Right Now in London: 5 Must-See Musicalsby Randi / August 7, 2018For our recent anniversary (aw thanks), Husbo and I returned to one of our favorite fancy restaurants in London, The Clove Club. We celebrated our anniversary there two years ago, and this year we decided to shake our shoulders like Danny Burstein’s adorable Tevye and make a tradition of it. You might recall that last year, we were on a train to Chengdu for our anniversary, which was prettay prettay disgusting. To make up for that (plus 98% of all our train experiences last year), we splurged on this super extravagant dinner again. The Clove Club is one of the few Michelin-starred restaurants in London that will offer a worthwhile vegan tasting menu, so it always comes to mind first when we are considering super swanky restaurants.
One of the first UK restaurants to use the ticketing system, where you pay when you make the reservation, The Clove Club is a ritzy Shoreditch restaurant with an exclusive club-like vibe, located in Shoreditch Town Hall. It has one Michelin star and it’s the UK’s highest ranked restaurant on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, at #33. (Last year it was #26, just saying.) (Alinea is #34 so take this list, like all lists/awards, with a dangerous-for-your-blood-pressure amount of salt since that restaurant is extraordinarily better than most of the places ahead of it.)
Also, I believe it’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been to that offers a soft pairing instead of just a wine pairing with your menu. They even say on the website that they do that; it’s not like some secret you have to ask for. Especially in London, where most of the social activity for a non-drinker involves watching everyone else drink till they’re pissed (UK has a serious alcoholism problem but it’s part of the culture so it will remain ignored), it’s great for a non-drinker to have a nice option. In fact, on this visit our waiter told me that not only were they offering a soft pairing, they had two soft pairings available! I could choose between juice and tea, and obviously I chose juice. There were a few missteps in there, but I’ll talk more about that below.
Soon after we were seated, we were asked about our beverages – the wine and the soft pairings, yes, but also whether we wanted still or sparkling water. You know I appreciated getting right to the most important issue – water – without making me take out my big reusable bottle from my bag in a place like this. As usual, I chose still and Z chose sparkling, and the server assigned to our water needs (lol the dream) got confused and gave both of us sparkling for much of the meal. Luckily our main server took over at some point and gave me still. It is hard to chug sparkling and I like to chug!
We were getting the tasting menu, and so the first few dishes sent out were little off-menu ‘gifts’ from the kitchen to amuse our bouches, which are always some of the most interesting bites. I received an adorable tiny crispy cup of green beans and edible flowers that tasted of dill, and even though I tend not to like dill because of food poisoning memories, I loved this. Next up was a little turnip roll, looking like a sushi roll or a baby burrito or something but it was rolled up turnip. Sounds whack, tasted amazing.
My last amuse was a chickpea panisse, and I almost high-fived the waiter who brought it. I was psyched for some acknowledge that vegan proteins exist, and also I just forking love everything made with chickpea flour, like socca, and this was a little bite of socca.
To follow up/erase the little treats, they next brought me melon gazpacho granita as a palate cleanser, though a more interesting one than usual.
At this point in my notes, I wrote ‘Almost a potato but watery’ and I have zero clue what I meant by that or what point in the meal it was supposed to correspond to, if it was related to this meal at all. Recent-past me was very wise though, so I will use the phrase as much as I can.
Next, I was brought one warm tomato. I kind of thought ho boy, is this how it’s gonna be? After that promising chickpea panisse? But it was one warm good tomato, doused with soy sauce, almost a potato but watery, and even though it was hard to eat, I remembered that it’s all about the meal at large at a place like this, not each individual dish. It was served with a fresh cucumber juice, tinged with a little apple and some other subtle hints of this and that to make a really lovely, refreshing cucumber juice. A soft pairing win!
