TOZI Restaurant and Bar - Victoria, London

TOZI menu by the door

Few weeks ago we planned a lunch do for one of my colleagues who is about to give birth. Unfortunately Two days before the planned lunch the mother to be got sick and we cancelled lunch…

I had my heart all set to going out for lunch so I convinced two other colleagues to join me for at TOZI Victoria.

As we entered the restaurant, we were greeted and seated immediately. It was early lunch so, the restaurant was a bit empty.

Just as we sat, our waiter came to speak to us…

“Hello, I am Raphael, I am your waiter. Have you been here before?”.  Nope, we have never visited TOZI. Raphael proceeded to explain to us what the type of restaurant was, in the process we learnt that Raphael was Brazilian… All I can say is that he made us feel welcomed, he dutifully explained to us how to order the dishes on the menu, what was in each dish etc etc

We ordered our drinks as we waited for our food to arrive.

While we waited, Raphael brought us 2 baskets of bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Pizza's station

View of the main kitchen

Looking at my surroundings to my left, I could see that open kitchen and further to the side there is a pizza station… with all sorts of cured meats and chopped ingredients to make fresh pizzas live on request ( suspect their Pizza must be better than that of my previous outing)… the boys at the station kindly answered all the questions I had … I am sure they found it strange, but I just wanted to hear them roll their tongs as they spoke English in that beautifully thick Italian accent… they even posed for a photo… Ask and you shall receive. Right?


In all we must have waited 20 minutes for our meals to appear in sizzling cast iron dishes.

I had ordered some Ox Cheeks with wild mushrooms and jus with a side of buttered wilted spinach and parmesan. One of the girls ordered smoked mackerel and the other asked for the swordfish.

Add caption

My Meal

I cannot remember the last time I ate Ox cheeks … it would have been in France and not in the UK. This was the first time I was seeing this on the menu in the UK and I wasn’t disappointed. The cheeks were melting in my mouth and I could also taste some red wine in it. I would have love to order another portion of this, but we were on a timer… Next time, I should order 3 portions for myself and just have some slices of bread with it. I quiet liked the spinach too... lightly flavoured, wilted in butter and topped with parmesan cheese.

My friends’ also enjoyed their food. There is not much to say about the presentation, but the environment and the service was really and relaxed. After our meal we ordered some coffees and they came with some amoretti biscuits free of charge… Appreciated touch.

This is definitely a place for a light lunch with colleagues. My lunch cost me £20.00 included drinks and service charge. I feel the prices on the card are correct.

As we walked out I stopped to take in the entrance of the restaurant which is a bar… the black and white photographs, the chairs, the glass wall and that Chesterfield looking sofa against the far wall was screaming my name… I promised that I would be back just for that sofa and a glass or two of wine… I think I should make this appointment a Friday after work type of affair…

Friday after work hang-out! Perfect!

I really recommend TOZI if you are visiting or working near Victoria.

TOZI is in the same building as the Park plaza hotel at the bottom of Vauxhall bridge road.

For further info click or copy this link http://www.tozirestaurant.co.uk

Asked to be served by Raphael. He is great! Don’t forget to tip!

See you there. :-)

The Reviewer

Pizza Express - Langham place, London

View of Langham place on top of Regent street

So, yesterday, I went to Pizza Express with some fellow volunteers…

I volunteer for a various homeless shelters 1-3 a month and our team decided to go out for dinner…

For the first time, we saw each other in our street out fits it was quite weird….. Any ways. The Pizza Express we went to was the one off the top of Regent Street on Langham place. What a great location! I was exited bout this. And I thought that given the location I would not be disappointed… I had great expectations.

Restaurant inside

See, I am not a fan of pizzas and DO not understand why oh why people like pizza so much. I am always imagining all that bread sucking up all the saliva from my mouth and doing a seating in my stomach then, refusing to find the rear natural exit.

As I walked in some o my fellow dinners were already seated… looking around, the place was quite empty for its locations… what is happening? This is a Saturday night…! I had a quick look around and really liked the deco which was a bit IKEAish with nearly everything being coordinated; the lamp shades matched the kitchen deco and the kitchen staffs outfits (blach and white stripes like the Daltons from the Lucky Luke cartoons).

My superfoods salad

As I stated to look at the menu there was not much for me there to order. So I decided to go for the super foods salad. It seemed really healthy and wasn’t going to bloat me. When the salad came, It kind of looked good. But as I stared tucking into it, I found it really dry, there wasn’t enough lentils and other (super) stuff I expected. There WAS plenty of leaves, but the vinaigrette was barely making it moist as it was nearly invisible… I struggled to finish my salad and on the 5 people seating on my side of the table, the four who ordered pizza empty their plates before I did mine.

Conversation and company was good, but I had decided that I will not order anything else from this place and didn’t get dessert. There is a Paul bakery 2 minutes away and I made it clear to my fellow dinners that my dessert was going to come from there.

On my way home I stopped at Paul’s and got a lemon tartelette, a chausson aux pommes and a pain au sucre with raisins… oooh yummy… this was going to make it all alright!

Sweet time!

I got home and made myself this little plate of sweetness with a lemony green tea.

