Abu Saad, Damascene Cuisine in Shepherd's Bush

Damascene cuisine in Shepherd's Bush, without doubt some of the finest food of it's kind in London and at half the price you would expect.

I haven't been to Damascus or Syria for that matter but probably don't need to now I've found this gem.

Wonderfully helpful staff and a wide range of well made and very fresh food. Everything comes with tasty flat bread, which they make fresh on the premises. Great grills, my favourite being the chicken shawarma. They don't do a lamb shawarma, I don't know why.



The starters include all the normal mezze type items you would expect, hommos, makadous, moutabal, tabbouleh, hara isbah, warek inab, foul mukalla, bamieh-bil-zeit and of course baba ganouj.

Desserts are all sweet and sticky, and very authentic.

Freshly squeezed fruit juices are very nice alternative to wine.

BK Salt Beef in Edgware

Many people talk about the Pastrami sold in New York's deli's as if it is the last thing in boiled beef, I've even taken a special trip to New York just to visit Katz Deli on the Lower East Side to savour what is surly America's best, but did you know in England we have something equally as good?



BK Salt Beef in Edgware must be the best Jewish food in England. Their salt beef is sublime, moist, juicy and perfectly salted, with a beautiful colour (boiled with the odd beetroot perhaps?).

The family who own the shop know just how to serve it, untrimmed/ as it comes is my favourite, a little bit of fat makes all the difference, but if you want it scrupulously lean they'll do it like that too.

On rye bread or white with a smear or more of hot English mustard and a side of pickled cucumber, new green or sweet and sour.

All the other Jewish classics are available, chopped liver, gefilte fish are perfect, latkes and of course Jewish Penicillin…...Chicken Soup with all the trimmings, knaidlach, spatzle and kreplach, yum yum….,



They tell me that the owners children have opened two more shops over west, haven't tried these yet, can't stop visiting the original!

The Akeman in Tring

The Akeman in Tring is a great place to go if you want the finest steak and Avant-guard surroundings.

If you are not having steak, the food is precise but not nothing special and a little overpriced. Think tendy not foody.

When we visited we started with a mean little fish platter to share. Thirteen pounds gave us just one small slice of salmon, a small handful of very fresh calamari rings and four small crevettes. The side salad with it doesn't warrant a mention!

The main, The Cote de Boeuf, for two, with Béarnaise sauce, was particularly good, 21 day aged, meltingly tender, cooked medium, crispy on the outside, bloody inside, enough for two and a hungry Terrier. For this you would drive for a couple of hours and you would keep coming back. It's not cheap at £37 for two, you would pay this in Euros in France for something similar but you just can't get this sort of quality easily in British restaurants.

Puddings were large and satisfying, not out of a packet, but if your having steak share one.

A great local restaurant that is a credit to it's owners, many of our friends go back and back.

Challet de la Frites

Head towards Balleroy from Bayeux and just after you have passed through the multitude of artisanal potteries you may notice on your right a collection of garden sheds.

This is Chalet de la Frites, an eccentric and popular destination for a variety of dishes that all go well with chips: Not just any chips but good old fashioned home made chips.

Choose from such delights as rabbit with leeks, chicken with cider, petit sale, moules, steak etc. , old fashioned starters like egg mayonnaise and mackerel in mustard sauce, puddings such as Togoule (Norman rice pudding) and crepes, superb unfiltered and unpasteurised farm made cider and well priced wine. The most expensive main course is €10 and a three course meal with drinks should come in under €20.

Claude the Patron and Chef is temperamental and has been known to do a Marco Pierre White once in a while, but only usually when there is criticism of his Guinea Pigs that roam free between the chalets.

Chalet is open from Easter until early October, if you go at the start or end of the season remember to take a fleece.

The Doughnut man of Camden Lock Market

26 years ago I had my first doughnut from the stall at the main road entrance to Camden Lock market, in those days all doughnuts were £1 each and my favourite was a Cannelloni like tube of dough stuffed with whipped cream and mounted by sticky fudgy chocolate, like the topping on an M & S chocolate éclair. It was so big you couldn't get your mouth round it.

He doesn't do those anymore, a crying shame, but he does do at least 50 other types, I now usually go for triple chocolate scrumptious delight (scrumptious delight,.....well I added that bit because he is a kind of Willy Wonka).

He tells me he was there much longer before my first visit, so try him soon just in case he sends out some golden tickets and goes before you can taste his wares......

The Lahore Kebab House off Commercial Road in the East End of London

Many many years ago I worked on the edge of the City for a Keralan Christian called Ipe, a very nice chap who loved his food. I was regularly sent in a taxi to Commercial Road (near Brick Lane) to the Lahore Kebab house to pick up Pakistani Kebab rolls for everyone working late in the office, 60p each at the time.

Recently I took the kids on a London food odyssey which included a visit to the relocated and vastly expanded Lahore Kebab house. The menu had changed and kebab rolls were not immediately obvious on the menu but after a bit of reminiscing with the waiters they were brought forth from the kitchen.

Two succulent, smokey, spicy, lamb kebabs, flecked with fresh chilli wrapped in a hot from the oven flat bread, tomato, cucumber, onion and fiery hot chilli sauce, you know the type Pakistanis make so well.

The memories came flooding back as the chilli hit the roof of my mouth and the endorphins' started being released.......mmmm yum yum.

Authentic food from the Indian sub-continent is hard to find but is so good the taste stays in your memory for years.

Street Food in Dnepropetrovsk

A days drive from Kiev on a mad mission to watch England play, Police escorts and socialist England officials treating fans like dirt, then someone says "go on try one......" A vision of the Challenger disaster just before she exploded "go on give HER a go..."

In the queue behind on duty Ukrainian Police and Interior Ministry troops and then......"err.....one of those please....." Of course she didn't speak English but food talk is universal.

A strong white bread bun, very light in texture, a flash fried pork cutlet, pickled cabbage and carrot, a bit of dill, a type of light ketchup and mayonnaise and off I went, easier to eat than a hot dog and very tasty, a hole filled, a smug smile, no one else dared (or cared) to try.

Ukraine 2 England 1.