The Paddyfield

Address: 4 Bedford Hill, London SW12 9RG
Website: None that I could find…
Nearest tube: Balham

We stopped off for a quick after-work dinner at The Paddyfield, a Vietnamese/Thai restaurant in Balham.

It was surprisingly busy for a Wednesday night, with lots of walk-ins – and also a woman who could probably lay claim to having the loudest, fakest laugh in the world. Thankfully, she had been seated in the far corner of the room (so, even before giving us the menus, the staff got bonus marks from me for putting her there). The restaurant is rather tile-filled (including the table tops) and so there isn’t much to absorb sound, making it quite noisy. Maybe it’s not so bad when there isn’t a drunk hyena there…

Anyway, to the food. For starters, we shared Vietnamese prawn crackers, giant, pinkish crackers, with a faint taste of prawns and a bit of spice to them. More spice could be obtained from the accompanying chilli dip and chopped chillies. Needless to say, I didn’t trouble either of those.

I had a chicken pad thai for my main. This comprised chicken (obviously), Thai rice noodles, bean sprouts and spring onion, mixed with cooked egg (a bit like an Asian spaghetti carbonara, perhaps?), and sprinkled with crushed peanuts. It was served with a wedge of lime and a spicy dip.

At first, I wasn’t convinced I had made the best choice, as there wasn’t a great deal of flavour. However, as I worked through the dish – which was piled up on the plate – with more room to mix the different layers, and giving it a good squeeze of lime, I ended up really enjoying it.

Really, I should have started with what Mrs BYO had to eat, as her main course arrived a good five minutes before mine. She had beef xao sa: beef marinated in lemon grass, chilli and garlic, served with vermicelli noodles and mixed salad leaves. The portion didn’t look huge when it arrived, but it was surprisingly filling. Mrs BYO thoroughly enjoyed her main too.

The bill came to £31.62, which included service and two soft drinks. Corkage is £2. Ironically, given the blog’s name, we didn’t BYO. If we had done, the bill would have been £27.25 without any soft drinks.

The restaurant does not take cards, but doesn’t warn about this until the bill arrives. Luckily, there is an HSBC with a cash machine a couple of doors down, and I noticed that I wasn’t the only diner who had to pop out to get some cash to settle up.

So, the restaurant is pretty basic and the service a bit hit-and-miss – but luckily, the food they dished up made it worth it.

The Paddyfield is across the main road from a large Waitrose and around the corner from an even-larger Sainsbury’s, plus there’s an Oddbins on the way from Balham tube and the We Brought Beer craft ale shop on Hildreth Street Market.

Cah Chi

Address: 394 Garratt Lane, London SW18 4HP
Website: www.cahchi.com [Broken as at the time of writing]
Nearest station: Earlsfield

For our latest instalment, we visited Cah Chi, a Korean restaurant in Earlsfield. There is also a sister branch in Raynes Park.

Knowing that Cah Chi does not take cards, we headed straight from the railway station to an ATM at Barclays bank, just across the road and a few doors away from the restaurant. Not having brought any drink with us, we strolled down the road, past Cah Chi, looking for somewhere to buy a bottle – and failed. We then headed back up past the station, still unable to find any corner shop open. It was only then that we saw a Sainsbury's Local around the corner from the station and an alcohol-selling corner shop further up the road, which we had missed on our walk to the bank. Luckily, I already had an appointment booked at the optician for the following day…

We had arrived in Earlsfield rather early but these distractions had eaten up some time and we arrived at the restaurant on the dot of our booking. And I’d recommend making one – there wasn't a spare table to be seen and walk-ins were being turned away.

Before our starters arrived, four small plates were delivered to our table, compliments of the kitchen: a ball of cold mashed potato containing diced vegetables (surprisingly nice), two quarters of a boiled egg in soy sauce (ditto), kim chi and caramelised soy beans (extremely moreish, but not particularly easy to eat with chopsticks).

