marble beef from Inamo; friend haloumi breakfast from Lantana; tuna sashimi from Sketch; red velvet cake from Hummingbird

After surviving our food-binge weekend in Lille, my friend Ying escaped to travel through Spain, Italy and France (in relative gastronomous sanity) before stopping by London for another few days enroute back to Oz. She gave me a day, 20 hours to be precise, in which I could take her to my favourite eat-outs. I protested vehemently that 20 hours is merely a fraction of what I needed, but hey, I can improvise.

Our itinerary: dinner at Inamo, breakfast at Lantana, lunch at Sketch, and cake at Hummingbird*.

Yes, this is how we roll in the catty life.

7pm: Dinner at Inamo

We started with dinner at one of my favourite Soho haunts, Inamo. I know there are Inamo bashers out there, but I for one have never had a bad experience (oh wait, there was the time that they ran out of tea pots and we couldn’t get our tea until other guests had finished with their tea pots), ok so I’ve never had a bad eating experience there.  Plus its projection-onto-your-table and self-ordering system is a huge novelty and even now I still get all giddy excited when I see the colourful images of my meals splashed across my entire table. Gawd, if only my meal was really that huge!

Inamo - baby crispy prawns; truffle marble beef; seared scallops with ushu and wasabi dressing

Although Inamo‘s ordering system and table layout is not condusive to sharing, Ying and I managed to order three starters to share. Mandatory on my list is the truffle marble beef, paper thin slices of beef served with truffle vinaigrette, crispy garlic and mixed cress.  This time round there may have been a hint too much of something like sesame oil, but the texture of the beef is so soft, you have to be extra careful with the chopsticks when guiding the goodness to your food hole. We also ordered the baby crispy prawns with Thai mango relish, which are ever so lightly battered and come out fresh hot, and the seared scallops with yuzu and wasabi dressing. I’m sorry marble beef but seared scallops actually take the prize for best starter.

Inamo - black cod marinated with spicy miso; whole Shanghai snapper

Hailing from Brisbane, the city of… I don’t know what Brisbane is famous for (except the 1988 Expo where I, all of two feet tall, stood next to the tallest man alive) but anyway, hailing from Brisbane, where their culinary choices are still somewhat limited, I encouraged suggested demanded Ying order the black cod, marinated in spicy miso.  This dish is a copy of Nobu‘s black cod miso, and while ok it’s not exactly Nobu standard, it’s pretty fricking close, it’s one third the price and no you don’t need a four week reservation lead, you can have it today! Anyway, I’m glad I made Ying order that, she loved it, loved it, and when she finished her cod, ordered bowl of plain rice, just to soak up the miso sauce goodness! Ying if you love me you’d comment on this post because I’m sure everyone thinks I exagge-ma-rate my way through this blawg, but I don’t! I swear you almost licked the plate!

My main paled in comparison to Ying’s excitement over the black cod. I ordered a whole Shanghai snapper, because I’m a sucker for whole fish, which was cooked in a soy mirin and ginger sauce. It was ok, but why, why did I order a Chinese style steamed fish in a fusion restaurant? Imma go to Chinatown and get me a steamed coral trout in ginger and shallots. That would have totally kicked butt.

Inamo - fresh mango with sticky rice and lime sorbet; pandan macaroon with white chocolate mousse

After Ying successfully cleaned up every last grain of rice (and again, no exaggeration), we tackled dessert. Fresh mango and sticky rice rocks my socks, and Inamo does it well, serving it with a scoop of lime sorbet to neutralise the sticky sweetness. We also shared a new comer to the menu, pandan macaroon with white chocolate mousse. I mean, you can see how my eyeballs propelled themselves from my head when they saw macaroon. It was ok, the presentation of the dish was superb, but truth be told, the white chocolate mousse was a total overkill, the macaroon could have held its own just fine.

Inamo
134-136 Wardour Street
Soho W1F 8ZP
0207 851 7051
website

Inamo on Urbanspoon

10am: Breakfast at Lantana

Question: are the meals at Lantana on steroids? Because I honestly sweareth upon the grave of my favourite childhood toy Mampi (while other girls played with Barbies, I had me a white fuzzy gorilla called Mampi) that the meals. They are enormo. After our three course dinner at Inamo, you’d think Ying and I would still be relatively full. Nu-huh. We went home , watched Twilight on bluray and I wanted to take a bite out of Edward Cullen so badly that I instead harnessed my frenzied energy and focused on breakfast at Lantana.

Besides, fried haloumi… Edward Cullen… fried haloumi… I think fried haloumi actually wins.

Lantana - corn fritters with lime aioli; haloumi with spinach & mushroom

I’m blessed to live literally two minutes from Lantana and have had many a breakfast there. I don’t have a usual order, I flick between the haloumi with sauteed spinach and mushrooms, french toast with caramelised plums, and toasted muesli with shredded apple and have even had the odd flirt with the bacon and cheese croissant. I don’t remembering having ordered the corn fritters before, and if I had it was nothing like the monstrosity that arrived on our table that morning last week.

I say monstrosity with much love, by the way. The gigantic stack of fritters, lightly fried with fresh corn came covered with a corn and red onion salsa, accompanied with lime aioli, served on a bed of fresh avocado. Absolutely divine. It was so good that my attention was more than momentarily diverted from my usual love, the grilled haloumi, which is served with sauteed spinach,  mushrooms with herb pesto, poached egg, roasted tomatoes and sour dough.  Grilled haloumi is seriously the epicurean discovery of the millenium ~ I love it just on its own with a squeeze of lemon juice, and as part of this breakfast at Lantana, it will always be a winner.

