Restaurant: Lemongrass
Location: 243 Royal College Street, London, NW1 9LT
Date of visit: 11 July 2015
Time of visit: 7.45pm
After nearly six years of the project beginning in an Afghan restaurant, we were finally onto the third letter. The letter "C". And thankfully a restaurant visit this time, rather than home cooking.
I was really pleased to see there was a highly rated Cambodian restaurant in one of our favourite parts of London: Camden. After spending an entire afternoon in the sunshine and various beer gardens, we headed up to NW1. After another drink at the nearby Grand Union bar, we headed into Lemongrass without a reservation.
By the look of things a reservation wasn't necessary anyway. Despite Lemongrass being the only Cambodian restaurant in London, it seems not many had traveled for that experience on this Saturday evening. In fact, the impression I got was that the general clientele for this restaurant was people from the local area who saw the restaurant as the local "Thai-esque" restaurant for eating in and takeaway.
The restaurant itself felt like a cross between a restaurant and a cafe. Nice and simple inside. Really quite small, with an open kitchen. When we walked in the kitchen was pretty crammed with the chefs and the waitress, who took a little while to get us seated but this was forgivable.
When she did see us to a table, she was very pleasant which continued through the visit. As did the prompt and attentive service. Despite the basic feel of the restaurant, there was a good bit of napkin art on show. I neglected to take a picture of it, which I regret now, but it was quite impressive!
The menu is incredibly tantalising. So many great flavours and descriptions, most of which meet the tastes of Elle and I almost perfectly. Chilli, lemon, garlic, lemongrass, ginger. Various combinations of those and more. The menu isn't extensive in its number of choices, but somehow the variety of dishes is still rather large. Although we don't tend to go for such offers, there is also a fantastic handful of set menu and taster options for two or more to share.
The price bracket is fairly typical too - certainly not particularly expensive. Between £4 and £5 for a "Pre-Dinner Treat" (starter), and between £7 and £9 for the mains. Beer selection is from a choice of one - Tiger. Five different types of white and red wines, and a selection of spirits, soft drinks and fruit juices.
As the meat lovers that we are, we rarely go for any kind of vegetarian option. But for the stater, one dishes stood out to the both of us instantly. We both went for the garlic lemon mushrooms to start.
For mains, I opted for the most traditional sounding dish on the menu - Phnom Penh chicken. Elle picked the ginger chicken. We both opted for ginger fried rice to go with the dishes.
We didn't have to wait too long at all before the starters arrived, and they arrived in one of the most interesting dishes I've seen. At first glance the garlic lemon mushrooms appeared to be on a plate, until you noticed the height from the table. In fact, they were piled into a small bowl-like recess in the middle of the plate inside which was a good helping of the thin soup-like sauce and more mushrooms.
The "plate" was also decorated with a design of sweet chilli sauce, pickled cabbage and - we think - basil. We made a superb choice with this. Firstly, the portion was fantastic. And the flavour was gorgeous. Fantastic sense of garlic, with a hint of lemon. The mushrooms were cooked to perfection. Not overdone. And once they were finished, we were left with a good amount of the soup-like sauce in the small bowl, which we ate like a soup, and capped off a really satisfying "Pre-Dinner Treat".
If this is what pre-dinner was like, the dinner was set to be something special. And both mains arrived in good time.
Phnom Penh chicken was listed as "onion, carrot and basil in a sweet hot chilli sauce". And it was exactly that. There was a generous helping of chicken in the dish, most likely chopped breast meat. The onions, to my liking, were served raw and the basil flavour was woven well into the dish alongside good big slices of peppers. The sauce gave a good sense of spice. The more I ate, the more I thought that perhaps the flavours hadn't quite mixed together very well in cooking. Perhaps due to the onion not being cooked with the rest of the dish? Perhaps this is the style. I just had the impression of eating something with many individual flavours, rather than a single dish with a unified flavour.
Something else which struck me was how natural the dish seemed. There were no added colours. No extra salt. It all seemed very honest. This was a great thing.
Elle had similar impressions with her dish, Again the helping of chicken and sliced vegetables were generous. The ginger flavour came through well, but wasn't overpowering which initially was a concern when ordering with the ginger rice.