Next up were our starters, gun-mandu – five crispy homemade pork and vegetable dumplings with a soy dip on the side – and kkanpunggi – a generous portion of delicious chunks of deep-friend chicken with honey and garlic. The chicken was perfectly cooked and incredibly hot (temperature-wise, not spiciness).

For our mains, I went for the bulgogi, thin slices of beef cooked on a little barbeque on the table. In addition to the sliced beef, there are a number of barbeque dishes to choose from, including spare rib, pork and chicken. Unlike many Korean restaurants, the meat was cooked for us by a member of staff, rather than us being left to our own devices.

There are a number of optional side dishes which can be ordered with the barbeque dishes, including sliced mushrooms, onions and beansprouts. I went with the sang chu and pa sengs che: fresh lettuce with shredded spring onion and a dollop of spicy paste on the side. The staff show how it’s done – take a lettuce leaf, add some spring onion, some beef and a touch of the paste – and the whole parcel can be eaten in one.


Mrs BYO had her Korean favourite, a chicken bibimbap. And it didn't disappoint – just the right spiciness, and bursting with freshness and flavour. They even took the fried egg off the top, much to Mrs BYO's joy (she is not an egg person).

As a shared side, we had the gaji gui, grilled aubergine covered in a sweet miso sauce, something which we both really like. This one did not disappoint, though it was perhaps unnecessary on top of all the other food we’d ordered.


To drink, we had a bargainous bottle of Clearspring sauvignon blanc from Sainsbury's for £6 (which, from looking around the restaurant, was a popular choice with my fellow cheapskates), and Mrs BYO had two apple juices (£2.50 each). The corkage is a rather cheeky £4, though a total of £10 for a bottle of wine in a restaurant is still cheap. The restaurant is BYO wine only.

The bill came to £56.87, including a 10% service charge, which is automatically added.

Mrs BYO and I both agree that this is the best BYO we've visited so far. We’re definitely going back, armed with cash and our new-found knowledge of where to get our drink…
 

Krua

Address: 90 Bedford Hill, Balham SW12 9HR
Website: None that I could find…
Nearest tube: Balham

An after-work stroll on Friday evening took us in search of a Thai BYO restaurant.

Our first stop was The Paddyfield on Bedford Hill in Balham – which turned out to be closed for refurbishment. So we continued on to Krua, also on Bedford Hill, heading towards Streatham.

On the ground floor, Krua has a BYO restaurant; downstairs was the not-entirely-authentic-sounding Sean’s Thai Bar (the last night of which was the night that we visited Krua), which served Thai snacks and cocktails. As this was a BYO night, we plumped for dinner in the restaurant.

For starters, we shared chicken satay and gyoza. The chicken skewers were cooked perfectly, not the least bit dry, a problem I often find, and with a satay sauce that suited me very well but could have had a bit more spice for Mrs BYO. The gyoza were vegetarian and crispy – I’m guessing deep-fried, rather than boiled or pan-fried. Both came with a pile of leaves and grated carrot.

For our mains, we both picked from the special dishes on the menu. I chose tamarind duck with a side portion of sticky rice, only remembering when it arrived that I had had duck at a food market that lunch time. Poor ducks. The trouble is they taste so good, especially, it turns out, when cooked with tamarind, which gave the dish a lovely warm flavour. The duck was served with chunks of onion and red and green pepper, all covered in sauce.

Mrs BYO had the catchily-named gai yang som tum khao niew. I’d recommend pointing at it on the menu if you want to order it. The dish is a typical regional Thai dish, comprising a grilled chicken and papaya salad, served with sticky rice (you don’t need to order this separately) and a sweet chilli dip. It was fresh, not too heavy and came with a bit of a kick.

Sadly, no desserts were on offer, though we could have fitted one in – the starters and mains weren’t small but were quite light, so there was certainly scope for something more.

Corkage is £1 and a bottle of tap water is provided on each table.