My next course needs no introduction. It was BEANS! I love beans oh how I love beans, especially in fancy restaurants who would love to only give me single tomatoes and no protein. The white beans (the server said cocoa beans?? but no) (I googled and apparently Coco de Paimpol beans are a thing and are whitish so that is probably it; shortening it to ‘coco’ is misleading guys!) were served with impeccably cooked and flavored mushrooms, so it was a dish I often cook myself but made delicious and wonderful. My drink of the moment was a buckwheat iced tea, which I loved because I love buckwheat and really got into buckwheat teas in China last year. It was Bucks County up in here! Calling it another Soft Pairing Win even though it was a tea and not a juice and I thought they were two different routes to take but I guess sometimes they share the path?
The next course was my absolute favorite and brought the whole shibang to another level. I got a little bowl of the freshest herb broth that was like if everything green and fresh and herby was reduced to their strongest, most sublime levels of green and fresh and herby taste concentration and probably mixed with a little magic. It was INCREDIBLE. I mean yeah it was broth, but incredible forking broth. There was a baby potato and a single strand of samphire in the bowl, which was fun to try to get when you were drinking directly from the bowl. I would say the potato in the broth was almost a potato but watery, but it really was a potato. It was served with the greatest piece of solid food ever, too – a cracker of crispy potato topped with white bean puree and amazing grilled mushrooms (but grilled differently from the previous course, I believe). Everything about this course was perfection and I really wanted to shout ‘just give me a million of these, please’ which really should be an option when you are paying this much but alas, I behaved.
Next up to bat, we have a wonderful white beet dish. The beets were sliced super thin and I guess the whiteness instead of the redness means there is no trace of any dirt taste that regular beets often have, and they were topped with slivered almonds. The waiter poured a Greek yogurt (made from almonds) sauce over the whole thing, and it was splendid. It looks like a mess because I didn’t get the picture until after the pouring happened, but whatevs. So good! And I appreciate the perfectly smooth almond yogurt sauce that I like to think they made just for me that night.
While this course was great, the soft pairing was…not. You may remember from my previous Clove Club review that I was given a red pepper juice to accompany a corn-based dish, and the match of red pepper and corn was highly praised. However, I also mentioned that too much juiced red pepper is a lot to ask someone to drink. At this latest meal, the red pepper juice was a weird match for white beet and yogurt, and the giant glass was way too much to ask. I could barely finish two sips before I wanted to barfalomew. Soft Pairing Fail.
Luckily, this was about the time they brought out their superb sourdough bread, so I could get rid of the taste. Their bread is so good we would have happily filled up on it even though everyone always says not to do that, for some dumb reason.
The more substantial ‘main’ dish section of the menu came out now, and my first of these was a grilled baby eggplant with cumin sauce and eggplant caviar. So, not the most interesting or inventive dish, but it tasted great and was well made. Still, given the setting, you’d hope for something more imaginative. I LOVED my soft pairing, though: a steaming hot pot full to the brim of mushroom tea. I drank the whole pot and loved it. The taste was very subtle, almost bland, but that’s okay for tea, and the smell was sensational (just like MUSHROOM and SO STRONG).
The last of the savory courses was one of my favorite parts of the dinner: a plate of maitake mushrooms and broccoli and other greens and leaves served with a courgette (zucchini) puree and a Jura foam. Jura, I learned, is a region of France where they make their own kind of French wine and so this foam was made from that, I guess, but was cooked and foamified so it didn’t taste like or have alcohol. So fancy, so delicious! They really based my meal around cooking mushrooms impeccably and I am down with that.
Unfortunately, my soft pairing for this wonderful course was a big bummer: They brought me a non-alcoholic beer. Okay there’s a lot to go over here. First of all, I said juice pairing. JUICE. Second, you’re assuming that the people not drinking alcohol still like the taste of alcohol. That’s a very bold assumption to make, and one that I don’t think will ever prove true in any situation. Third, you don’t know why I’m not drinking. What if I was an alcoholic and the taste of beer, even without the alcohol, was a big trigger? Fourth, WHO LIKES NON-ALCHOLIC BEER? Literally NO ONE on the planet. Lastly, and most offensive to me personally, this felt exceedingly lazy. We’re paying more than we’ve ever paid for any meal up in here, and someone back there is like ‘hmm, we need a drink for this dish that isn’t alcohol, oh I know, how about just this beer that the alcohol pairing is getting but the non-alcoholic kind! Great! Except not great. Beer is disgusting and non-alcoholic beer is bullshit. SOFT PAIRING FAIL. Ugh thank goodness most of this meal was wonderful because this aspect of it feels really like a slap in the face.
