Goodbye Cafe Van Gogh and Welcome to Sirenas Restaurant

I heard on the grapevine recently that Cafe Van Gogh (based out of Christ Church at the top of Brixton Rd in SW9) has closed. I know it's not strictly in SE11, but it seems a number of Kennington locals venture out in this direction quite often, and say that it will be sad to see it go.

On the other hand, apparently Sirena's (a popular Italian restaurant, with a branch in Black Prince Road) have opened a new branch in the Kennington Park Business Centre. The Business Centre is at 1-3 Brixton Road, London SW9 6DE. I believe Sirenas is only open Monday - Friday (8am - 5pm), making it rather tricky for me to drop in and sample the fare. No doubt some of you will do it for me...

It occurs to me quite regularly that if you're fortunate enough to be Lurking about SE11 during the day, it is a very different experience from Lurking About at the weekend and in the evenings. A different set of people live and move and have their being. One could almost go as far as saying that the area becomes an entirely different place. If you've observed anything noteworthy that occurs during the day that you'd like to see mentioned, drop me a line, because I probably don't know it's going on.

Ghandi's Restaurant

The three-wheeled pleb was accompanied this week to Ghandi's Restaurant. After visiting a friend in Vauxhall, and being hungry after work, we did the unthinkable and ate out during the week...

We visited at about 10pm and were seated immediately. Service was fast, food did not take long to arrive, but when it did.... Mmmmm. I particularly liked the fact that they did not serve too much food; the portions were very well sized. We started by ordering Poppadoms, and received two of them (there were two of us) with some great sauces, especially a slightly sweet mint yoghurt sauce. I do wonder though, whether two male diners with large appetites might not have needed a little more. Nonethless, we managed not to ruin our appetites by stuffing ourselves with poppadoms, which is our usual bad habit when visiting Indian restaurants...

We followed the Poppadoms with Karahi Chicken, Chingri Jhol (a prawn dish), pilau rice and peshwari naan bread. The coffee was great, and I enjoyed a lassi. Both of the main dishes were very subtly flavoured. The chicken arrived still sizzling at the table. The prawn was a little hotter than expected, but again, stuffed with flavour.

The service was excellent. We did not feel neglected or swooped upon. Also, we didn't have to book, and walked in at 10pm to be seated immediately. We kept glancing around, looking for famous people, but concluded that we would probably not recognise famous people even had they been seated next to us (which, as far as we know, they might well have been). The only way we'd have known that they were famous would have been if we'd recognised a voice from Radio 4! And besides which, we're not shallow enough to be impressed by famous people... oh no. So, after the hot towel treatment, we paid the bill (very very reasonble) and vowed to visit again with some friends.

Top marks to Ghandi's Restaurant!