The rice actually ended up being quite flavourless. Yes, there was some ginger there, but with hindsight again it didn't appear to be cooked with any salt. Not a bad thing necessarily, but it meant a degree of blandness with the rice.
I want to stress that this was a lovely meal. And nothing before or after this point is meant as a criticism, because it isn't. But we weren't blown away by the mains. They were more than decent. But I think with the anticipation driven by the menu descriptions, and the bar being set so high by the starters, the mains underwhelmed us somewhat.
But the standard of the food, and the level of service were fantastic. The restaurant got busier as the evening went on. It's easy to see why this place is popular and has been around for three decades.
The menu is incredibly tantalising. So many great flavours and descriptions, most of which meet the tastes of Elle and I almost perfectly. Chilli, lemon, garlic, lemongrass, ginger. Various combinations of those and more. The menu isn't extensive in its number of choices, but somehow the variety of dishes is still rather large. Although we don't tend to go for such offers, there is also a fantastic handful of set menu and taster options for two or more to share.
The price bracket is fairly typical too - certainly not particularly expensive. Between £4 and £5 for a "Pre-Dinner Treat" (starter), and between £7 and £9 for the mains. Beer selection is from a choice of one - Tiger. Five different types of white and red wines, and a selection of spirits, soft drinks and fruit juices.
As the meat lovers that we are, we rarely go for any kind of vegetarian option. But for the stater, one dishes stood out to the both of us instantly. We both went for the garlic lemon mushrooms to start.
For mains, I opted for the most traditional sounding dish on the menu - Phnom Penh chicken. Elle picked the ginger chicken. We both opted for ginger fried rice to go with the dishes.
We didn't have to wait too long at all before the starters arrived, and they arrived in one of the most interesting dishes I've seen. At first glance the garlic lemon mushrooms appeared to be on a plate, until you noticed the height from the table. In fact, they were piled into a small bowl-like recess in the middle of the plate inside which was a good helping of the thin soup-like sauce and more mushrooms.
The "plate" was also decorated with a design of sweet chilli sauce, pickled cabbage and - we think - basil. We made a superb choice with this. Firstly, the portion was fantastic. And the flavour was gorgeous. Fantastic sense of garlic, with a hint of lemon. The mushrooms were cooked to perfection. Not overdone. And once they were finished, we were left with a good amount of the soup-like sauce in the small bowl, which we ate like a soup, and capped off a really satisfying "Pre-Dinner Treat".
If this is what pre-dinner was like, the dinner was set to be something special. And both mains arrived in good time.
Phnom Penh chicken was listed as "onion, carrot and basil in a sweet hot chilli sauce". And it was exactly that. There was a generous helping of chicken in the dish, most likely chopped breast meat. The onions, to my liking, were served raw and the basil flavour was woven well into the dish alongside good big slices of peppers. The sauce gave a good sense of spice. The more I ate, the more I thought that perhaps the flavours hadn't quite mixed together very well in cooking. Perhaps due to the onion not being cooked with the rest of the dish? Perhaps this is the style. I just had the impression of eating something with many individual flavours, rather than a single dish with a unified flavour.
Something else which struck me was how natural the dish seemed. There were no added colours. No extra salt. It all seemed very honest. This was a great thing.
Elle had similar impressions with her dish, Again the helping of chicken and sliced vegetables were generous. The ginger flavour came through well, but wasn't overpowering which initially was a concern when ordering with the ginger rice.
The rice actually ended up being quite flavourless. Yes, there was some ginger there, but with hindsight again it didn't appear to be cooked with any salt. Not a bad thing necessarily, but it meant a degree of blandness with the rice.
I want to stress that this was a lovely meal. And nothing before or after this point is meant as a criticism, because it isn't. But we weren't blown away by the mains. They were more than decent. But I think with the anticipation driven by the menu descriptions, and the bar being set so high by the starters, the mains underwhelmed us somewhat.
But the standard of the food, and the level of service were fantastic. The restaurant got busier as the evening went on. It's easy to see why this place is popular and has been around for three decades.
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