Luckily dessert came next to distract me from my OVERWHELMING RAGE.
And dessert was epic. You know from my past reviews of fancy places that don’t primarily cater to vegans that they often just can’t do dessert. They either buckle under the pressure or they never give a shit in the first place and they go ‘oh here’s a plate of fruit and, if we feel like trying a little, that same fruit made into a syrup or a sorbet ENJOY THAT WILL BE $100!’ But my two desserts (actually, three sort of) from Clove Club this evening were remarkable. Not only were they both interesting and creative, but they were also delicious.
First up was a blackcurrant granita with soy foam and berries. The soy foam was more of a substantial cream and there was more of it than there was granita, so that really saved this from being one of the aforementioned kinds of lazy vegan desserts, as did the fact that it tasted great. The granita was a little too melted underneath the cream, like it was ready in the kitchen before the server fetched it for us, but things happen. There was also a shot of olive oil poured across it, which seems fancy and whimsical but I couldn’t really taste it so that’s just like unnecessary fat but whatever. Oh so for my American readers, blackcurrant is like the most popular fruit flavor in the UK. Husbo keenly observed (he’s so keen) that it’s used as commonly here as grape flavor is in the USA. It’s pretty strange to UK friends that blackcurrant juice et al. is just not a thing in the states. Anyway great dessert. BUT, the real treat of this course was the soft pairing! Thank god they returned with such a strong followup to the Biggest Fail in Soft Pairing History because this blackcurrant and beetroot soda was so incredible, so perfect and delicious with both flavors balanced, that it almost made up for everything. I wish I could buy this soda from them to have at home. And I don’t even drink soda!
But the last dessert was the winner, maybe of the whole meal, maybe at least tied with that herby broth and potato thing. This is the kind of dessert I want to share with all future omnivore restaurants who claim to be able to make me something good. It was a caramel ice cream (WIN) on top of a coffee meringue foam (WIN) on top of potato sticks (WHAT SURPRISE WIN). The potato sticks were exactly like those things we’d get at a Wawa as kids, which I completely forget the name of but could NEVER forget the taste. YOU KNOW like those superskinny shoestring potato sticks (the name was probably Potato Stix lol) and they were so greasy and salty and amazing. Well whoever had the idea of putting them with caramel ice cream and meringue deserves a medal. This dessert was REMARKABLE. And I don’t even like coffee, well I don’t drink it, but in dessert form it was great, especially mixed with caramel. And potato stix. The soft pairing was a pear juice with coffee syrup and it was delicious. Another SP Win.
As is the case with these fancy super long tasting menus, when you think you are finished and you can’t possibly eat another bite of anything, they bring you petit fours with your coffee or bill as supposedly a little treat but at this point it’s like a mockery of your stomach. Unforch, Husbo got the petit fours because they didn’t have vegan versions. However, they gave me a house-made dark chocolate bar, as they did last time, and it’s good chocolate. And since the guy who brought it to me felt bad that I didn’t get the petit fours/knew I was going to mention this on the internet/saw how much I loved chocolate by my face tattoo that says I Love Chocolate, he brought me a second one! So I brought 1.5 very nice dark chocolate bars home.
All in all, this was a spectacular meal that lived up to our expectations and memories of last time. Even though there were a few missteps and a few things that are making my veins pop and not in my forearms like I like, overall it was wonderful. But it is incredibly expensive, and even though it was a special occasion, it feels very strange to spend that much money on a meal. That guilty feeling is stronger than usual now that it’s like end-of-days time and everything is going to shit, so it might have to be the last fancy meal for a while. Or, if it really is end-of-days there is no reason to save our money soooo maybe not. WEIRD ENDING.
