Inamo, 4-12 Regent St, London SW1Y 4PE

Inamo, 4-12 Regent St, London SW1Y 4PE
12/07/2014
www.inamo-stjames.com

She said: This place is cool! There are some who may think it gimmicky and prefer waiters and table cloth but come on: you order from a projected menu on your table, the food is amazing and menu huge and prices reasonable. There’s also a great cocktail list. What’s not to like? The technology doesn’t stop with the menu, you can pick a projected table cloth, add more food as you please and even ask for individual bills which is great for groups of friends who spend ages trying to split the thing at the end of a meal. Food was quick to arrive, though individually so it won’t work for people wanting to have dishes as the same time but I quite liked the gaps which allowed time for digesting. In a world of standard dining, Inamo offers something different without compromising on food. Will definitely be back.

He said: Like an old Uncle that bores everyone with the same anecdotes over, and over, and over, I must have told She a dozen times that if I was ever asked to design the ultimate restaurant I would install call bells to get service at will, especially after desert, when you want the bill and staff is studiously ignoring you in favour of customers still ordering and spending money. Genius, right? Bob Bob Ricard does it, with a button you’re meant to press when you want more champagne; technically you could abuse that to get the bill too. But Inamo goes one better: your table is a whizzy ordering system connected to the kitchen, and you can get everything, and the bill, without having to scan the room and pounce, leopard-like, on a passing waiter. So you can imagine my delight when She booked Inamo for my birthday; not only can I order as many gyoza as I want without talking to a humanoid but evidently, even after years of marital bliss, she still listens to my boring rants! Beyond the gimmick the food is very good, and the imaginative mixed drinks very well priced at about £7 each. What’s not to like?!

Naamyaa Café, 407 St John Street, Angel Building, London EC1V 4AB

Naamyaa Café, 407 St John Street, Angel Building, London EC1V 4AB

31/08/2013

www.naamyaa.com/

She said: It was a lovely sunny day and we thought we’d cycle to Angel and meander around the antique shops. He wanted to eat at the shiny, contemporary looking Thai place we passed last week and though I was on the fence I did like the space so in we went. Naamyaa is of the Busaba ilk – trendy, modern interior, open kitchen and accessible menu of appealing dishes. I really liked the sound of the 48 hour braised mackerel so put in my order only to be told they didn’t have it. Not a great start. Still, there were other choices I had my eye on so went for the Prawn Green curry. To start we shared some spring rolls which were good. But when my Prawn curry arrived I managed to identify four small prawns and not much else. Very cheeky. Luckily we had ordered a side of Morning Glory which was salty but fine and I shared some of his Aubergine pot which was juicy but again far too salty. It’s a shame really as Naamyaa has that feel of a great local find, until you get to the food. The only reason we were upbeat on leaving was because our joyous dining discount card meant we paid £20 instead of £40, taking the sting out of a disappointing Thai experience.

He said: Naamyaa is definitely the kind of place being developed with franchising in mind: really strong brand ID (imagine Giraffe meats Busaba) and designed down to the most minute detail. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The menu is wide-ranging, pan-Asian rather than strictly Thai, with lots of choice for all times of day, including breakfast, and mid-priced. The food we ordered was just okay: it looked good on the plate, came in decent portions for the vegetarian things, but was so salty that it was hard to pick-up that magic simultaneous sweet/sour/spicy trick that Thais do so well. I was really excited to go here, having a soft-spot for sugar-high interior design, but the food was kind of a let-down. Drinks were good though, so maybe this is the place to go with the gang, sharing a whole bunch of small plates to keep yer heads screwed-on longer. That could be a good night actually: Naamyaa has a good energy to it; and, with all that drinking and peeing, the extra salt will probably come in handy.

Banana Tree, 103-109 Wardour Street, London W1F 0UQ

Banana Tree, 103-109 Wardour Street, London W1F 0UQ

16/03/2013

www.bananatree.co.uk

She said: I had spotted this out of the corner of my eye when rushing to the underground one morning after failing to secure standby theatre tickets and thought it was worth popping back for. It was. Banana Tree is an ‘Indochina’ restaurant set in an industrial-style space in the middle of Soho. The menu offers a great range of Asian dishes for every taste. It was difficult choosing and then he noticed the special which allows you to have a main course with a noodle salad, corn cakes, prawn crackers and rice at a great price. I opted for the Seafood Kari which was a mix of tiger prawns, tilapia fish fillets and

fishcakes in a Malaysian red curry paste. The food was excellent, service efficient, setting modern-trendy but not in a self-conscious way and including drinks and him needing to have two main courses, a reasonable £40 in total. Will definitely be back and with 5 other London locations it should be easy to find the opportunity.

He said: if you wade through the mist of time, do you remember the first time you had a Wagamama? Well that’s the excitement I felt at Banana Tree. I wanted to try absolutely everything, it all seemed so cheap, and I got to have it right here in a stylish room in the middle of Soho, instead of on a paper plate at some delicious but dangerous joint (think e-coli Russian roulette) at the dodgy end of Zone 2. I confess that the décor is what kept me from going in the first couple of times I walked passed: it all seemed so self-consciously urban and cool. But the urban/oriental thing actually works once you’re tucking in, with a glass of Malay spice tea in one hand. I usually avoid vegan, but this seemed like the place to try, and I’m very glad I did; good eating and good karma. We ordered more than we could eat, and it all came in at just under £40 for two including service. I’m a sucker for good food at good prices, and can’t wait to go back, hopefully today!