Oyster sauce: boost your flavours!

Once you start using it yu can't stop. Although it is a typically Asian cooking condiment I have discovered that imrpoves the taste of non-Asian food too. Classic oyster sauce supposed to be oyster flesh boiled in water until reduced to dropping consistency. If you want something like that, you will have to prepare it yourself as all commercial brands are, in fact, oyster-flavoured starch sauces.

At this point, I can't possibly afford boiling fresh oysters into drippy brown liquid to help stir-fried veggies taste better so I put up with supermarket varieties. They do bring in that somewhat nutty, savoury taste (umami) to the dish that nothing else can substitute.

Šprotes to shproty: how politics meddle with gastronomy (шпроты)

hen I was growing up, Latvian smoked sprats were a special treat. Tinned in aromatic amber-coloured oil, their lovely smokey taste will forever invoke in me the memories of New Year's celebrations. They were traditionally made in Latvia and sold throughout the whole 11-time-zone expanse of the Soviet Union. Every one from the snowfields of Siberia to the desert sands of Central Asia knew what Rīgas Šprotes stood for.

A couple of years ago, however, Russian oligarch-led government tried to punish Latvia for not conceding to sell oil port terminals: they banished Latvian imports, including sprats. In the wake of an anti-Latvian media campaign, Russians have switched to produce from Kaliningrad, a sizeable Russian enclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland. Articles describing discrimination against Russian speakers in Latvia fuelled the patriotic sentiment to the point where even after the oil port facilities were finally sold to an oligarch-owned corporation, the sales of Latvian sprats never picked up back again. Weeny smoked fishes became the symbol of economic patriotism.

Politics aside, sprats taste better unadulterated on rye bread with some finely sliced red onions. I also use them instead of anchovies in the Caesar salad dressing for the extra smokey kick. Although the label says "smoked in a wood furnace", I think they use a ready-made smoke concentrate.

A dash of chlorophyll: spinach stir-fry with oyster sauce

e all need some chlorophyll, the energy-absorbing pigment responsible for the green colour of leaves, to keep us running. Even British scientists, who are mostly busy with using grants on utterly useless projects, concur that regular consumption of green veggies is beneficial to human health. It won't help us with photosynthesis though.

Spinach is said to contain tons of chlorophyll, well at least about 300-600 mg per ounce. Besides, it tastes fab when cooked according to my favourite recipe.

1. As the actual cooking time is very short and not overcooking is essential, first of all do what the Japanese call shita-goshirae: base preparations. Peel and chop or finely slice a few garlic cloves. Wash and cut a tomato. Wash well and shake dry abig bunch of fresh spinach leaves. Optional: de-seed and chop a chilli pepper.
   
2. Heat a little odourless sunflower oil in a wok or pan on high fire.
3. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and chilli, fry until the garlic is golden brown.
4. Add the tomato and then shortly after that the spinach. Stir well.
   
5. Reduce heat and add fish sauce and oyster sauce to taste. Remove from fire when the spinach is slightly crunchy.
   

Serve as a side dish or as main dish with steamed rice.

Satay Bar & Restaurant: hip dining Brixton style

hen I tell people I live in Brixton, more often than not I get some brow play and disparaging grunts. It seems like the riots of the 80s have left an indelible scar on Londoners' psyche. I guess I am lucky enough to have never witnessed Brixton in its bad days. I moved here as wealth trickling south of the river had triggered inevitable gentrification of this neighbourhood with huge swathes of middle class houses, a cosmopolitan food market and a Zone 2 station on London's fastest Tube line.

This combination of unabated multiculturalism, ease of access and newfangled affluence has sprouted a mighty string of trendy eateries and night entertainment venues. Satay Far East Bar and Restaurant located a short walk from the station on Coldharbour Lane is a good ambassador of this new Brixton. Through its wall-size windows you can see a United Colours of Benetton mix of hip people chatting over neat bowls of exotic food or nursing fancy-looking cocktails to the beat of cool lounge music. No hoodies or baseball caps allowed inside but there is no fuddy-duddy dress code as in "trying to be posh" joints either: it is a picture perfect of the 21st century London's with-itness, urban, wordly and comfortable in its own skin.


Now down to the grub.

Saigon Samosas (£3.90) - three triangular prawn spring rolls spruced up with fresh coriander and holy basil. Perhaps the best of the deep-fried variety that I have tasted in London.