Our meal – two starters, two mains, one side dish and two cans of Coke (£2 each) – came to a very reasonable £37.50, without service. 

For your booze, there is a Costcutter next door and a big Sainsbury’s opposite Balham station.

Tagine

Address: 3 Fernlea Road, Balham SW12 9RT
Website: http://www.zizoutagine.com/
Nearest tube: Balham

We last ate at Tagine, a North African restaurant in Balham, about two-and-a-half years ago, when we had dinner with a friend on a cold, winter weekday evening. At the time, we were looking for a new place to live, as I wanted somewhere bigger than my one-bedroom flat in north London. And, realising that I was not a squillionaire (or anywhere near close to it), we were looking south of the river for our next home – and so Balham it became.

Now residents of Balham for almost two years, we decided to pay Tagine another visit on Saturday evening, and it was certainly a lot livelier than our last visit – despite it also being a cold winter evening. The restaurant was packed, with no noticeable impact on the service which was friendly and attentive but not intrusive. I was glad we’d booked. 

Before our food arrived, Mrs BYO had a Berber cooler cocktail. You might think it’s strange for a BYO restaurant to serve cocktails (well, I thought so, anyway) and, indeed, to have a section on its website entitled “cocktails bar” – but they’re all non-alcoholic. The Berber cooler is a long raspberry drink made with apple and orange juice and zero booze.

To start, we shared houmous with pitta and kefta meshwiya, consisting of five meatballs sat on a smidgen of vegetable sauce. All good so far.

For our mains, we both had tagines. What else could we have in a restaurant with this name? I had the tagine makfoul, three large chunks of tender chicken on the bone cooked with Moroccan spices and with a tomato sauce on top, and Mrs BYO had mamounia tagine, lamb shank cooked with chickpeas and aubergine. 

We had a couple of sides to share: saffa coucous (saffron-flavoured couscous with sultanas), the flavour of which was too delicate for me – I couldn’t taste the saffron; and merguez batata harra, potatoes diced in the same way as you’d find patatas bravas in a tapas restaurant, but with chunks of spicy sausage on top, rather than a sauce. Very good indeed.

Neither of us could manage a dessert, but Mrs BYO finished with a Moroccan coffee, served in a small glass, with a normal coffee texture (unlike a Turkish coffee)  but with a star anise floating in it.

The bill came to £63 exactly, which includes a non-alcoholic cocktail (£4.50) and 12.5% service charge. There was no corkage for our bottle of wine.

Your nearest shop is the huge Sainsbury’s just around the corner; and there’s also an Oddbins near the Tube, a Waitrose on Balham Hill and We Brought Beer, the specialist beer shop on Hildreth Street.

We won’t leave it so long before our next visit.

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.

Lahore Kebab House

Address: 2-10 Umberston Street, E1 1PY (there's also a sister restaurant in Streatham - 668 Streatham High Road, SW16 3QL - which we haven't visited)
Website: http://www.lahore-kebabhouse.com/
Nearest tube station: Aldgate East (just under 10 minutes' walk) or Whitechapel (just over 10 minutes' walk)

Restaurant review number 5 is the Lahore Kebab House, which is neither in Lahore (obviously) nor a kebab house (less obviously). It is, in fact, a bring-your-own curry restaurant in the East End, reckoned to be one of the best in London, along with nearby Tayyab's. I was glad to get here after our failed attempt to review a curry house during National Curry Week.

Mrs BYO and I walked there after work on a cold Monday evening in December. The restaurant shouldn't be hard to find and is accessible at the top of Umberston Street, just off Commercial Road - despite Google Maps' attempt to send us down a dimly-lit side street.

When we arrived, we were swiftly seated in the large ground floor dining room, a rather plain room with flatscreen TVs on the wall. Directly behind our table was a huge window looking into the kitchen, showing off huge stacks of papadoms. So that's what we started with - accompanied by the normal dips and salad - together with a portion of onion bhajia to share. Rather than the bland, greasy balls of fried onion that I'm used to in curry houses, the onion bhajia here was chunks of nicely-spiced fried onion. Delicious.