CLOVE CLUB, SHOREDITCH, LONDON, UK, EUROPE FOR NOW
Water speed: Pretty good, though not as good as last time and I got a lot of sparkling by accident. I know that sounds like theeeee most entitled bullshit to complain about but that kind of detail is what Michelin stars are given for.
Service: Very nice.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are downstairs, dark and reminiscent of like a brothel in 1800’s New Orleans. You know what I mean? The lighting was dim, the colors were dark reds and browns, and random cosmetics were scattered on display. A very strange mood going on but it was nice and clean, so whatever! Also I liked that the stall was separated from the sink area, despite being a single serve bathroom. People don’t have to wait outside that way, avoiding the awkwardness that comes from that. Oh the toilet seat was hysterically big and weird! That’s enough. (copied from previous review because it’s the same.)
Food: Splendid! I read over my previous review, and all my food-based complaints seem to have been addressed: the lack of protein was fixed (they could still do more, especially in the two mains, but still, an improvement), the desserts were improved by extraordinary leaps and bounds.
Bonus: Great to have a fancypants restaurant for special occasions/profligate spending when you have no need for money anymore.
Related Posts
Brighton, UK: The Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge More Challenged Than Great
Every year for the past countable number of years (four?), the wonderful sushi restaurant Moshimo in Brighton has held a special all-vegan dinner event in which chefs from other restaurants present their spin on vegan sushi. It’s called the Great Moshimo Vegan Challenge. And boy, was this year a challenge or what.
It’s a contest, and the diners vote for the winner. Jojo at vegan.in.brighton invited me to join her this year, and considering how envious I have been in past years, I was all for it. Sadly, my suspicion that I bring bad luck around with me like a personal storm cloud was reinforced, because most of this stuff was hella gross.
It’s a contest, and the diners vote for the winner. Jojo at vegan.in.brighton invited me to join her this year, and considering how envious I have been in past years, I was all for it. Sadly, my suspicion that I bring bad luck around with me like a personal storm cloud was reinforced, because most of this stuff was hella gross.
The restaurant itself has fantastic vegan food. It’s a regular mainstream sushi restaurant, but they have one of the most vegan-friendly menus I’ve ever seen in an omni place. Equally important, the management is very committed to providing sustainable sushi — short of eliminating fish altogether. (They did remove bluefin tuna from their menu early on though, so there’s that.) Hence their dedication to vegan sushi, the most sustainable kind, and this event for raising awareness and interest in this most excellent lifestyle.
Everything I have eaten that was actually made by Moshimo chefs has been wonderful. It’s this whole letting-other-chefs-use-your-kitchen-and-feed-utter-nonsense-to-unsuspecting-patrons thing that gets tricky. At this event, eight chefs from different Brighton restaurants and catering companies came in and shared a vegan dish that incorporated the vegan sushi theme and their individual restaurant’s style. It’s a chance for great local chefs to be really creative and exciting and impressive. Usually, they are. This year, due to my storm cloud (but mostly due to lack of effort, taste buds, and common sense), the dishes ranged from boring to inedible to almost good, the worst kind. Well no, ‘inedible’ is I guess worse than food that with a little more effort could have been solid, but the latter makes me angrier. Let’s see what went down!
Everything I have eaten that was actually made by Moshimo chefs has been wonderful. It’s this whole letting-other-chefs-use-your-kitchen-and-feed-utter-nonsense-to-unsuspecting-patrons thing that gets tricky. At this event, eight chefs from different Brighton restaurants and catering companies came in and shared a vegan dish that incorporated the vegan sushi theme and their individual restaurant’s style. It’s a chance for great local chefs to be really creative and exciting and impressive. Usually, they are. This year, due to my storm cloud (but mostly due to lack of effort, taste buds, and common sense), the dishes ranged from boring to inedible to almost good, the worst kind. Well no, ‘inedible’ is I guess worse than food that with a little more effort could have been solid, but the latter makes me angrier. Let’s see what went down!
First, let’s look at all the wonderful food that Moshimo sent out between contest dishes to keep us happy. Seriously, these dishes were the best part of the night. Moshimo is a conveyor-belt-style sushi place, so it was really fun to pick the best looking plate coming down the belt. And it was really smart to keep diners happy and full with actually decent food.
