Category Archives: Food

Behtareen – Indian Street Food – East Croydon

Behtareen is a funky new Indian-style cafe in Dingwall Road which is just down from East Croydon train station.

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At the risk of sounding Tolkienesque, you will find Behtareen next door to Zabardast!  The observant souls amongst you will probably notice that the cafe and Indian sandwich shop are both owned by the same people!

Simply put, there are times where I **NEED** curry and have become something of a regular to Zabardast since it opened in 2014 (fueling my Seekh kebab roll addiction on a Friday!).

Therefore, I was overjoyed when Bethareen sprang up because Croydon has been lacking a decent Indian cafe since ‘Spice Cafe’ left Surrey Street many moons ago.

Inside, the cafe’s decor is visibly very bright and clean with park/pub bench style tables; if you look around, you’ll also notice a load of Indian ‘stuff’ in frames up on the walls.

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I’ve only used the very swift take-away option so far (they conveniently have a card machine for payment!), but I took the time to observe the friendly table service whilst I waited for my food and have vowed to sit in there in the near future.

So far, I’ve tried the lamb biriyani, tandoori paneer and paratha; all of which were very tasty and reasonably priced!!!

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Anyway, give it a whirl sometime!   Antikrish recommends!

Here’s the menu! behtareen menu

Brooklyn Bowling London O2

Brooklyn bowl is a fantastic place to spend a Friday night; located inside the Greenwich O2 (Millenium Dome innit) it has a great restaurant, a couple of seriously stacked bars (cheap prices for central London!) and a stage for love gigs.  Oh, and a bowling alley!

It’s very authentic American redneck theme and friendly atmosphere absolutely warmed me right down to my cockles. 

The chicken wire ‘walls’ add a certain ‘Blues Brothers’ flavour to the restaurant;  whilst enjoying my meal, I could easily hear the dulcet tones of Tom Copson, support act for Hayseed Dixie (more of that later). 

I really liked how you could hear the performance due to the open-plan structure to the venue.  Rawhide!

As for the food, wow!  What a menu!  I heartily recommend the half rack of ribs; certainly the best that I’ve had outside the States!!!  Watching the plates come out for other people was torture, everything looked fucking great.

The bowling is £14.95 for half an hour, maximum of 8 people on a lane.  So it’d be dirt cheap if you split a nights bowling with a decent group of folks. 

The lanes are stuffed with very comfy leather armchairs and sit right next to the live stage, so you could avoid paying for a gig ticket and just bowl whilst listening to a band knock out their tuned. 

I was impressed by the bar products, American beers like Samuel Adams, a Brooklyn Lager and the largest collection of bourbon I’ve seen since I visited a Mormon Elders house in Utah.

So folks, y’all have a good time now!  Y’hear!

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Bourbon Steak – Four Seasons Hotel – Washington D.C.

If you like good steak, you simply have to go to Bourbon Steak which is inside the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, Washington D.C.

At $59 just for the meat, the steak is hideously overpriced; but it’s so beautiful in the restaurant and the service staff make you feel like royalty.

They brought out some complimentary fries, all with different seasoning and dips; another complimentary dip included some hot rolls infused with truffle oil.  Utterly scrumptious.

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With my steak, I had a double cooked potato (sounds worse than it was believe me!) and a potato and cheese gratin.

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The steak was cooked to perfection, I could honestly have eaten it twice (it was a smaller steak that I got at Clydes!); washed down with a couple of glasses of Riesling ($11), a fantastic meal.  Yes, I know you should have red wine with steak, but that’s just me innit!

Burger Tap And Shake – Washington D.C.

Burger Tap and Shake makes a mean sandwich!

They served me up a juicy quarter pounder with blue cheese and mushrooms in a sauce.  It was utterly delicious; don’t think I’ve had a better burger in years!

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The restaurant can be found on 2200 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20037; if you happen to be visiting D.C., I’d heartily recommend a visit!

Badolina revisited

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So impressed with my food yesterday; I returned today for a second helping!!!

Today I opted for the boneless middle eastern chicken thigh, served in a container without the pitta.  

The container is an extra quid compared to the pitta option; but You get more salad, humus and meat.  

Delicious, look at the chilli sauce!   Bring that shit on!

Badolina – Bishopsgate, London

BadolinaI’m on a course today up in town; just so happened to find ‘Badolina’ off of Bishopsgate (where it meets Middlesex Street) during my lunchbreak.

Badolina is a Middle Eastern take away shop; or, as they call them south of the River Thames, a fancy kebab shop.

That’s not to take anything away from Badolina; the good quality meat (minced lamb ‘patties’) was charcoal grilled to perfection and stuffed into a very large round pitta bread (white or brown available) with some really delicious salad.

£5.95 was a fair price too? Considering you need to get a mortgage up here just to buy a cup of coffee!

Mulligatawny Curry

I am rather chuffed!  

After much consideration, I decided to pour a mulligatawny soup (found in Waitrose, by Duchy Originals) over some Veetee basmati microwave rice!

EUREKA!!!   Healthy lunchtime curry, ready in 3 minutes should you have a microwave.  Pukka.

I had the soup a couple of weeks ago and pondered at the time that the soup was of a nice thick consistency.   It’s almost like daal and rice?

Very, very, very nice!   Could do with some chillies though 😉

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Chicken Gordon Blimey!

Here’s my idea of a low cost and tasty working lunch which can be sourced from all good High streets (even Croydon); perfect for when you can’t be arsed to cook in the evening!

4 spicy chicken wings from the rotisserie in Waitrose for £1.25.
A portion of McDonald’s fries 99p.
Reduced cheesy coleslaw from waitrose, £1.49.

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In fact, the chicken is THAT good, I bought 8 wings instead of 4!  What??   I’m a growing lad!

All in all, less than a sandwich and a coffee from Pret-entious A Manger.

Mega Mexway Burrito

It’s my first day back at work after my holiday; I feel like Vladimir Putin ‘s armpit  after he’s been wrestling with bears and gypsies, out in the Gobi desert.

I cleared my backlog of emails, ploughed through a load of work and eventually came to realise that it was 2pm; I also realised that I was quite delirious from not having eaten yet today.

My situation was thus.   It’s raining heavily in Croydon, I only have my old bikers jacket and I’m somewhat ill prepared for the downpour!    Should I go out for food or stay inside in the warmth?

Do I sit here, trippily thinking about Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, or should I pop to Mexway and purchase a very, very large Burrito?

Well, there was clearly only one winner.  Mexway.

On the way down to the shop, I was fortunate enough to witness some of the new Croydon College thugs students getting soaked by the buses as they drove through the huge puddles.  🙂 The universe likes me today!

The nice Spanish man must have thought that I was a Macho Latino ‘Rambo’ (an African market stalls holder called me Rambo in Fuerteventura) because of my tan and leather jacket; he packed the Burrito with so much food that he was barely able to roll it up!

Fantastic-o!

It’s so wide that it’s bigger than my bite radius (no gay jokes please) and is the biggest Burrito I’ve even eaten by a country mile (how big is a country mile anyway???).

It’s proper phat, innit bruv?

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