City Miyama, Godliman Street (off Knight Rider Court)

We had walked past this Japanese restaurant several times while strolling down Knight Rider Court (the name still raises a smile) just off the North end of the Wobbly Millenium Bridge. It looks OK, but slightly intimidating, so we thought we'd try it first by going in on the weekend for their Saturday as-much-sushi-as-you-want deal.

We arrive outside, check that the offer still applies. It says that there are two sittings and we are 15 minutes early for the second, so we go around the block a couple of times.

When at least we enter, the waitress leads us downstairs to what is apparently the main dinig area. It is all beige except for some quite nice abstract geometrical drawings. The furniture is orthodox late-70s, which wouldn't look out of place at Jackie Treehorn's pad. We explain what we're after and she wanders off. Another waitress arrives with menus and, with some difficulty we order a diet coke and some lemonade.

After a while looking around, another waitress arrives. We explain what we would like, then again, then once more veery slooowwly. Blank incomprehension. Eventually she strolls off and after some time a fourth waitress arrives. Phew. Maybe this one will speak English. But no. While slightly better it still takes us a full five minutes to get across our demand* before we are told that we would have to be upstairs at the sushi bar and we have missed the second sitting.

We pay for our drinks, and leave for Sushi Hiroba, which isn't open on Saturday lunchtime. Eventually we stumble into Moti Mahal.

Will I try again? Probably, but it will take a while to get over this rotten experience.

* The trick, in case any reader would like to try the get food at City Miyama challenge, is to stick exactly with the wording on the sign outside, which is "as-much-as-you-like". Thinking about it, "all-you-can-eat" isn't really a very nice phrase anyway.

Sushi Hiroba, Kingsway

This sushi restaurant opened on Kingsway about nine months ago, and has become fairly successful in that time. Mrs Scoffer is almost as fond of it as I am of curry.

It's easiest to describe by contrast to Yo! Sushi and similar places:

• The decor is dark, with black marbly/granitey surfaces with simple but quite pretty pictures on the (I think) red walls, which means it doesn't share that stark, fast-foody feel that the usual chains have.
• The space is square, and the fairly small kaiten (conveyor belt thingy) is in the middle with two or three smartly dressed (including ties!) chefs preparing food within
• At the left and right of the kaiten are low bar stools, at the back booths which will sit four (only two will be able to reach the belt), and against the walls are tables and a couple more booths if you are confident enough about the identity of the dishes you like.
• There is a private room which can be had for (from memory) about 30 quid an hour and it seems to have karaoke (I deduce this from a sign outside and the absence of TV screens or wailing businesspeople everywhere else).

The food is super. The fish is fresh, and the sushi beautifully presented. The coloured-plate scheme used at Yo! applies here and the prices seem broadly similar, or perhaps very slightly higher. The portions seem more generous though -- maki plates have six little rolls instead of four, and the nigiri have long, thick slices of fish, rather than little translucent postage-stamps.

There is a good range of hot dishes going round the belt, but most of it is cold. They will reheat anything for you quickly, but this doesn't work too well for the tempura, so it's best to watch the belt and request something which isn't already on it!

The waiting staff are attentive, efficient and often really rather pretty. Apparently they are mostly Korean, and ther food is Korean-influenced. We were too ignorant to notice.

Sushi is almost never cheap, but three people can get reasonably fed with beer or tea for a hundred quid and I think the quality of food and pleasantness of experience makes this excellent value. Highly recommended.

Mirch Masala, Commercial Road

We went mob-handed with a colleague who insisted that it has the best kebabs in London. A look at the menu and some reviews made me keen to test this claim.

Mirch Masala is near the East end of Commercial Road, not far off the bottom of Brick Lane, and just over the road from the famous Lahore Kebab House, which our guide says was once great and is now rotten.

The restaurant is clean and bright as we pass by to visit a nearby off-licence. (In common with most Pakistani restaurants Mirch Masala does not sell alcohol.)

When we return, we are shown downstairs, since they don't have a table which will seat eight. Downstairs is clean and bright too, with the same formica tables, and as we descend I can just about see into the kitchen. Downstairs is also freezing cold. We ask for the heating to be put on, but since the door at the top of the stairway is open it doesn't reallly help. I keep my jacket on.

Shortly, we are presented with poppadoms (spicy, holey kind), fresh minty yoghurt (green!) and tomato/chilli dips and menus. We scrutinise the menus until we are reminded that The Guide will Order for us. To start, we share some vegetable samosas, onion bhajis and aloo tikki (none of which reached my corner of the table), chilli bhajis (which, as a Scottish chilli-head I wasn't surprised to like) and two three-piece mixed grills.

While the boozers tuck into their delicious beer, I have a sweet lassi. It is sweet-but-not-too-sweet, yoghurty-but-not-sour and cold. It is full of air and gone in about a minute.

