Shocking

I met a new foodie friend today (Hi Adrienne!) who used to be a pastry chef in San Francisco. She's currently working at Mudchute City Farm, I've been reading about it recently, and thought I would help spread the word. It was a bit daunting choosing a lunch place for someone who is quite so foodie, so in the end I played it safe and ended up by at trusty old Busaba Eathai.

One thing that has escaped my attention somewhat is that it is in fact London Restaurant Festival right now. I'm not sure anything particularly exciting is actually happening, but I noticed that Busaba was doing a special lunch and dinner menu for it.

So I managed to do something quite shocking and ordered something other than Tom Kha Chicken. Their lunch menu for this week is chargrilled chicken or mackerel accompanied by sticky rice and som tom, with lemongrass tea, and some pumpkin cake, all for £10. It is not only bargainous, but I liked the combination of all the things I like to eat.

They really should have this permanently on the menu. The som tom could be spicier, but what a great plate of simple food. I for one and applauding the recent popularity in mackerel in these belt-tightening times, and you can feel so smug about eating too.

I was also surprised that Busaba had broken with their traditon of not serving desserts. The pumpkin cake was actually like a coconut paste (椰子糕) you get at dim sum but slightly flavoured with pumpkin. I guess they were made to add desserts for the festival. I'm not a dessert person, but would be interesting to see whether this stays.