The sampler dish sent out first was heaven. Roasted squash, seaweed salad, and a warm crunchy dumplingy thing I want some of right now. All good. We also got loads of edamame, dumplings, and maki rolls coming down the conveyor belt during the night. Moshimo’s sushi is fantastic. It’s simple yet still interesting.
|
|
DEVIL BE GONE
All right, fine. Let’s get to the contest. First up was a dish called Fancy Nancy, which we learned at the end (it’s anonymous because of the contest) was from the fancy upscale restaurant Terre a Terre. I have been dying to eat at this restaurant, but now? Now I’m iffy! See what one bad showing can do? You always have to be on your game, people! Fancy Nancy featured pickled lotus, kimchee, cilantro, lychee — all of this sounds great and very sushi-like, right — but then these great ingredients came on top of Mexican cheesy rice. Oh my god I am going to throw up again just thinking about how ridiculous this was. Cold, fresh, fruity ingredients over HOT SPICY VOMIT RICE??? What? It was like the rice that comes in a burrito, but two days later. And then with fruit on top of it. I DON’T KNOW. So gross.
This is not sushi
Next up was Mochi Mochi (what a freaking creative name, people!) from the catering company Cashew. This was actually one of the three that I liked. However, it had nothing to do with sushi. They described it as mixed mushroom and edamame stuffed mochi, with ume, horseradish, pickle, cherry sauce, cucumber, and beetroot and carrot crisps. Okay, this was a potato croquette but made of rice. That’s it. A warm, comforting, mild croquette, without a sign of any ume or horseradish or anything aside from warm beigeness. But it was good!
“My chicken brings all the boys to the yard, so I don’t really have to put in any effort”
Coming up next was the Sprouting Maki, from VBites, the winner every year apparently and the winner this year as well! Good job…putting faux teriyaki chicken on a ball of rice. That’s what this was. It was one piece of all-rice “maki” (that’s just a rice ball) with a dollop of vegan caviar (horseradishy tiny balls), and then one piece oh so small of maki with the chicken on top. And then there was a teeny tiny square of papaya, randomly. It won because that teriyaki chicken is amazing. They should have given everyone a bowl of the stuff over rice, but that would have been costly. Or at least the chicken should have been inside the maki to make it more interesting. Oh well. This was everyone’s favorite but I wanted it to be better! Don’t just drop the main/best part on top! And that one plain rice ball was like a boring plain slap in the face. I do want some of that chicken now, though. That Heather Mills knows her stuff.
WHAT ARE YOU
Next was my favorite! I don’t mean favorite like this was delicious, or creative, or anything positive, but I mean it like holy crap, this was the funniest thing all evening. I mean what in the world. This Wasabi Canopy, I think it was called, was from Indian Summer, a catering company that didn’t even show up or send a chef, but just dropped off a tray of these and was like “Hey, other people who don’t work for us, put this shit on a plate and throw it in people’s faces.” It was a gram flour roll that was somehow like jelly. Gram flour, or chickpea flour, is one of my favorite food items ever. I use it all the time. Never in my experience have I discovered how to make it gelatinous and disgusting. I just…HOW??? How do you turn something as benign and wonderful as chickpea flour into a weird cold eggy roll? It felt like the devil’s work.
The dish from catering company 64 Degrees was at least properly named. It was called Gotcha, which is mean but it’s honest. And yeah, everything about this felt like trickery. It wasn’t bad at all, as a snack, but it was odd as a meal. Who thought of this? I wish I could have been in the room when the following conversation undoubtedly took place:
“We should take those small square Japanese rice crackers that everyone knows well from bulk bins and are generically named “Asian Snack” and soak them in a sweet sauce until they get chewy. BUT NOT SOFT.”
— “Um, Pete, that’s really weird. We’re trying to impress people with how good vegan sushi can be.”
“F%*# vegans! All good sushi has fish in it. So let’s just take something that’s already vegan – rice cracker thingies, they don’t have a name – and serve it like it’s dinner.”
