Chile - El Vergel

Restaurant:  El Vergel

Location:  132 Webber Street, London SE1 0QL

Date of visit:  30 January 2016

Time of visit:  2.15pm

Without going back and checking all the previous reviews, I think this was the first visit that took place at lunch time. Every previous restaurant visit for the blog was a dinner visit. The reason for the early visit this time is that El Vergel is the only permanent establishment in London which serves Chilean food, and the latest the restaurant opens is 4pm. And that is on Saturday only.

A Chilean lunch it was. El Vergel is hidden away in a myriad of small streets between Southwark and Borough stations. The restaurant itself makes up part of the ground floor of what looks like a fairly new residential development. From the outside, the restaurant is easy to miss. There is no real signage. It also doesn't look particularly big.

But once you get inside you find yourself in a large, spacious high ceiling room with many long rows of tables, and a fair bit of hustle and bustle. The restaurant was surprisingly busy this Saturday afternoon, with many families (complete with screaming kids) and a large number of staff. Only a few tables were free.

We made our own way to a table, clocking the attention of a waitress on the way so she knew we would need serving. And this she did right away, with two Saturday brunch menus and - surprisingly at 2.15pm - the breakfast menu.

All menus are scanned and available on their website, so we had a good idea of what to expect and what we wanted to order in advance. We chose from the Saturday brunch menu, which was a collection of meat and vegetarian appetizers, traditional Chilean steak sandwiches, tostadas, tacos and a great selection of salads. The back of the menu offered a selection of soft, hot and alcoholic drinks, and fruit juices and smoothies.

Not too long after we received the menus the waitress came back to take our order. Elle and I went for identical options - an empanada de carne to start, followed by a traditional Chilean churrasco queso. And a glass of Chilean Sauvignon blanc. The waitress also offered salsa and chilli with the order, which we accepted.

Looking around the restuarant, the interior was quite impressive. Spacious, rather rustic in appearance - lots of unfinished-looking surfaces, written graffiti on pillars, stone floor. The restaurant was clearly family friendly, judging by the cluster of parents and children at one side of the restaurant, the provision of beanbags and the likes. The decor was vibrant and colourful. The kitchen was open and busy.

We didn't have to wait long for the wine, which came in small glass tumblers (the likes you used to get at school).

Shortly after this, the empanadas came. And as expected, they appeared as most meat pasties would. The pastry was nice and soft, with a good filling of great tasting meat and onion. It seemed quite fresh, but clearly heated up. We topped the empanadas with the contents of a small dish of chilli salsa, which added a nice kick. The one downside with the empanandas was the addition of olives, which Elle picked out (and I ate).

The restaurant was well staffed. They were attentive, but not in your face. Our waitress came back after the starter to ask if we had received our steak sandwiches yet. Which we hadn't.

Five minutes later, they came. Not massive in size, but what was inside looked fantastic. The bread itself was billed as "home made village bread" - a round, thin but doughy sliced roll. Firm on the outside, lovely and soft on the inside.

The beef was thin, lean and beautifully cooked. It was surround by generously thick wads of soft, melted cheese sprinked with fried onions, topped with fresh sliced tomatoes. There was a thin spread of chilli paste inside the bread, which gave the sandwich a serious kick.

The sandwich was hugely satisfying - lovely flavours, and just the right size. One of the best steak and cheese sandwiches I've ever had.

A fantastic two course meal with glass of wine each for less than £14 each. Definitely worth revisiting if we are in the area.

China - Yipin

Restaurant:  Yipin

Location:  70-72 Liverpool Road, London N1 0QD

Date of visit:  21 November 2015

Time of visit:  7pm

Only once before on this project have Elle and I been joined by anyone else, when Miles and Jen came for a Brazilian meat fest last year. This time round my friend Laura and her boyfriend Ian came down from Glasgow and near enough insisted they became part of the project! Of course they were more than welcome. 

This time round it was time for China. One of the many countries which takes a bit more thought than the rest. I'd imagine there are probably more Chinese restaurants in the UK than those of any other country, maybe after India. So I wanted to make sure we went for something more specific than a generic Chinese restaurant that does a regular looking menu, and those familiar Chinese chips (almost as consistently similar as McDonalds' fries are, wherever you go!) 

China is a huge country, made up of many distinct provinces all with their own quite unique cuisine. Most of the four of us are quite into our spices, so it came down to choosing Hunanese or Sichuan food. Thankfully, there is a highly rated restaurant in Islington which specialises in both. Yipin China, near Angel station, was listed in a Time Out list of top ten Chinese restaurants in London, and judging by the menu on the website I could see why that would be the case. 

It's quite a nondescript looking venue, off the main road, with fairly reasonable prices which made me hopeful that it would be a quite authentic experience. We arrived just after 7pm and were greeted at the door by a waitress, and taken to one of many free tables. The restaurant was very quiet at this point, maybe surprisingly so for a Saturday evening. 

