Quick round up of wonderful places

Quickly before my laptop battery dies, some other lovely places I want to shout to the world about!

First, I probably don't need to tell you about The Eagle, heralded as London's first real gastropub, but I only went there for the first time a few weeks ago, and it does trump even its sisters Great Queen Street and Anchor and Hope. I guess it's because at the two sisters, both of them are deep dark rooms where you feel ever so slightly stressed out from the raucous for a table, whereas The Eagle has gorgeous big windows on two sides, and even on Saturday lunch felt chilled out.

Somehow I managed to restrain myself and ordered only a soup (ok, I did have a pastis de nata afterwards, but you should have seen the menu on offer!). It was probably one of the best soups I've ever eaten in a restaurant, let alone a pub, and so nice to see cheap ingredients turned into something of real glory. Here is their mussel and pollack chowder:

Fil quite uncharacteristically (I thought) went for a pork chop, which came with lentils rather than the advertised black beans, as well as a huge layer of yummy fat along the edge:

Plus, sitting by the window meant I took decent food photos for once :)

Another place I was seriously impressed with recently is Da Mario on Endell Street. When Lindsay told me we were going to an Italian place in Covent Garden for our big girlie night out, I was definitely more than dubious, so what a pleasant surprise to now crave one of the dishes I ate there. It's obviously run by a big Italian family, whose father openly flirts anything female that works through the door, so we us 9 girls were treated to some fabulous Italian hospitality.

Their menu is very very long, which again made me feel dubious, but not one complaint was heard on our table. I started with their stuffed baby octopus on chickpeas: not a combination I would think of, but it definitely worked:

But the thing I was seriously impressed with was their homemade pasta (not sure what the name was, but big fat flat tubes) with a sausage and broccoli sauce. Sounds anonymous enough, but oh my god so so so so so satisfying. The sauce was sparing but very unctuous at the same time, if that makes any sense, the balance of the whole dish was just perfect for me:

Gah, I only ate dinner (a very fat Chinese New Year dinner at that) about an hour ago and I'm salivating again!! Need to go back...