Prawn Spring Rolls (£3.50) - deep-fried food is not my favourite as it seems to absorb all the burnt oil but the prawn inside was nicely marinated and juicy. Wouldn't fall over myself for the crust though.

Jungle Curry (£4.80) - rather expertly cooked Thai Northeast's own gaeng paa. The flavour was just right, although I suspect derived from packaged curry paste. Thumbs up: spicy as it should be. Thumbs down: broccoli and carrots.

Seafood Combo (£5.50) - herby and fiery with nice chunks of fresh tasting seafood. Although just a generic stir-fry, well done anyway!

Prawn Samba Sambal (£5.50) - I love Indonesian sambals but this one was bland, salty and watery, although smelling vaguely of the correct ingredients. Was the cook broken-hearted and weeped over my plate?

Wings of Fire (£5.50) -Brixton's take on Louisiana Spicy Hot Wings just as they should be: burning hot and crunchy on the outside, sweet and juicy inside. The volume was enough to share some between our whole party but chilli sauce was really superfluous.

Fiery Fries (£3.00) - these awesome buggers deserve a special mention. Normally, I would be the last person to be seen eating French fries but I make an exception for Satay's creation. Thick, grease-free and dusted in chilli powder, they are as close to the Ultimate Potato Dish as can be! Who needs ketchup with that?

Although the prices are rather low - even more so during lunch and happy hours - there is a catch. You have to order sides separately: £1.80 for plain rice, £2.20 for coconut. Lunch specials include rice and are a great value.

I had to laugh reading a review of this place by a lady who had to get sloshed to work up enough courage to come to Brixton and have a meal of which she does not seem to have remembered much. I pray that she will muster enough guts to come again and revel in the hipness of the latter-day Brixton.

Pro's: Hip relaxed ambiance. Food covering the entire scope of my academic research: from Japan to Indonesia.

Con's: Portions summat on the smaller side.

In a nutshell: The essence of Brixton: multi-culti dining with a multi-culti crowd.

Satay Bar & Restaurant
447 Coldharbour Lane
SW9 8LP London

Simplicity revisited: grilled portobello mushrooms with crème fraîche and oyster sauce on a bed of caramelised onions

ive me simplicity any time. Even more so when it comes to food. This is one of my fave lunch sandwiches: portobello mushrooms grilled with crème fraîche and oyster sauce served on a bed of caramelised onions and ciabatta. Haha, I gotcha there! Well, in fact, it is way easier than it sounds, does not cost much and is a cinch to prepare.

Here how it goes:

1. Slice finely two onions. Fry slowly with some olive oil, coarsely ground black pepper, sea salt and dry herbs of your choice until golden brown. This process caramelises the natural sugars in onions bringing out their natural sweetness. If you have fish sauce, use it instead of salt.
2. Mix well crème fraîche with a hearty glug of dry white wine and, how can you do without it, coarsely ground black pepper. Season with fish sauce.
3. Remove the stems from portobello mushrooms, put the caps upside down and fill them with the crème fraîche mix. Put them on an well oiled oven tray.

Bake the mushrooms in the oven at 180 degrees until the crème fraîche looks nice and brown (about 12-15 min).

Cut a ciabatta or a baguette in two, top it with the fried onions, grilled portobellos and chopped parsley or ruccola.

This recipe was inspired by the traditional Russian way of stir-frying wild mushrooms with onions and serving them with sour cream. Fish sauce is a harkback to my Asian days and ciabatta is a tribute to my love affair with all things Mediterranean.

Miền Tây: the Mekong Delta's bounty in Shoreditch

ietnam has a special place in my heart because it is where earlier this century I broke my vegan regimen for the first time. Having saved over the course of many meatless years quite a herd of animals, fowl and fish from a terrible fate, I finally caved in to the temptations of Vietnamese cuisine. It was a cinch. One sunny evening, I just told my guilt to sock it and tucked in a bowl of freshly cooked seafood somewhere on an island amongst the otherwordly beauty of the Halong Bay. A chewy squid circle. A juicy pink shrimp. An octopus tentacle deep-fried to delightful crunchiness. I never looked back to soya burgers again.