As we've already established, I can't handle spicy food. So, for a main course, I had butter chicken (hey, at least it wasn't a korma). My butter chicken was excellent, just the right level of spiciness and not the bland, sweet dish that I often find from curry houses and takeaways.

Mrs BYO, who is more adventurous than me, had bhindi chicken, an okra-based chicken dish. If you love okra and you like a bit (but not too much spice) and lots of flavour to your curry then this is the one for you. She said that she hadn’t tasted anything like it anywhere else and it was a real treat to have something different to the norm.

For sides, we shared a pilau rice and a cheese naan, which tasted good but was a bit too oily for my liking.

For all of that food, it was a very good value £25.40 - excluding tip, which was not automatically added. Even better, there's no corkage.

To drink, we took big bottles of Kingfisher (a bargain at £1.99 each from Waitrose in St Katharine Docks). I thought an Indian beer would go nicely with a curry (yes, I know Lahore isn't in India), with the choice in the shop being between Kingfisher and Cobra. And since the worst advert of all time (Meet The Boss), I refuse to buy Cobra. I think the advertising executives may have had a few too many beers when they made it.

Nearby shops for your booze include Cobra Food and Wine (yes, that Cobra) the other side of Umberston Street or a huge Sainsbury's almost next to Whitechapel if you're coming from that direction.

Tay Do Restaurant

Address: 64 Kingsland Road, Shoreditch E2 8AG
Website: http://www.taydo.co.uk/
Nearest tube station: Old Street (or Hoxton or Shoreditch High Street Overground stations, Hoxton being slightly closer)

After going past the tugging tramp – sadly, not a trendy bar in Shoreditch, but a homeless man providing himself with his own Friday night entertainment – under the railway bridge, we headed up Kingsland Road to Tay Do for a Vietnamese meal after work one wintry Friday night.

We were quite early, so there were only a couple of tables occupied, but the restaurant quickly filled up and was packed by the time we were tucking in to our food.

I don’t know much about Vietnamese food, so I was interested to see what was on offer. The menu had a selection of pan-Asian dishes - chicken satay, prawn toast, sweet and sour chicken – and some more ‘interesting’ dishes including frog legs with betel leaf (which I was not brave enough to try).

For starters, I had spare ribs – good flavour but a bit gristly – and Mrs BYO had a couple of Vietnamese spring rolls, both of which starters came on a bed of shredded lettuce.

Our mains were delivered while we were still on our starters, and so weren’t too hot when we tucked into them. We had the Tay Do special pork with rice vermicelli and the crispy egg noodles with chicken, the latter being my choice.

As well as the rice vermicelli (thin rice noodles), the Tay Do special pork came with another Vietnamese spring roll – luckily, they were tasty, so we didn’t mind having a third – a stack of pork, grated carrots and a dip. I snaffled some of this, and it was really very good.

I didn’t choose so well: my crispy egg noodles with chicken was a bit bland. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive wimp and can’t handle really spicy food (as you’ll see if you come back for our review of a curry house…), but the dish could have done with more flavour.

For dessert, Mrs BYO had chosen something from the menu, but the waitress gave us the bill without asking if we wanted anything else, so, well, we didn’t have anything else!

Two starters, two mains and no desserts came to £32.50. I’m not sure if that included corkage (the menu said £2 per person) or a tip, as the bill wasn’t too clear and was whipped away from us when I paid by card, rather than cash (which they prefer).

Tay Do has a BYOW - bring your own wine - policy, so goodness knows what would happen if you brought beer or cider. For your wine, there are lots of small convenience stores in the area, a big Majestic Wine on Shoreditch High Street (around the corner from Shoreditch High Street Overground station), but not much in the way of supermarkets.

So, would I have Vietnamese again? Yes. Would I go back to Tay Do? Hmm… (although Mrs BYO would be in favour of a return trip).