— “But that will be really…weird. It might be a decent snack, but that’s not a good meal. We’re trying to win a contest here by presenting dinner food.”
“If we win, then vegans win.”
— “What?”
“Do you want vegans to win?”
–“I…what?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
And that’s the story behind how we were served bowls of those crunchy rice crackery things soaked in a sweet miso glaze until they became unbelievably chewy and caramelized, and how we all lost teeth and gained future cavities.
SAD FACE FOR EVER
The dish that came around next was probably the meanest food I’ve ever been served. It was a ‘Frida Kahlo’. I mean. wtf. That’s what the Mexican restaurant La Choza named this dish. It was a Freedom Rolls tortilla wrapped around habanero chiles, squash, adobo, and avocado wasabi sauce, cut into a maki-sized roll. So it was a little revolting burrito shaped like a piece of sushi. It was extremely hot because of the chiles, but with absolutely no other flavor besides hot public bathroom. Not only was it disgusting like bland vomit air, but it made me lose brain function for a minute and inexplicably I ATE TWO OF THEM. I was sick for weeks. Hell I’m sick now just thinking about it. Why would I waste room on two of these abominations? What on earth came over me? Did the first one not disgust me enough? Was a part of my stupid, stupid brain thinking, “Wait, was that thing I just ate disgusting, or am I making that up? Am I making that up? Did I forget so quickly what that tastes like? Here, let me try again.” NO!
SO WANT
Luckily (or unluckily because I was almost too full from the two pieces of turd I had just eaten), the next dish was my favorite. It was a play on fish and chips and sushi at the same time, and it was definitely the most creative of the night, as if the chef had actually listened to the instructions. It was Unfish and Chips, from the catering company Egg & Spoon. The dish was a big fat piece of quinoa and pickled tofu stuffed maki with tempura tofu wrapped around the outside. A few spots of yuzu ketchup and wasabi mushy pea puree dotted the plate, along with a wakame rice chip. I wish I ate two of these instead. There was a lot of quinoa here, and it was a bit hard to eat, but so is all good sushi, or something like that. The taste was pretty much ‘tempura’, and it was delicious. However, one of the purees, I think the yuzu, tasted like hot empty trash sweat to me. Like a rotten piece of wood. Others thought it was fine, so maybe I had a bad batch or maybe I am allergic to dumb things like pureeing a yellow fruit and calling it ketchup. That was not delicious, but the main part of this dish was indeed, so it’s cool. They came in second place and rightly so. This was the kind of thing I was expecting every round to feature: something creative that actually tasted good.
NO
Sadly, no one saved the best for last here. The last round was not even good. From caterer Sam’s, another terrible competitor who failed to send a chef in and just dropped off trays with no instructions and hardly even a how-do-you-do, came a kohlrabi and shiitake ‘salad’ with toasted sesame oil. I put salad in quotes because this looked more like soup given the amount of oil the kohlrabi was swimming in. So. freaking. wrong. I was so excited for some cool fresh veggies and I was given a full cup of sesame oil instead. The mushrooms were entirely too salty to enjoy, and the kohlrabi was freaking hard to eat with chopsticks because of how oily it was! So gross.
Luckily, the good people at Moshimo gave us their wonderful chocolate mousse for dessert. Can’t go wrong with simple chocolate mousse.
Man alive, can you believe this showing? Do I dare attend next year? It can only improve, right? Even though a lot of the dishes were gross, I’m really glad I went this year. I now know so many businesses to avoid! But seriously it was a lot of fun, and it’s always good to get Moshimo sushi! Even if I had to eat a lot of other crap as well.
Man alive, can you believe this showing? Do I dare attend next year? It can only improve, right? Even though a lot of the dishes were gross, I’m really glad I went this year. I now know so many businesses to avoid! But seriously it was a lot of fun, and it’s always good to get Moshimo sushi! Even if I had to eat a lot of other crap as well.