The mixed grill is the real purpose of the visit. It comprises:

• three sheekh kebabs
• three bits of lamb tikka
• three bits of chicken tikka
• three lamb cutlets
• three chicken wings

which I think is not at all bad for twelve quid. (Apparently there's a four-piece option.) And how was it? Pretty good. With the exception of the chicken wings (I suppose impeded by the skin) it was heavily spiced -- sufficiently so to be quite dark in colour (without artificial colouring). The sheekh kebab was quite coarse, which meant it remained moist while I pretended I wanted the others to have their fair share, and offered the occasional lovely surprise of biting into an intact lemony piece of ginger root. The tikka is exactly how I like it -- cooked just to dryness but no more. The cutlets are thin and still tender. Even the chicken wings are good. Did I mention it was only twelve quid?

I would guess that it was not cooked in a tandoor but over a gas-charcoal grill, as it didn't seem to have that clayey dryness that tandoori tends to have. Does it matter? Well, it tastes different but I would say not better or worse. I suspect cooking the volume of kebabs that this place does in tandoors would be like plate-spinning.

We order main courses when we are done with the starters, to give us a bit of digestion time and the better to estimate remaining gastic capacity. We have a mixture of karahi dishes (all the curries are called "karahi something" though there is a certain amount of congruence with the usual English curry menu), including karahi gosht, karahi prawns, karahi chilli chicken and their speciality butter chicken, a few portions of rice and half a dozen plain and peshwari naan.

When it arrives, I realise that I am not that hungry any more. I valiantly fight down a bit of butter chicken (very very buttery, quite sweet, actually not bad for something with no discernable chilli) and then some chilli chicken. This latter is a bit disappointing. The chicken is a bit overcooked (just bad luck I suppose, since the butter chicken was OK) and the chilli, though generous, is just garnish rather than integral to the gravy. I eat itanyway, and it's OK.

After this, I survey the room like an overfed loon wondering if I can fit any more in before giving up and spending the rest of the evening arguing with a pedantic colleague.

The naans don't look too exciting, and I think confirm my theory about not being cooked in a tandoor.

Happy? Pretty much. Will I be back? Yes, but it will be necessary to wrestle with my conscience to decide whether to give the curries a proper go or just to eat tasty grilled meat again.

Moti Mahal, Great Queen Street

The place is a swish-looking Indian restaurant with a rather fetching window display which looks rather like, but sadly is not, several hundred bottles of whisky.

In other respects, the appearance of shiny modernity is more accurate. The menu is short, the furniture simple but posh, the table staff good-looking Eastern Europeans. In one corner of the room is a glass wall through which you can see some of the kitchen.

We were brought chutneys (coriander, mango, and I think onion) and a bowl containing little poppadoms and two halves of a big spicy one.

I opened with Shami Sheekampur, more delicately spiced than curry-house shami with lamb minced much more finely and something like sour cream in the middle. It was garnished with just a bit of coriander, red onion and an alarmingly pokey sprinkle of chilli powder. The wife had Sagar Rattan, seared scallops and crab cakes. It was "nice", "tasty but not very big" and "hot".

I followed with Laal Maas, "spicy lamb curry from Rajasthan" which was a rich, dark, hot (but not stupid) lamb curry. The lamb was OK, though a couple of bits were a touch fatty. Wifey went for Jhinga Tulsi, "king prawns in basil and smoked paprika". The prawns, large and meaty, and about 30 seconds from tandoor to table (we watched through the aforementioned glass wall), came on a bed of chickpeas. However once more the portion disappointed - the prawns were but a pair and the chickpeas few.

To accompany, we had plain rice (plentiful), a zaffrani kulcha (flaky naan, with saffron and sesame seeds) and Baigan Bhartha, "smoked aubergine mash with cumin and green peas" which was plentiful, if a bit bland (which was fine by me, as I think aubergine is rotten stuff).

We didn't have any booze but the wine list looked OK, there was a short list of speciality cocktails and a smashing long list of whiskies including some rare cask-strength ones.

The bill for two courses without booze was pretty heavy at a shade over 60 quid. All things considered, while the service and pleasant surroundings could justify that, the food did not. Since we were one of only two occuppied tables at 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon if you are minded to visit, it may be wise to do so soon, before this place becomes an All Bar One.

Curry Books

There's a bit in Jackie Brown where Bob de Niro, who has just got out of prison has comedy sex with Bridget Fonda. Later, Sam Jackson says (paraphrased - I can't believe it isn't in the IMDB quotes pages) "Did you fuck her? She likes to fuck. It's a shame she isn't very good at it."

Well, that's basically me in the kitchen. I am an enthusiastic but not-very-good cook. With that in mind, there are two books from which I have cooked tasty curries at home.