Thinking of the restaurant, hopefully I will never set foot in a Pizza Express again. Still don’t get the attraction!

I did visit the ladies… the walk to the loos was really great. With really cute pictograms. The cubicle I chose had ran out of loo roll and the toilet seat was broken…. Lol just my luck.

PE  cute pictograms

Well, a location and a chain reputation isn’t always all that reliable…

Hopefully by the time you go visit, they would have up their game… as for me. That was the last time I was going in that branch.

at the end of the night, I had spent £11.00 in Pizza Express and £8.00 at Paul's. Can I just mention? Some of the stuff from Paul were for breakfast this morning.  

This morning's breakfast

Thank you for readin’!
See you the next time.

The Reviewer

Dinner @Kettner's - London

 
Oh… LOOK… IS GRAHAM NORTON!!!!

View from outside

That was me nearly screaming at the dinner table as I had just seen Mr Norton entering the restaurant where we are about to finish our diner.

We were having dinner at Kettner’s… Kettner’s? I hear you ask, YES THE Kettner’s restaurant in Romilly Street.

When I was told that we were having dinner, I mentioned that to my colleagues and they thought ‘ooh haa, you will see it is really impressive’. Some thought to have seen this restaurant in Made in Chelsea…. Really? I didn’t really care I had never heard of it.

Since checking out this place, I seem to notice it mentioned everywhere I look. It is a bit like, when you decide to buy the most original pair of shoes with the weirdest colour, you start noticing everyone is wearing the same pair… So, since we had dinner at Kettner’s, I have noticed it in the Square Meal’s venues & events magazine. The very same week, I open ESmagazine and et voila! Graham Norton is there. I actually got to know what he was doing there with all those people…. An after premier’s dinner.

So, back to the mundane bits. Kettner’s is situated in Romilly street, I knew that street before, but having heard all the good things about Kettner’s, I was very disappointed by its location. See pic… someone who isn’t sure might actually walk pass the restaurant in the day time without knowing.
When we entered restaurant, we were greeted by two receptionists posted on the tiniest reception desk I’ve ever seen, and who directed us to the bar was as we were a bit too early….According to Square meals mag, Kettner’s  has  one of the best champagne bars in London town… I can see why (photo too rubbish to post).

The best mozzarella ever

When the time came, we were led to one beautiful room where the tables were laid for our group of 18 dinners… in both ends of this small room which also contained weirdly, some old wooden chairs was a white piano… Loved that detail. Each seat had a place table with the dinner’s name and preselected menu…. What a beautiful touch. I had practically forgotten what I wanted to eat.

Two waiters were allocated to our group and their politeness and great genuine smiles added to the already beautiful settings. At this point, if the food had not been up to crash, it would not have mattered, because the ambience worth the price of the dinner. As we ordered our drinks the pianist took his seat and started to play some ambiance tunes… this “in between” room was entirely allocate to us with, behind us a much bigger and much much more sophisticated room which I promised myself to go check out with a date in the future. The room seemed much more seclude, with dimmer lights, but bigger than the one we where in… It reminded me of a French restaurant near Montparnasse in Paris.

As our dinner plates started to make their appearance, we all whipped out our camera and anyone passing through could hear us ooohing and uuuhhhmmming at the beauty and taste of the fantastic mozzarella that most of us had ordered for starters.

Then, dish number two came, mine was a lemon sole. I could not taste the lemon in my dish but, the softness of the fish and the delicate julienne of vegetables covered for that minimal sin.

Then came the dessert. Mine was a pavlova with a passion fruit coulis. I usually avoid meringues, hate cheesecakes, and crème brulee which were the other desserts on offer.

This pavlova tasted great and somehow wasn’t as sugary as I remember meringue to be. The one on my plate vas delicately baked and with a chewiness once you brake in the light outside… by the way, how do you make sugar less sugary? I’ve got no idea. If I was to eat a pavlova again, it’ll be at Kettner’s definitely.

As we emptied out dessert plates and commenting joyously about the whole dinner experience, I looked out of the window and there was Graham Norton! I am a big fan! We all got distracted by the big number of the faces we could recognise from the TV… What’s going on? Someone asked… we couldn’t ask the waiters… as we were a bunch of chavs venturing out of our usual “cercle”. We didn’t want to be seen as not being in our place, so, we did not ask what was going on as we saw all that “beau monde” retiring upstairs in the function room which we imaging was much more magnificent that were we were seating.

The dinner at Kettner’s was a great experience and at on under £45pp including drinks, it was worth it.

One disappointment though the stair and the ladies loos.

Get rid or change the paint

The stairs leading to the loos and upstairs function rooms are so tiny that if you are slightly tubby, I doubt you’ll feel comfortable utilising them. I wonder if Kettner’s is in a listed building. The ladies are a bit odd and slightly out of place in my opinion… there is random boudoir like seating in ladies loos’ entre-chambre, then, the actual deco is doesn’t follow through… Sort it out boys and girls please…

I won’t let that spoil my experience. I’d give this on 4.5 stars of 5. See you there sometime.

Visit http://www.kettners.com/ for more info about Kettner's.

 

The Reviewer