I mentioned two local restaurants and have subsequently been back to both; it’s what professional reviewers do. The River Café was just as good on a second visit. Because they weren’t too busy we were allowed to arrive at 1.30 and have the set lunch menu; £28 for two courses.
To start, I had mozzarella of the highest quality with warm spinach and something else green that might have been a sort of Mediterranean cornichon. Then, a sliver of liver perfectly cooked accompanied by borlotti beans and polenta. The polenta had the consistency, colour and texture of scrambled eggs cooked just right. I cannot remember what Robert had but I remember he finished with some crunchy almond ice cream. I had a spoonful and liked it very much. We drank a carafe of white and of red from the slopes of Mt Etna.
The menu at Pidé on Fulham Palace Road had already changed. Like The River Café, it has a wood-fired oven and now it is concentrating on using this. The pidé that I’d had before is still very much on the menu but now they also offer lahmajoun, sometimes called Armenian pizza. It’s a small thin pizza smeared with flavouring. Think of a thin slice of toast smeared with Gentlemans’ Relish. Accompanying it are fresh vegetables and herbs.
This time we sat towards the back of the dining area beside the open plan kitchen. This was excellent as the chef could instruct us on both pronunciation and tactics. Lahmajoun is eaten like Peking duck. The veg and herbs are placed on it and you eat it rolled up. Perfect street food in fact. The chef also was the proprietor – I cannot say it in Turkish – but le patron cuisine ici. It is quite different to the other local Turkish restaurant, Best Mangal, where they cook over charcoal and it is nothing like Pizza Express, also with a branch on Fulham Palace Road, so a welcome addition to the local restaurant landscape.
By the way, I had to shamefacedly admit that I had been in Istanbul last month – only in the airport – and all I’d had was a rum and Coke (the bar had no tonic).