The first, is the classic The Curry Secret. It gives you recipes apparently used in an actual English curry-house, and explains the principles behind things much more than most cookbooks. The curries are easy to cook, and pretty tasty, but the recipes are based around making industrial quantities of stuff. First, you make two gallons of base for the sauces (a couple of hours of boiling and skimming), then you turn that, some more spices and meat into the tasty curry of your choice (takes about 15 minutes). There are recipes for naan and tandoori stuff which are pretty good though (and they are honest about this) it doesn't work that well without an actual tandoor. However, the explanations for chapathis, parathas, marinades, kebabs, &c. are good and work pretty well. It's only a fiver, so you'd be daft not to add it to your next Amazon order. One tip: you might benefit form doubling the quantities of spices (at least if your spices are not very fresh) and equally reducing the amount of oil might do no harm if you aren't looking for the authentic curry house texture.

(The people who do this also have one called Chinese Cookery Secrets which purports do to the same for Chinese cookery. It is well-written and thorough in its explanations but I haven't actually cooked from it yet.)

The other is Floyd's India. The style is different - here there is almost no preparation (save marination for some dishes) and because there is no standard sauce base the curries vary a lot more than they do in your usual English curry house. Here there are apparently-more-authentic versions of classic dishes like dhansak, rogan gosht and vindaloo, all of which are excellent. The principle here is to make a spice mix (masala), dry or a paste with oil, water or vinegar, fry it, add meat (where involved) and then add liquid and cook. They don't take much more than 10 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes cooking time, and the results have generally been excellent. Also highly recommended.

Temple Bar, Crane Court off Fleet Street

I'm inclined to call this the best English curry in London. I won't, though, because there are too many I have not visited. The purpose of this blog is to sample as many curry houses (and perhaps restaurants of other cuisines) as possible. Work's local curry shop. A very fine establishment. I am biased because I went or had takeaway from there at least once a week for about three years. The staff are capable, and friendly to a familiar face (and presumably to unfamiliar ones but it has been too long since I was one of them). Off-menu orders are fine. After a while, the poppadums disappear from the bill. There seems not a great deal to add to this, but I will expand on the usuals: Sundries

• Poppadoms are fine
• Lime pickle is good, sour and not too salty
• Chilli pickle varies. Sometimes excellent and vinegary, sometimes a little too oily. Overconsumption (not uncommon) can play havoc with the guts though
• Mint yoghurt good
• Salads always ignored, especially when they have been warmed by sharing a bag with takeaway

Starters with which I am familiar

• No interesting specials on the menu
• Mulligatawny soup is good
• Onion bhajis are OK, if unremarkable
• Tandoori stuff is good (see below) though the portions can very in size

Curries

• They are oily, but not like overly so. I would say it's about right, if you aren't on a diet
• The usuals are good. Madras and vindaloo are good too
• I am particularly fond of the dhansak
• The pathia is a lovely sweet and sour thing. One of my colleagues likes lamb pathia, which is Just Wrong, though.
• My favourite is the lamb rezala. Lamb tikka in a slightly dry sauce (made with coconut powder appparently), with fried onions and green peppers and chillies. It can be a bit over-oily

Tandoori

• Tikka is fine. Heavily spiced, coooked until it's just about to turn dry, which is exactly how I like it
• Tandoori chicken is good. Get the whole tandoori chicken to take away and make stock from the bones.
• Sheekh kebab is moist and spicy

Veggies

• Sag bhaji - spinach fried with a lot of garlic. Yum
• Excellent (if slightly oily) chana masala
• Splendid runny, garlicky tarka dall

Other

• They don't ruin the rice
• Naan is a bit heavy, but this is probably better for takeaway. Keema and peshwari naan are better as they are helped a bit by the extra density
• You could beat someone to death with the paratha but it's flaky and buttery as it should be
• Chapathis are good

Basically, if you like "English curry" you should give this place a go.

Tandoori Raj, Red Lion Street, Holborn

Poppadoms: 6/10

• Arrived without prompting, but only one and it was on the bill
• Slightly tired looking onion thing (and with cucumber, so I left it alone)
• Mango chutney tasted OK - not too sugary and nice and sour - but a bit runny so hard too eat on brittle poppadoms
• Lime and aubergine pickle - dry, salty, nice and spicy but a bit hard to eat due to saltiness and general lack of appeal of aubergine

Starter: "Raj Mix" 3/10

• Tiny onion bhaji
• Tiny little bit of lamb tikka
• Tiny little bit of chicken tikka
• Small, clearly from-a-packet, vegetable samosa

Main course: 7/10

• Balti lamb tikka bhuna - at 11.95 tied for the most expensive item on the menu. Taste good, meat very tender. Not a lot of balti (couple of little bits of onion and green pepper, small sprinkling of coriander)
• Came with really excellent naan - light, soft, brushed with butter

Sundry: 7/10

• Tarka dall - nice and sloppy (and a bit buttery, as advertised on the menu) with a bit of hotness, but a bit starchy, garlic raw rather than fried and no onion or mustard seeds

Liquid:

• Big bottle of kingfisher - hard to go wrong
• Noticed bottles of wine behind the bar with custom labels - classy or what?

Value for money: 3/10

• The above was passable enough but not worth 27 GBP exc service. Better food and more generous portions are available not far away at Euston.