I don't know where the Vietcong escapees prefer to live in this city, but for me London's Vietnam Town is where a whole assortment of 15 Vietnamese eateries are huddled on a short stretch of Kingsway Road in Shoreditch. The majority sport a spartan café-like ambience with a couple boasting a more elaborate interior. The one wе finally decided to enter, Miền Tây, inside looked wholly laminated with paper table cloths and white-washed walls plastered with black Vietnamese lacquer panneaux. However, as it goes with Asian restaurants, there is no direct sure-fire correlation between the visual attractiveness of the establishment and the quality of food. This rule of thumb worked this time too. True to its name, which means the Mekong Delta, it serves dishes from the South of the country. Here's the breakdown of our feast.

Gỏi cuốn thịt - fresh prawn rolls win me over the more common deep-fried variety every time. Peeled shrimp, fresh coriander and glass noodles are wrapped in rice paper and served with a tangy home-made peanut dip. Vietnamese cuisine at its best: fresh, with a delicate balance of the main tastes.


Gỏi đu đủ tôm - prawn and shredded unripe papaya salad – very much Thai somtam but with a gentler, finer dressing. Served with rice crackers instead of steamed sticky rice, more common in Thailand.


Canh hải sản chua cay - spicy and sour seafood soup - is a veritable potion of life, that gave me a much needed spicey kick gently enwrapped in pineapple's sweetness and lime's refreshing sourness. That's what I call comfort food, not sugar packed calorie busters. Generously packed with both seafood and vegetables, enough for two, really.


Dê nướng - grilled goat – crunchy and juicy strips of goat’s meat, smoky from charcoals. Very moreish, even more so in the light of a very economical volume. I really wonder why: goat's meat may be a novelty item but it defo does not cost much.


Bún Bò Xào Xả Ớt - beef stir-fried with onions, chillis and lemon grass - turned out the least looker of all we ordered. Really heavy on shredded lemon grass, it proved not such a lucky choice tastewise too.

Savouring all that herby exuberance, I was thinking how good it is not to be vegetarian any more.

Pro's: Delish food cooked to perfection. Friendly service.

Con's: Smallish portions so comes out rather pricey. Plasticky interior.

In a nutshell: Great place for authentic Vietnamese munches if you don't need a fancy ambience (I, for one, don't).

Miền Tây
122 Kingsland Road Shoreditch
London, E2 8DP

Canard à l'orange: French answer to Peking Duck

here are precious few ways to make duck's peculiar meat palatable. Off-hand, I can think only of two: Peking Duck and Canard à l'Orange. I am never up to cooking either but my Mom favours the French recipe. My parents are lucky enough to have access to all kinds of real organic produce and I must tell you there is nothing like the flavour of poultry that has happily grazed on the lush meadows of the Southern Russian countryside.

Just like me, my Mom does not use precise measurements for cooking but the following instructions will give you a pretty good idea of how to whip up this classic French dish.

1. Gut and clean a medium-sized (1.5-2 kg) duck, reserving the giblets. Rub the duck with oil, salt and pepper and place in a roasting pan. Bake in the hot oven for about one and half hours. Baste frequently during cooking.
2. Meanwhile, brown the giblets in a skillet (use butter). Add two sliced onions, two sliced carrots, an unpeeled clove of garlic, a small bunch of thyme and two bay leaves. Fry gently for about 15 minutes until golden brown.
3. Put everything into a saucepan. Add two cups of white wine and a tablespoonful of tomato paste. Bring to boil and cook for about 45 minutes. When cooked drain the resulting juices in a bowl.
   
4. In a saucepan, make gastrique by gently browning half a cup of sugar and then dissolving it in half a glass of white wine vinegar. When the gastrique is ready add the duck juice from the bowl.
5. Add the rind of 3 oranges, their juice and and a shot glass of Grand Marnier. Whisk thoroughly and keep warm.
6. Serve the duck with the sauce, decorate with orange circles.
   

Nasi lemak: rice for the hard to please (coconut rice recipe)

he smell of freshly cooked rice wakes the Pavlov dog in me. I can't walk past Asian restaurants without my mouth suddenly starting watering. However, many people find plain rice boring. For those, there is coconut rice which is very easy to cook and compatible with a lot of dishes.

For me, coconut rice forever associates with Malaysia, where by the name of nasi lemak it is a national dish. It blends perfectly well with the lush spice-heavy aromas of Malaysian cuisine. I was quite surprised to see my old favourite served in a Colombian restaurant.