Menus were brought to the table very quickly, and looked similar to the website menus, including the pictures, but the selection on the printed menus was much larger. Each dish was illustrated with a photograph of the meal, which was very helpful in helping to gague what appealed to us the most. The selection and variety of dishes on offer is hugely impressive. 

The waitress returned quite quickly to take the drinks order, which consisted of three Tsingtao lagers and a soda water and lime. Unfortunately they didn't have soda water, so sparkling water came instead. After some deliberation, the food was ordered. I went for numbing and hot sliced beef to start, Elle opted for the ribs, Ian chose spiced black fungus and Laura decided not to order a starter but eat most of Ian's. For mains, I went for the fantastically titled fragrant chicken in a pile of chillies, Elle picked the boiled beef slices in an extremely spicy sauce, Ian went for seabass topped with salted fresh chillies and Laura opted for the roasted crispy pork belly. All this, plus three portions of egg fried rice. 

Oddly, all the food - appetisers and mains - came at the same time. We didn't contest that, but it did lead to a bit of a crowded table at the start! The fact that an additional dish that no one ordered appeared didn't help this, but I'm glad to say the waitress quickly took this dish back with no fuss when we flagged it up. 

The appetisers section in the menu mentioned "cold starters" synonomously, which I wasn't sure was true or not. Maybe something lost in translation? Nope. Two of the starters came cold. Much of China is intensely hot in the summer, and despite ever prevalent spice in much of the food, it is served cold to help aid dealing with the hot weather. The effect was lost on us on a bone-chillingly cold Saturday night in North London, but it was a new experience nonetheless. 

My sliced beef was incredible. A heavy pile of beautifully tender thinly sliced beef, topped (and on top of) a massively flavoursome selection of chilli, salt and garlic. The whole taste experience was magnificent, and it was my favourite item on the table. The fact it was cold took nothing away from it. In fact, I couldn't imagine it being any nicer if it was warm. I was so glad with that selection. 

Elle's starter was the only one that came warm. The pieces of ribs were much smaller than she was used to, meaning slightly more difficult eating, but the meat and flavours were excellent, and no fattier than normal ribs.

Ian's black fungus also came cold, but looked the part. Again, I couldn't have imagined it warm. The fungus itself had a really good texture, soft but slightly crunchy at the same time, which would have been lost if it wasn't cold. The flavours of the chilli complimented the fungus well, with a real garlic punch too.

Onto the mains. I think my chicken and chillies won the award for the most impressive looking dish. On first glance, the volume of meat and chillies looked a bit ridiculous. Particularly the chillies. However, on further experience I started to realise that the chillies weren't really for eating. The were very tough, almost dried. They clearly played a part in the cooking process, but now they were just for decoration. It was all about the pieces of chicken in between. The bowl was full of quite small pieces of seemingly deep fried chicken, which had taken on the heat of the chillies fairly well but was nowhere near as intense as I had expected. In fact, the meal was quite dry so I was quite glad I had a good bit of the chilli and garlic sauce from my starter, which I then worked into the main. A really nice meal, but if I had known what it was in the end I may have gone for something else.

Elle's beef looked quite impressve, with a lot of oily sauce. The beef, having been boiled, was very soft but this also left a lot of the fat around the meat. I've watched Elle sit for ten minutes peeling the fat from a bacon sandwich leaving just a thread of meat, so I can understand it when she said she found it quite chewy and difficult to eat. Despite that, the flavours were nice. Almost too intense though when it came to the number of peppercorns, which she also discarded.

Laura's pork belly was the only one I didn't really try. I've actually never tried pork belly before. She said it was very authentic, and was really happy with it. The texture was extremely soft, "like fatty panna cotta" according to Ian! I did however try the sauce that the meal came with, which itself was also full of meat. We think it was little lardons of pork which had a slightly firmer consistancy but led to a really wholesome meaty dish.

Ian was the only one to go for seafood. The menu had a fantastic seafood selection. The seabass was laid out in two fillets, topped with the chopped salted chillies and sauce. The fish was extremely delicate in consistancy and taste. It almost melted in the mouth. Despite the delicate flavour, the chilli sauce and other flavours - although stronger - didn't overpower the seabass.

As we worked our way through the dishes, the very attentive waitress was very quick to remove empty dishes and plates from the table, without getting in the way. The service overall was some of the best we've received for some time.

Unfortunately there was a fair bit of wastage. Not to do with the quality of the food, but due to the very generous portions and the fact we completely overestimated how much rice we needed.

As the evening went on the restaurant got busier, maybe just more than half full by the time we left.

All in all three starters, four mains, three sides and four drinks, plus service, came to just under £100. £25 per head, which is more than reasonable for the quality of the food and the service. We left very full, very happy customers. This restaurant is highly recommended.