London Has a New Restaurant Called ‘Bubala’ and Obvs I Love It
Bubala, a Yiddish term of endearment dispensed by elder aunts and bubbes the world over, is also the name of a fantastic new (ish) vegetarian restaurant in London. The word is a cute lil diminutive meaning sweetheart or dearie (not in a creepy Rumpelstiltskin way) that all Jews or Jew-adjacents know well, so to have a Tel Aviv-cafe-inspired joint with this name in Spitalfields is prettay prettay exciting. Serving veggie Middle Eastern food (despite the Yiddish and the Tel Aviv and the hummus, they are careful never to say Israeli because the hipster clientele would disapprove), Bubala offers a delicious spin on mostly familiar dishes that you should definitely check out, if you can get a table.
We went for Valentime’s Day (I LOVE SCHMALTZ) and the food was so good we plotzed. The menu is well curated, with several appealing dips, small plates, and slightly larger/heavier plates. You’re supposed to get like 3 per person and it’s best to share (sharing is caring), and they also offer a £30 ‘let us feed you’ menu. We almost got this set menu (they can do a vegan version) but I added up the many dishes I wanted and it was less than that so I didn’t. Also I like my right to choose. And literally everything we chose was good-to-great, so I’m really excited that this joint is right up the street from me and I can go whenever I make a booking at least 2 weeks in advance because if you try rocking up any sooner than that you will be SOL. It is POPULER…lar.
However, the service leaves something to be desired. OY VEY. We sat at our table for several minutes and no one came by to do or say anything. When I tried to flag a waitress who was leaving the table next to us (and my next to us I mean right up against our legs; it is a tiny cramped loud place and you will hear everyone’s convos but not the person you’re with), a different staff member who appeared to just be watching the scene came by and was like ‘did you need something?’ and we were like hi yes um menus maybe? Any semblance of recognition? What a schmuck. It happened a lot, our concerted efforts to get someone’s attention and them just blanking us. I’M JUST NOT IMPORTANT. Also happening a lot – waiters coming into our section of the restaurant with dishes and just stopping short and staring at every table, confused beyond words about where to place the dish they were carrying. It was so strange, like they didn’t have a system or know to bring this to table 9 or whatever? So several times, a waiter would just be standing in my eyeline looking over every table and considering “hmm, who seems like the type of person who would have ordered the hummus? No, it can’t be that table; they’re holding hands.” WTF. At least 3 times I pointed waiters to the right tables (because I had heard the other tables’ orders, of course). SUCH mishegas.
Anyway, aside from that (sorry to kvetch), our experience at Bubala was PG. We started with two dips – the hummus and the pumpkin tirshy and the laffa flatbread. The waitress asked if we wanted one or two flatbreads and we were like ‘you tell us’ and she was like ‘maybe two, but start with one and see.’ Reader, it’s the best thing on the menu so say you want one at a time to keep it warm but that you want it treated like a bottomless bread bowl to be refilled as soon as it’s empty. IT’S INCREDIBLE. It’s fluffy in the right places and salty in the right amount. That flaked salt though. Omg it’s soo good.
The hummus usually comes with burnt butter (which is the equivalent of putting sour cream in guacamole, what is wrong with people) but they can do it without for vegans. It’s really good guys. I believe there is a small range for hummus quality – you can’t get toooo bad and there’s a ceiling for how amazing it can be, but this was at the high end of the spectrum. You’ll definitely want to keep a plate of this on your table so you can nosh throughout the courses.
hummus i got the hummus
The second activity for our breading was the pumpkin tirshy, which I think just means dip, with harissa, preserved lemon, and kalamata olives. This was good too, very cumin-y I think or whatever spice was masquerading as cumin for my unrefined palate.
The next dish I was MOST excited about: the shiitake and oyster mushroom skewers with tamari, coriander, and maple. I LOVE oyster mushrooms, how thick and meaty they are, so amazing. I heard good things about these skewers but they were fine, not amazing. Z was meh about them, because they turned out to be just grilled mushrooms on a stick without much flavor to them. I do love mushrooms even if they aren’t all fancied up so I was more on board. But I was originally like “oh I just want to get LOADS of the skewers I bet” and then I was fine with just my one, so.