Cooking coconut rice is interpreted in a variety of ways but here's my own simple recipe that invariably yields fine results:

1. Rinse rice seven times until water runs clean.
2. Put the rice in a thick-bottomed pan and cover with twice as much coconut milk. I stick my finger upright for measurement: if the rice reaches the first joint, the coconut milk should come up to the second one.
3. Add some fish sauce. I put enough to make the content just slightly salty.
4. Put the pan on high fire until it boils, then reduce the fire to minimum.
   
5. Allow to steam away about 20 min. By all means resist the temptation to peek under the lid! The fat in coconut milk will prevent the rice from burning. Instead it will start frying at the bottom. Remove the pan from the heat when you smell the characteristic fragrance.
6. Let stay covered for a few minutes, then gently fluff the rice with a wooden spatula and allow to stay for another few minutes.
7. Sprinkle with toasted garlic or onion or chopped coriander and serve with gado-gado or chorizo colombiano.

SENATOR RUSSELL'S SWEET POTATOES recipe

SENATOR RUSSELL'S SWEET POTATOES

3 c. sweet potato pulp
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. butter

TOPPING:

1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. butter
1 c. nuts, chopped (walnuts or pecans)

Boil sweet potatoes with skins. Skin and place in mixing bowl. Add other ingredients and mix with electric mixer. Top with topping and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Use 9 x 9 inch baking dish.

Rustic sophistication: French onion soup (soup des oignions)

his is the ultimate peasant soup: it requires no meat and onions are about the cheapest vegetable to come by. It also thrives in the Russian countryside: my Mom cooks it for Dad at least once a month. The rich and gentle flavour of caramelised onions blends perfectly with grilled cheese and bread.

Indian tandoori marinade recipe

hey say tandoori chicken was invented by a shrewd Indian restaurateur who couldn't see tandoors (bread ovens) stay idle when there was no naan to bake. Knowing Indian business acumen, it sounds a plausible theory.

But back to gastronomy. Here is my recipe for the incomparable tandoori marinade for barbeque.

1. Peel one onion, half a head of garlic and about 6 cm of ginger. Put them in a kitchen processor and reduce them into homogeneous pulp. Add some water if necessary.
2. Chop finely one or two seeded chilli peppers.
   
3. Put about 150 g of natural yoghurt (the fatter the better, never skimmed one!) into a big bowl.
4. Add 1, 2, Tandoori Spice Mix, palm sugar and fish sauce.
5. Stir well until everything dissolves. It should taste pleasantly pungent with a nice balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy.
6. Chop chicken, fish or what have you into bite-size chunks and mix well with 5.
7. Cover with cling film and let stay overnight in the fridge. Stir every 6-8 hours.
8. Remove from the fridge a couple of hours before cooking. It helps to have your barbecue evenly cooked when the raw mix is of room temperature.
   

Yokan: Japanese bean jelly

apanese sweets, wagashi, are an exquisite affair little known abroad. Yokan, or youkan, is a paste of very fine bean flour, custard sugar and agar-agar.

What seems a simple mixture of basic ingredients, in fact, is a fine art. In Japan there are still a lot of artisan shop specialising in hand-made yokan that fetches very high prices among connoisseurs.

Strangely enough, the word yokan means "sheep broth". Originally, leftovers of slaughtered sheep, like bones, joints and ties, were boiled in water to produce gelatine to give yokan its jelly-like texture. That was the deal in China, where it was invented. However, in Buddhist Japan consumption of animal products (except fish and seafood) was banned for many centuries, so here agar-agar was used instead but the old name has stuck.

Bulmers: English perry

unny that I had to have the "taste of the English summer" on its last day. At least, this is how Bulmers' pear cider has been promoted for last few months. Even the absence of a TVset in my place did not save from the ubiquitous advertising.

It is not that I caved in, it's more down to abysmal choice of summer drinks in my local Sainsbury's where I have paid my first ever visit. I gave the highly cringeworthy 3-litre PET bottle of cider a wide berth and was left with the only option. Luckily, it turned out rather delightful: sweeter and milder than French poiré, Bulmers pear cider is, truth be told, easier to join in its own right.

I remember reading somewhere that the word perry is not used commercially any more because its perceived fuddy-duddiness may turn off the highly coveted youth market.

