Vital Ingredient - please don't go here

As much as I love my new job in the restaurant industry, the only food-related thing I dislike about is there is no microwave in the oven, which does limit my lunch options. I had got into a very good habit of packing my own lunch, normally leftovers from the previous day's dinner, which meant saving a ton of money.

I have enjoyed discovering the lunch options around Wardour Street, my favourites so far being the (if slightly expensive) Itsu takeaway option. I do, however, miss Tossed on St Martin's Lane, which not only did a good line in fresh tailor-made salads, but also nice jacket potatoes and healthy soups. So I was very pleased when I came across a clone called Vital Ingredient in Berwick Street. Unfortunately, it also prompted me to write one of the rudest complaint letters I've ever written.

I had wanted salad, but the queue was ridiculous, and every salad was over the £5 mark. So I went for the soup. How wrong I was. This is the complaint I just wrote about their Pacific Prawn Ramen Noodle Soup:

I have perhaps just made one of the most fundamental lunching mistakes of my career by purchasing your Pacific Prawn Ramen Noodle Soup. I've never visited your shop before, but I am a fan of your competitors Tossed, and I was hoping for an equally good experience. How misled I was. I'm not sure how you got past the trades descriptions act with your soup - there were no ramen noodles in it, but I did find a bout a teaspoon full of dreadfully overcooked rice noodles swimming in what appeared to be the contents of my dishwasher litter tray. There were no beansprouts, no coriander, no lemongrass. The only place the description got right was the prawn - there was exactly one prawn in there, mushed up to such an extent I suspect it died a few centuries ago. I am now contemplating where to buy a second lunch after eating your abomination. The location of your store is right by Chinatown, and very near some of the best Asian eating establishments in London. Please remove your soup from your menu before you offend any more tastebuds.

Even more offensive is their website. I don't mind them banging on about how great their ingredients are, but I do mind them using 3 different fonts on the same page, their overuse of comic sans in particular.

But I will calm down, and try and think of some nice things instead. Let me try and lament my favourite lunch places around the Strand:

1. Tossed: if you can get past the cutesy marketing, everything they seem to do is pretty good. My favourite was their house signature salad (baby mozzarella, chicken, apple, nuts) but they also do a nice line of Asian inspired soups. They appear to be able to exercise salt-control, which is unusual most places that make soup (Eat in particular)

2. Chequers: a firm favourite amongst the crowd at Uncle B, especially the boys. Contrary to popular opinion that their HIC (Hot Italian Chicken) was the best, my favourite thing from here was chicken escalope with spinach and cheese on baguette. Just remember not to waste your time with their free soup

3. Wasabi: obviously, don't ever come here for their sushi, which has normally been sweating in their individual plastic wrappers all morning. But I do like their noodle soups here, a recent new addition - a seafood one with prawns, mussels, fishcake will set you back less than a fiver. This was what I was expecting from Vital Ingredient, oh how they didn't deliver.

4. Farmer Brown's: the assured road to an early heart attack, but there is no better hangover cure. Just accept the fact that them frying the bread will make you feel better about life.

5. Ben's Cookies: ok, you're not really supposed to eat this for lunch, and it is actually quite a walk in Covent Garden, but I wanted to plug this little place. I've been addicted to them ever since my uni days in Oxford, where we had one in the Covered Market - my tip is to always ask what's just come out of the oven. Why do people go to Millie's Cookies when this is on offer. Mmmm.

6. Kastner & Oven's: I'm editing to add this one that I forgot! And what an omission! Again, a bit of a walk right by the Opera House, but it's like going round to someone's house, with lovely salads, quiches, and also a gorgeous choice of hot stuff too. The only thing to beware of is that despite the array of salads, this is definitely not a healthy option. The quiches ooze with butter, you will find it hard not to buy a cake as well.