Adiva

Address: 43A Commercial Street, London E1 6BD
Website: http://www.adivarestaurant.com/
Nearest tube stations: Aldgate East or Liverpool Street

It's mid-January and we're fast approaching the end of the now traditional month of Dryathlon, when those with more willpower than me abstain from alcohol for a month for the excellent cause of Cancer Research UK. There are lots of benefits in taking part, or in just cutting down. And, most importantly (for us), it's a good excuse to go to a BYO restaurant without BYOing - there's no booze on the menu, so there's less temptation to have a drink or three.

So, on to the review. This month, we visited Adiva, a Lebanese and Turkish fusion restaurant (their description, not mine).

For starters, we shared a mezze platter, a smorgasbord of treats (as neither the Turkish nor the Lebanese say) including pitta bread, three dips - hummus, a very good baba ganoush, and cacik (a yogurt based dip) - tabouleh, pastry parcels filled with minced lamb or feta and spinach, and a selection of meats, including slices of nicely-spiced sausage and skewers of lamb and chicken.

For my main, I had an iskender kebab. This is one of my favourite dishes, which I’ve most recently eaten in Kilikya’s, a fairly expensive Turkish restaurant in St Katharine’s Dock (main courses are around £18 to £20). The dish is a mix of chicken and lamb – some sliced and some kofta (made from mince) on a bed of bread, covered in tomato sauce and with a dollop of yogurt on top. Adiva’s iskender was very tasty, the meat well cooked but, for me, the bread was toasted too much and so didn’t soak up the sauce as much as I would have liked.

Mrs BYO had a chicken shawarma, chicken marinated in shawarma spice and onions, served with a side of rice with vermicelli and salad. She didn’t talk to me much while she was wolfing it down, so I took that to mean that she was enjoying it (as opposed to the alternative – I was in the doghouse for something or other).

No desserts for us this time, but Mrs BYO finished with a medium (strength, not size – they’re all mini) Turkish coffee, which she describes as a mix between a hot chocolate, coffee and mud. In a good way.

The bill came to £53.89 - or £41.92 without our soft drinks (two virgin Mojitos, which were surprisingly good even without the rum, and a Lebanese lemonade, a lemonade to which cardamom and orange blossom had been added). No tip was automatically added.

If you're a Dryathlete, you can skip over the next paragraph.

And if you’re not, you might be interested to know that corkage is £1.50 for wine and 50p per beer. You can pick up your booze from the Tesco Express at the bottom of Commercial Street, just round the corner from Aldgate East tube, or from the big Tesco on Bishopsgate, directly opposite Liverpool Street station.

PS why not donate the money you would have spent on booze to Cancer Research UK here, and remember to Gift Aid the donation if you're a UK taxpayer?

PPS if you like good Lebanese food and you’re in south-west London, we’d recommend trying Meza (no website; bookings on 07771 333157) on Mitcham Road in Tooting, which is not BYO but is so cheap and so good that you won’t mind having to pick your drink from the menu.