Franco Manca - the minimalstic house of real pizza

izzas only make annual cameo appearances in my dietary calendar. Somehow, the idea of stodgy crust with anaemic topping smothered in gooey cheese that most pizza chains churn out does not hit my appetite button.

There are lucky exceptions, however. Brixton Market's Franco Manca is one of those precious few. I ventured there only after I had made sure that the chefs there speak very little English, which is a sign that they haven't yet succumbed to the local penchant for food boiled for six hours in industrial taste-removing solution.

The menu is limited to six pizzas and one salad but Franco Manca makes them with minimalistic panache. All ingredients are sourced from organic Italian and British producers and no pizza is topped with such atrocities as pineapples or broccoli or overcrowded with toppings. It is also the best way to maintain quality control (that is how McDonald's, for example, keeps everything tasting the same across the globe: just few items on the menu).

We had a daily special of pizza bianca with wild boar ham and ruccola (£6.50) and meat lover's pizza rossa (£6.80) with really aromatic chorizo from Brindisa and basil. The oven-baked crust made of leavened sour-dough was so good I could eat it plain. The ham was real dry cured wild boar and was superbly delightful with thin wedges of lemon and ruccola. The chorizo pizza was more mainstream but none less enjoyable.

Pro's: Pizzas baked to utter perfection. Very affordable.
Con's: Cramped seating. Only open until 5PM.
In a nutshell: The house of true pizza excellence.

Franco Manca
4 Brixton Market Row
London SW9 8LD

Anatolian bulgur pilaff with vegetables (sebzeli bulgur pilavı)

never grow tired of Turkish food. I love the sheer variety of a cuisine that has incorporated so many ancient culinary traditions and given them a new lease of life in a very creative way.

Bulgur, cereal of cracked and parboiled wheat, is very popular in Asia Minor and the Fertile Crescent. In Syria they make scrumptious kibbeh out of it but in Turkey's Anatolia it is the base for pilaff . It is a very filling yet healthy dish, suitabel for vegetarians.

Here is the recipe:

1. Lightly fry pine nuts, almond and pistachio flakes in clear butter. Scoop them out once golden yellow.
2. In the same butter fry dry bulgur, constantly stirring, until it starts giving out a pleasant nutty flavour.
3. Pour twice as much water as there is bulgur in the pot and put on smallest fire to steam.
   
4. Meamwhile, peel and cut julienne one big carrot. Fry it in a small amount of clear butter until just slightly crunchy.
5. De-stone and roughly chop two handfuls of dates.
6. Once the bulgur is ready (apprx. 25-30 min) - it needs to stay slightly chewy, not too fluffy - add the carrots, dates and nuts, mix well, allow to stay in the covered pot.
7. Finely chop and generous bunch of fresh coriander leaves and mix with the pilaff.
8. Serve hot with a dollop of Turkish natural yoghurt on top of each serving.
   

Zaatar: Arab spice mix (زعت)

Za'atar (زعت) is the trademark Arab spice from the Middle East, unknown in North Africa. It is a mix of dried and powdered thyme, oregano, marjoram with toasted sesame seeds and salt. It is said to have been around since the times of Ancient Egypt, although to prove it with more certainty will take more evidence.

Like curry powder in India, each housewife has her own special recipe of za'atar. In Palestine, za'atar is a part of the national identity lore. That is why the 1977 Israeli legislation that declared za'atar herbs a protected species is used to harass Palestinians by banning them from gathering wild thyme or za'atar in the West Bank, and confiscating it at IDF checkpoints.

Russian proso millet cereal & porridge (пшёная каша)

ussians eat a lot of cereals: some kind of porridge is a common breakfast. Proso millet is one of those. It is reckoned to one of the oldest cultivated grain in Eurasia due to it drought-resistance.

Eaten for breakfast proso, or pshyonka in colloquial Russian, is boiled in water or milk and eaten with milk or butter. It can also be made into a savoury dish. The best way to make it is to fry it first in butter until it starts giving out a characteristic nutty smell and then boil it in water and add stir-fried mushrooms and vegetables: onions, carrots, pumpkin.

As has been the case with many poor man's staples, proso has recently been rediscovered as health food. It turns out that it is gluten-free and rich in microelements. It contains as much protein as wheat, about 11% by weight.

