' serves only hot drinks and shisha. No food, no review; and Gourmand's disappointment was obvious. I could tell he wanted a night being jostled by boisterous young things arguing loudly over nothing.

Thank god, then, that the next venue was an Indian; a night in which is a lynchpin of the 'chav culture' he so covets. I say Indian, but it was more Nepalese, or at least it was at the start before switching to Indian, but what's the difference anyway? Not much according to our waiter who said the distinction lay in the intensity of the spicing. Nepalese grub is cooler, apparently, because of all the snow, or something. I didn't follow his entire lesson as his perfect mop-top hair distracted me. We started with Nepalese beer and momo, a meat-stuffed dumpling perfect to put in your bumbag for a mountain hike and very tasty. We followed this with lamb bhuna, fish Nepal, rice and naan - all fine but not particularly memorable, especially compared to the taste vistas glimpsed at Abyssinia.

This restaurant has been here for 23 years, so it is no surprise that it's tired. The atmosphere was undermined by the past-caring, exposed kitchen, which allowed a tinny Here Comes the Hot-Stepper to compromise our enjoyment. It was not exactly buzzing, either, more a venue for blokes to bore/annoy one another. Good food, though, and somewhat unlucky to come after Abyssinia. I'm sure I would find a lot more to praise if it followed Chicken Spot or Euro Net.

6.5/10

OVERALL SCORE 12.5/20

A respectable result for Pink Rupee. Might qualify for the UEFA Cup.

02. Abyssinia

2008-11-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Abyssinia, 9 Cricklewood Broadway, 020 8208 0110

Gourmand writes: The eager gorging on the other side of the large silver tray confirmed my suspicions. After the initial otherness of using a spongy flatbread, the ubiquitous injera, as a spoon, a plate and a main course, Ethiopian cuisine passes for classic comfort food. The doro wat and injera is a spiced-up beef stew and dumplings, and my novice tablemate, a stew obsessive, required no functioning gorms (lucky that...) to realise this was damn good food.

With a prod or two of a spoon - the only eating utensil we were given - pieces of tender chicken fell from the bone into a spicy, dark red pepper sauce. The injera was delicious, with a hint of sourness from fermentation and a fiery kick from the doro wat's onion, red pepper and paprika soaked up and stored in its spongy seams. A couple of milder lamb wats and a potato dish were fine additions to the injera party and our increasingly breathless gluttony became obtrusively apparent when we turned our heads to admire the Abyssinia Special, an everything-on-the-menu spectacular dished up to the couple behind us.

We ate so quickly and contentedly, and washed it all down with glasses of tej (honey wine), we barely noticed the 1970s decor. The place could do with a makeover, but competitive prices, friendly service, authentic music and damn good food makes this one place on the Broadway I'll definitely revisit.
7.5/10

Gormless writes: Call me gormless - everybody else does - but I thought Ethiopia didn't have a cuisine. I thought that was the whole problem. Why did we spend the 1980s flying over our fried breakfasts and roast dinners if they had their own grub the whole time? On Saturday night I was enlightened by my culinary-cultural improver, Gourmand, who took me to Abyssinia.

After Mr Chan's last week, it was nice to go to a restaurant with such fripperies as a waiter and a tablecloth. We started with a glass of tej, a honey wine I quickly acquired a taste for. We ordered doro wat, the chicken and red pepper sauce national dish, and a similar lamb option. Gourmand, in a tragic attempt to impress me, ordered some hot chilli peppers. I think he wanted to prove he was 'game for a laugh' on a Saturday night, contrary to comments left on this blog! After a bit of a wait, our waiter brought out injera (Gormless definition: a big, sweet pancake) on a metal tray and spooned our food on to it. We were to use spare bits of injera to grab the food and deliver it down our gullets. It tasted a bit like curry. By the time we had wolfed down most of the meal the juice had nicely infused into the main injera which provided a wonderful finish. The whole thing was delicious.

It's payback time. May Ethopia 'feed the world' their tasty fare.
8/10
OVERALL SCORE: 15.5/20
Abyssinia storms into the lead!

01. Mr Chan's

2008-11-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

Mr Chan's

7 Cricklewood Broadway

020 8930 0994

Gourmand writes:
To expect a satisfactory dining experience at a restaurant with either of the words "Mr" or "Chan" in its name would be naïve, so the sheer horror of the Cantonese Sweet & Sour Special didn't come as a surprise. What once was chicken, shrimp and pig had been hacked up, deep-fried and mired in gloop; battered blobs of fatness sitting squalidly on the plate. The deep-fried prawns were enclosed in so much fluffed-up fat they could have been used as a pillow. The spring rolls were of a similar ilk - all leaky-oil casing, nothing inside. The beef in black bean was chewy and in an insipid sauce, while the fried beansprouts were a non-event. Salvation of sorts arrived in a throw-everything-in-the-pan fried rice (with duck and chicken) and a passable chicken and sweetcorn soup in a Styrofoam bowl.

Behind the desk where local hoodies line up for £3.20 meals, a selection of colourful Buddhas conjure up some much-needed authenticity while a seemingly random cast of people stroll in and out of the kitchen. The hiss and crackle of wok-cooking is incessant and the smell is deep-fried. We got a huge amount of food for our eight quid each, but we won't be going back in a hurry.

3/10

Gormless writes…
Mr Chan's, an unassuming takeaway restaurant, has the distinction of being the first eatery on Cricklewood Broadway and the debut subject of our review blog! True to type, this cheap Chinese sacrifices style to value. But what value! Our sixteen quid set menu for two promised six dishes but exceeded this, with drinks and prawn crackers served up unexpectedly.

Diners, remember: Mr Chan's is primarily a takeaway and this means the niceties of table service are done away with. There was no staggering of dishes; our soup, spring rolls, rice and beef were delivered all at once. In a meal of few highs, the centerpiece was a one-dish solution to all your "which meat tonight?" dilemmas. The solution being: chuck them all together. This sweet and sour prawn/pork/beef hybrid was, luckily, overshadowed by a decent corn and chicken soup and a stack of pop tart-thin spring 'rolls'. The beansprouts were quite good too but they were just beansprouts. With carrots. On a plate. Not exactly the stuff of signature dishes, should Mr Chan actually exist to put his name to it.

So, if you want lots of stodgy Chinese for not much money, visit Mr Chan's. Its strip-lit walls and green tables make it a nice enough place to sit and watch Cricklewood street life. The jolly staff and rotating cast of customer-characters provide a nice backdrop to punning sessions; should you be attempting to christen a fledgling food blog!

5/10

OVERALL SCORE: 8/20

Mr Chan's takes the lead!