Restaurants

the site sukes

We recently went to Amaya during our first visit to London and had an unforgettable meal. It was one of the highlights of our trip.

M.moss - your argument falls over at the first hurdle!!! If you object so much to the resources it takes to produce wheat, you'll be comforted to know that 70% of grain and cereals grown in the US are fed to animals reared for the meat industry. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat. According to Compassion in World Farming, about 20% of the world's population could be fed with the grain and soybeans fed to US cattle alone!! On top of this, a 2006 United Nations report summarised the devastation caused by the meat industry by calling it "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." Need I say more?!

i used to live in Snaresbrook, England and The Carvery was a great resturaunt!

Taylor - Is that a joke? I hope for your sake it is. Otherwise it means that you have more money than sense or taste with no intelligence to recognise it. Do you live in Fulham?

it really bothers me the way that ciprianni, zuma, nobu, jaks ( the most amazing well priced food i have ever had in my life on walton street) are not mentioned. I should be a bloody critic

Hey, i think the following places are worth a shout for ultra cheap eats...all up the west end
Bodean's, best burgers in town from 5quid with chips.....
Indian YMCA...unfussy authentic indian food, curries from 3quid...
Rasa,,,,South Indian food....there lunch box menu is really amazin
Icco....pizza from 3.50.and they are actually really nice...much better than pizzahut....though that wouldnt be hard
Italia Uno(charlotte st)amazin meatballs with rice for

Make sure it's a single ticket down to Brighton though 'ey..

Don't know who the idiot is going on about 50billion cattle?!
but he has no idea of what it takes to produce a ton of wheat.
Start with the water;the pesticides loaded with chemicals,the fertilizers which require a ratio of 10 kilos of oil to produce 1 kilo of fertilizer;and so on.Producing 1 ton of wheat eats up tons of oil that has to be transported and refined and then turned into fertilizer as well as the pesticides.The machines that gather the wheat;chafe it and grind the seeds also need to be made requiring tons of steel and they have engines that run on oil.Then the wheat needs to be packed by more machines and shipped by other machines all using steel and oil.
So there is no "holier" food source in terms of the environment between meat and vegetable/grain.And if you think "natural" fertilisers are the answer,then you are talking about using excrement-human or animal.Thus proving once and for all that organic vegetarians are full of s***.

Why not just jump on the train at Victoria and hop off at Brighjton - Terre a Terre serves the most delicious vegetarian food you can imagine. I'm an omnivore btw.
End of.

Good points L., and rationally made!

I feel that the Time Out management don't appreciate that reviewers who are not vegetarian often don't know much about vegetarianism and aren't well placed to assess how good - or bad - vegetarian restaurants are - the gaff about duckling is a case in point. There IS a need for food to be prepared separately from meat-based dishes (the range of bacteria that the different foods typically carry is very different so mixing worksurfaces, utensils, etc. can give the chance of severe food poisoning - not good practice!) Dishes typically made with the flavour coming from meat-based stocks, or cream, or eggs, ARE often unpleasant when these are just taken out with no other changes, and this is often what chefs, trained to cook with cream, eggs, etc. often do when they 'cater' for vegetarians. Instead, good vegetarian cooking sometimes relies on very subtle flavourings, perhaps with very little salt, or very fresh vegetables cooked very conservatively with spices, and someone used to the harsher flavours of red meat or fish won't appreciate this.
And yes, it may rile people but there are currently 15 billion cattle across the world consuming water and grains and soya (that could feed people) and converting it inefficiently to meat for (mostly) the wealthy countries, and thousands of (now getting richer) people in developing countries who want to eat like lucky rich Londoners - so signs that small portions of meat, or dishes with no meat, are 'trendy' in London would be one way to help head off (the predicted) 30 billion cattle (and the environmentally disastrous conditions their rearing, killing and transporting would bring about) in 2050.
Time Out DOES needs a shake up in its attitude to what is good food. (and don't get me started on what they consider a 'reasonable' price!)

Might as well chuck in my tuppence ...
Even if us omnivores do need to try and east more 'sustainably' (which is arguable, but I'm fairly happy to go with it) then surely a meal out at a top 50 restaurant in London is a time to push the boat out and eat what you like!
This may not apply to those with large incomes and can't cook/won't cook attitudes of course!

Once more the tiny annoying minority vegementalists seek to make an issue out of nothing.The V's are a minority of the population.The rest of us are omnivores as nature intended.Yet the V's not only want to be catered to everywhere,but seek to foist their bizarre eating habits on the rest of us with spurious arguments about health,the environment etc.Why do the V's expect a vegetarian option in our restaurants,when their restaurants don't provide us with a meat option?Why does the catering industry cater to this fringe crowd?After all there are far many more Muslims in the UK,and restaurants don't provide them with Halal cuisine?Or Jews and restaurants don't offer kosher alternatives? and so on .If you have eating habits that are affected by yr religion,allergies or wierd preferences then go to places that cater for those exclusively and don't bother the rest or us with your constant harping.

St John's is the most over-rated restaurant in London. Emperor has no clothes kinda story.