E&O, Notting Hill

Notting Hill is the embodiment of a juxtaposition. It’s a place where the obscenely wealthy, loafer wearing, clientele saunter among the white lightening swigging street folk, working the classic ‘plastic bag for shoes’ look. This breadth of demography makes Notting Hill’s E&O perfect for al fresco dining and invisible curtain twitching. With its dimmed lights, dark wood and beautiful staff E&O is cool; creating a gravitational pull felt by all model-esq diners in the West London vicinity, where they go to be seen and eat little.

Luckily E&O also offers a broader menu for those of us who need sustenance beyond a thimbles serving of edamame beans. With a pan Asian menu spanning dim sum, sashimi and curry’s. All dim sum plates were served with a liberal dose of salt, although still proved to be decidedly delicious.  The ribs, smothered in a sticky black bean glaze, fell of the bone with ease. As with all good spare ribs I consume, my face was left with a suspect sticky residue, a clear indication that there was no time wasted for delicate nibbling. As always the addictive salt and chilli squid went down well but the surprise hit was the tempura mushrooms; full of earthy flavour, with a light and herby batter.

The mains continued to hit the spot with watermelon and mint acting as the perfect fresh sidekick to deliciously fatty duck and cashew salad. The curry’s served also delivered a punch with the rendang creamy and warmly spiced, and thai green curry fragrant and fresh, with the required chilli hit. To finish a jar of sticky banoffee pie was defiantly licked clean.

As I recall this trip my tummy starts to rumble with a yearning for the duck salad…a mark of a place that I will revisit many more times. Our meal came to roughly £40 a head, first-rate people watching not included.

14 Blenheim Crescent  London, Greater London W11 1NN

Lisboa, Notting Hill

I popped to Notting Hill’s Golborne Road for the amazing bedknobs and broomsticks-esq street market on the bank holiday Monday. Apparently antique furniture shop owners have better things to do on a bank holiday then sell their wares as the street was deserted in every direction, aside for Lisboa Patisserie.

Lisboa is an authentic Portuguese bakery. We arrived to a cake hungry queue which made ordering a tad stressful. To be honest I felt the pressure when asking the guy behind the counter to explain the difference between a mountain of cakes that all look decidedly golden with a heavy dose of icing sugar. This pressure was only accentuated when adding 10 impatient, seemingly Portuguese, cake buyers behind you to the mix; who clearly think you’re asking for the difference between apples and pears to be explained.

Thinking about it, maybe the guy behind the counter thought the same with one cake succinctly described as ‘dry and boring’ adding ‘for old people’ for crystal clear clarity. We moved on quickly and landed on a custardy doughnut, a Portuguese rice cake and a handful of more familiar pastel de nata’s. The place itself was rammed and wasn’t particularly inviting to sit down in so we got them, and a coffee, to go for all under an impressive £5.

The doughnut and rice cake were solidly performing cakey fair but the pastel de nata’s were something else with a rich and creamy egg custard filling in its very own crisp and golden puff pastry case. Amazing in fact. Even the hotter than the sun coffee in it’s inferno exacerbating polystyrene cup was forgiven when tucking into these heavenly treats, although still not forgotten by our mutilated taste buds. When I’m next in the area these treats will be first on the list. My caffeine fix, however, will be sourced somewhere else…

57 Golborne Rd, London W10 5NR