Next up to bat was the fried aubergine (eggplant) with zhoug (ZHOUG AAAAAVERYYY) and date syrup. This was the standout for me. The eggplant was fried perfectly and it was so soft and also crispy at the edges and wow. I’m kind of over eggplant nowadays but not this dish. We love zhoug (ZHOUG AAAAVERYY) (WHO’S ZHOUG AVERY) (SHE THE QUEEN HONEYBEE) and it was used perfectly with this, and there was just enough sweetness from the date syrup. AMAZING.
(Z also got the halloumi, for those of you who still like to support the cruelty of the dairy industry, and said it was incredible like wow. SO THAT’S GOOD TO KNOW FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK IT’S WORTH IT.)
Our first of the more ‘main’-like dishes was the grilled cabbage with tahini, pomegranate, and hazelnut. This was DELICIOUS and something I will try to recreate for a regular weekday dinner. The chunk of cabbage was so soft I could cut it with a fork. It was in a bit of broth so the tahini quickly mixed with it and made a tahini broth, which is everything I’ve ever wanted. And the hazelnuts that might seem just like a lil afterthought topping were actually a brilliant addition, adding a perfect counterpart to the earthy cabbage. I mean hazelnuts are I guess earthy too but in a different way. We love earth.
Our last savory dish was the ful medames, with lovage pesto, yoghurt and malawach (a fried bread). The yoghurt (they spelt it with an ‘h’ so I will too even though my US computer is HATING IT) and the malawach aren’t vegan but they said they could put them on the side for husbo, which is good for us because we are kind of obsessed with ful medames. FUL IS SO GOOD. And I would never put yoghurt or yogurt in it and I already had the laffa flatbread (which is the best thing ever) so the removal of these nonvegan additions don’t hurt it. As fuls go, it was pretty good. I do love my beans.
(Husbo also had the potato latkes (not vegan) and said they were great, but we and the Israelis next to us laughed at them being called latkes – they are perfectly rectangular potato cubes. Delicious, by all accounts, but not free-form-potato-string-patty-like latkes.)
For dessert, there’s only one vegan option (more mishegas!), the coconut malabi (like milk pudding) with hibiscus and sesame brittle. It was pretty nice (as the Brits say about food and I guess since I am one now I have to say it sometimes too)! It’s basic, to have a coconut milk pudding, and not that inspired, but the sesame brittle really makes it. They should put a little more of it in there.
We also got their two fresh tea options: mint and rose petal. The rose petal was funny – it came out and we realized ‘oh it’s just…hot water with flowers in it.’ It wasn’t steeped long enough maybe? The mint tea was a tad whack because it was just a mug with the whole mint leaves in it, with no filtration system, so it was impossible to avoid getting all the leaves in your mouth. What schlamiel thought of this? Also, when we hear ‘fresh mint tea’ we think of the super sweet version from Morocco (the best kind) and often in the Middle East but this was unsweetened. Sure you can sweeten it yourself if you want but it’s actually physically impossible for a human to make their own fresh mint tea to the same sweetness level as someone in Morocco would make for you. It’s too much sugar and you’d realize by the 5th tablespoon that you are drinking the ‘beetus. (Also it’s better with sugar syrup.)
ANYWAY, Bubala is a treaty little treat joint to add to the amazing vegan-friendly restaurant scene around Spitalfields. Highly recommend you check it out if you’re in the area. And if you are, it means you’re near me, so INVITE ME TOO.
BUBALA, SPITALFIELDS, LONDON, UK, EUROPE FOREVER BITCHES
Water speed: Good. They brought carafes of still AND sparkling since I wanted the former and Z the latter as usual. Pretty good replacement speed.
Service: As I said above, this is the part that needs work. It’s super busy and cramped and loud, so there’s definitely justification, but their system of knowing what table ordered what seemed…on the fritz. Also despite two hours there we were never sure exactly who our server was that we should be asking for stuff?
Bathrooms: Meh, they are up lots of stairs so it’s not accessible, and there’s only one (or maybe two).
Food: Fantastic!
Bonus: Despite the location, it’s not too expensive. Also the name <3