Proso flakes are sold in Russian supermarkets for busy people. You can only use them as breakfast cereal because in savoury dishes proso needs to retain its grainy texture.

Dastarkhan: London's only Kazakh restaurant

sky-blue flag hanging out of a second-floor window is the only giveaway. No sign, no exotic aromas wafting through the air, no foreign-looking people dashing in and out to hint a passer-by that beyond two floors of a wood-panelled Finchley pub lies an altogether different realm that actually has a thing or two to do with Borat's Kazakhstan.

Once upstairs, smiley Kazakh waiters greet us in a colourfully, if haphazardly, decorated room. “Nomadic” rugs and brightly coloured cushions are piling around low tables. You can choose between sitting on topchans or regular European chairs. The window sills are lined with generic bric-a-brac of unidentifiable purpose and provenance. "Exotic" scrolls alternate with generic Art Nouveau lamps on the walls adorned with drawings of Chinese-looking trees. Edward Said would be reeling.

My Grandma’s Cossack family in the 19th century founded Kazakhstan’s present capital as a Russian military outpost in the newly annexed lands but my knowledge of Kazakh cuisine is limited to the mysterious word beshbarmak. I always imagined it to be something lamby, succulent and utterly delightful, a kind of herby pilaff reserved for special occasions.

We wade through a multitude of Russian and generic Oriental classics on the menu trying to line up an authentic Kazakh feast. Our only guide are the strange sounding names of the dishes, as the waiters claim everything they serve is Kazakh. Right. Okroshka is a common staple in the Central Asian steppes. Our orders arrive in the course of over three odd hours, mains before starters, all in a very random succession, providing us with ample time to ruminate whether they are actually slaughtering lambs in the basement to cook for us.

First we get what Russians call "aubergine caviar" (£3.50) , stew of finely shredded aubergines with onions and garlic. Olga's nostalgic choice however turns out very bland stir-fried marrow and tomatoes. Our impenetrably friendly waiter insists it is aubergine and we just leave it at that.



Some time later arrives a wicker basket with baursaki (£3.50), deep-fried pieces of dough, which in the ovenless nomadic world acted as bread. Rather bland in taste, they are however, pleasantly not greasy.



Forty minutes of chatting with Olga and two reminders later arrives kuyrdak (£9.90) . What the waiter has promised to be lamb stew turns out to be chunks of liver and potatoes in an extremely economic amount of some onion and tomato based sauce. The liver is way overdone and hard to bite, so we send it back to the kitchen.



Whilst waiting for the next dish we share a bowl of shurpa or sorpa, clear beef soup with potatoes, carrots and onions. A sprinkle of chopped dill on top of it adds finishing touch to this simple consommé. What was advertised as "traditional Kazakh tea" comes in the form of English Breakfast teabags soaking in hot water. Whilst I think how to react, Olga sends it packing too. Good riddance.



Manty, are steamed dumplings filled with finely chopped meat and onions in equal proportions. Normally they are full of aromatic broth spouting fountains of taste into your mouth. This time however the thin dough got torn before they even ended up on our plate, so what we get is boiled meatballs wrapped in tasteless dough - quite a treat for eight quid.



Triangular samsa pies (£5) are also filled with meat and onions. The dough is nicely flavoured and it's the only dish this evening that experienced a proper Maillard reaction. Hand-made in the restaurant's kitchen, they are, however, served hot, right from the oven, which is a big mistake: they need to be allowed to "come around" wrapped in cloth. The steam coming from the filling then would make the crust moist and pleasant to bite.



And finally, the pièce de résistance, Kazakh national dish of bes barmak (£9) solves my childhood mystery: it turns out square pieces of noodle boiled with onions and beef. By this time we are so behind all schedules and tired of waiting that we take it home in a doggie bag. My attempt to take a picture of the culprits of our dining fiasco in the kitchen are greeted with vehement protests. People dodge out of my way like scared hens. I sense a working visa problem there. They sure won't be getting Highly Skilled Immigrant ones here.


Pro's: The only place in London to enjoy Kazakh culinary exuberance.

Con's: Hard to find. Clueless (if friendly) service. Randomly appointed interior. Nothing-to-write-home-about food.

In a nutshell: This act needs to put its stuff together to call themselves a restaurant.

Dastarkhan
203 Holloway Road
London
N7 8DL