Lantana Cafe
13 Charlotte Place
Fitzrovia W1T 1SN
0207 637 3347
website / blog

Lantana on Urbanspoon

1pm: Lunch at Sketch Parlour

After some heavy shopping along Regent and New Bond Streets, Ying and I decided we should eat,  not because we were hungry but logistically, we had to fit lunch in and cake from Hummingbird and time definitely waits not for food fools.  I suggested Sketch, another London must-go, and hoped to God that lunch in the Parlour would not cos as much as that degustation. Indeed it did not. In fact, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Still full from the monster breakfast, Ying and I opted for light and healthy. We shared tuna sashimi, served with tuna cream, rice paper with lime and espelette pepper, and roast scallops with cauliflower velouté and seaweed butter toast. Light and refreshing, our lunch totalled below £30 (including two drinks), which I thought was reasonable considering the funky atmosphere of the front room in Sketch’s ex-Christian Dior building.

Sketch Parlour - tuna sashimi with tuna cream; roast scallops with cauliflower velouté

Incidentally, when you’re next at Sketch Parlour, make an excuse to visit the bathroom. It’s so bizarre, and worth the little scare when you hear some foreign woman speak to you while you’re doing your business in an egg.

Sketch Parlour
9 Conduit Street
London W1S 2XG
0207 659 4500
website

Sketch - the Parlour on Urbanspoon

3pm: Cake at Hummingbird Bakery

Are you exhausted? I am. Last but not least, we hit Hummingbird in South Kensington (much much better than the Notting Hill branch), after another spot of shopping in Harrods where I managed to buy a pair of 7 For All Mankind skinny jeans that I don’t need to take up! People who don’t know me, you have no idea how excited I am. I have never ever had a pair of jeans which I didn’t need to take up, and so all my skinny jeans are not that skinny, and to have a zipper detail at the hem? In my dreams! Or at Harrods as it may be!

This totally called for celebration, so we made our way to Hummingbird and indulged in a giant slice of red velvet cake, which I still think it is just chocolate but red, but regardless, it is always delicious.

Hummingbird - red velvet cake

Cake in our bellies, we rolled to the tube station, down into the tube and all the way home. Ying actually went out for dinner that night, kudos, I think I went home and died. Oh wait, I did laundry. Same same.

Hummingbird Bakery
47 Old Brompton Road
South Kensington SW7 3JP
website

Hummingbird Bakery on Urbanspoon

*I desperately wanted a gelato fix at Oddono’s as well, but alas, we ran out of time.

18 Thoughts on “20 hours & 4 restaurants: Inamo, Lantana, Sketch, Hummingbird

  1. WAY.TO.GO!

    Admirable stamina and food capacity…

  2. oh my…..did Ying have to roll herself into the plane?

  3. haahah! i remember the 1988 expo AND Mampi! OMG Mampi! how is he? when we go back to london am going to all those places!

  4. spaghetti: thank you, thank you very much 😉

    vix: haha I think she may have. And I may have convinced her to come back to London just to eat some more!

    mc: Mampi was a GIRL! I’m pretty sure she had a husband called Wampi and a son called Shang, which.. didn’t you have Shang? And I do realise people reading this are going to think I am completely bonkers.

  5. Oink! Scared of you and your voracious appetite now. What are you going to be like at Koba tomorrow?! Great photos by the way, what do you need the Leica for?!

  6. sounds like a great trip

  7. Tiffany on August 12, 2009 at 11:54 am said:

    Sounds epic!

  8. Helen: Oink indeed haha, don’t be scared, as long as you let me have my own yook hwei 🙂

    justcooknyc: I live in London, this is how I eat all the time.. and I am going to be a fat lard ass very very soon.

    Tiffany: Magnanimous!

  9. im not sure how you did it. I had problems when I tried doing that in Sydney!
    Kudos to your HUGE APPETITE!

  10. LOL! Yes, I did eat all the food plus more. I had half a roast duck by myself the very same night. I only wish that Inamo had given me more rice to soak up the miso sauce 😛

  11. Wow, great post and great gastronomic tour for your friend (and you!). I have been meaning to get to Inamo for what seems like forever now – have to go! Lantana is also on my to-do list for breakfast/brunch one of these weekends. Thanks for the reviews.

    Best regards,

    LF

  12. Maylin on August 13, 2009 at 12:39 pm said:

    OMG, we should have Shang at home at my mum’s place somewhere…. shish… need to go find Shang. where is Mampi, by the way? dear me… now everyone is gonna think your family is bonkers. we all talk the same.

  13. penny: oh my Lord, Sydney is another amazing eating city. When I’m back, you should visit and I’ll take you on a grande eating tour 😉

    Ying: thanks for confirming! now we’re cleared up that I’m not a sociopathic exagge-ma-rator crazy lard ass blogger 🙂

    Laissez Fare: what can I say, Inamo and Lantana – YOU HAVE TO GO.

    Maylin: LOL, Mampi I *think* is in a box I parents place. Unless they’ve chucked her 🙁 or pimped her out 😉 We are totally bonkers indeed!

  14. Chooken on August 19, 2009 at 4:45 am said:

    This was all in celebration of my birthday right? 😛
    I am writing you a nice long email tonight…miss you chooken!

  15. chooken: of course it was in celebration of your birthday 😉 eagerly awaiting your email!

  16. I like twilight! I could sit and watch all day long if I didn’t have school..or life to keep me from doing it! lol Superb Just Wonderful!

  17. great post and excellent photographs

  18. Oh my, just read this again & it brought back amazing memories! Miss you & our food adventures, Or mostly me following you to various restaurants. Let’s eat again soon. xo

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