Sometimes there are those restaurants that you walk past time and time again and promise yourself that you’ll go into one day, but you never quite take the leap and go in. Corean Chilli was definately one of those restaurants, it had against it that it’s too close to Leicester Square, has too many gimicky lights on the outside, and probably confuses most with the Corean spelling rather than Korean.

If you stop to look through the window though, you notice that the majority of customers are Korean or oriental, and the food looks amazing. I don’t know how most people gauge quality of food, but if the natives are eating it usually it’s a safe bet! Gary and I finally took the leap a few months ago and it’s become our new favorite.

First things first, it can get very busy in there on some nights, and the staff don’t all have a great grasp of English so if you want good service then it’s worth making their lives easier by pointing out on the menu what you want as well as saying it to them. Second, it’s a Korean restaurant and that is their speciality, but they also serve other oriental food and don’t clearly mark which is which on the menu. We’ve always been quite good at picking out the Korean dishes but some friends of ours were not so lucky and ended up with a rather bland dish of noodles.

Personally, my favorite combination so far was what I tucked into last night:

• Osam bulgogi (Strips of fried pork belly and sweet and spicy squid)
• Fried spicy tofu
• Plain boiled rice
• Cucumber kimchee
• Korean tea

All of the bulgogi (literal translation: “fire meat”) dishes arrive in front of you in their dishes sizzling away with the gorgeous smells wafting up, so you definately can’t go wrong there, the combination of the soy, garlic, sesame oil, scallions and chilli give you a really flavoursome but not too spicy sauce that I shamelessly mop up with the boiled rice when I’ve run out of meat.

The fried spicy tofu won’t appeal to everyone, but if you can stand tofu at all then I’d give it a go, I was so amused by how crispy they’d managed to get the tofu on the outside and yet how soft it was on the inside, that and the kick of chilli sauce finishing it off perfectly.

Wash it all down with some lovely Korean tea which seems to have hints of ginger, and you’re all set.

If you’ve seen any negative reviews about the staff or service at Corean Chilli, it’s worth mentioning that when I dined with a group of friends from work, we were sat next to the owner of the restaurant who speaks barely any English, and whilst eating his own dinner he stopped Ben from tucking into his vegetarian Bibimbap to tell him to put some chilli sauce to put in, and also to pour in some miso soup first then mix it all up before eating. If that’s considered rude, then there are some seriously skewed perspectives out there!

My wallet has been stung fairly badly by restaurants recently, so last night whilst catching up with a friend we opted for one of the special offers that many restaurants have been floating around since the credit crunch kicked in.

The promise? A 3 course meal and a Kir (which I had to look up on Wikipedia, blackcurrent liquor and wine) for £15, which is a pretty good deal in the grand scheme of things. I’ve walked past the Boulevard Dining Room on Old Compton Street many times but never really paid much attention to it, and probably won’t in future either.

Picking a starter and a main was difficult, because neither seemed particularly suited to the other, I think a lot more attention could be spent on producing a menu that flows rather only really permitting some really awkward combinations. After much deliberation I ended up having:

• Chilli with nachos
• Minute streak with fries
• Vanilla cheesecake

I have to say I wasn’t greatly impressed with the food, it was okay, but not fantastic. I realise that you get what you pay for in most places, so I really shouldn’t expect more for £15, but if the quality of the food on offer is bad, what does that say about the quality of the food on the standard menu?

In terms of atmosphere, the music was very “Soho”, and not really my thing. It felt more like a bar trying to be a restaurant trying to be a bar. It’s all a bit confusing what it’s actually meant to be.

If you’re desperately hungry and you’re short on cash, then you probably wouldn’t regret giving it a shot, but I wouldn’t bother going out of your way to dine there.

I’d almost forgotten about Souk Medina after having briefly stopped by for tea and baklava with Gary on some random cold evening last year, but as soon as Chris began describing where he was planning to have his birthday, I began to recall the delicious smells that were wafting past us as the waiters brought in huge trays full of food for other guests.

On Friday I finally got the opportunity to sample the food for myself! We were there as a large group for Chris’ birthday, so we had the entire front room upstairs to ourselves with comfy sofas, nice tranquil lighting and colourful decor. Gary and I arrived a bit later than everyone else, plainly because I’d forgotten where the restaurant was, so we had to speak up a few times before our Souk cocktails (essentially a mojito only with figs in it) arrived.

Food service was fast and frequent, we’d ordered the set menu to cater for all 11 people that had showed up, and there were definately some nice parts to the menu, but it wasn’t as mind blowing as the smells that had lured me in last time.

The set menu promises quite a lot to the taste buds:

• Vine leaves
• Humous with pitta bread
• Batata harra (sauteed spicy potato cubes)
• Calamari
• Couscous
• Merguez (lamb sausages)
• Lamb tagine (with prunes and almonds)
• Chicken tagine (with saffron and herbs)
• Spinach and feta tagine
• Chickpeas tagine
• Mixed fish tagine

The starters were lovely, vine leaves were tasty, humous was really nice, the spicy potato was fun and had a delayed kick to the spicyness which was quite fun, but the calamari was a bit on the rubbery side and I wasn’t that keen on the sauce that it was served with, nor was anyone else as we were all offering our calamari to each other at the same time! In fairness to them though, they did bring us another round of vine leaves, humous and pitta to make up for it.

The tagines were excellent, the chicken was really tasty, the lamb was a little too sweet for my liking but was still delicious and just melted in your mouth, and the merguez was pretty good too, I wasn’t too fond of the mixed fish tagine or any of the veggie tagines, and the couscous was really plain and unflavoured which was a bit of a shame.

For dessert we had two rounds of baklava (okay really, it was only me that had two rounds of baklava and ended up going home with a stomach ache) and some mint tea, I absolutely love baklava, you just know it’s so bad for you.

Amidst the feast, we were treated to a belly dance, though I’m not sure that she appreciated the fact that we all burst out laughing when she managed to move her boobs individually on their own, that’s definately a talent to put on your CV!

Overall, a mixed bag of an experience, if the food was more consistantly great then it’d be a definate winner. Also it’s a real shame that the smoking laws prevent you from using a hookah indoors, we could smell the apple tobaco from indoors and wanted to try some for ourselves but didn’t really fancy having to go outside in the cold to do so.

A few weeks ago Chris and I were going to take advantage of Time Out’s deal at Benihana’s Piccadilly which offered their 7 course main meal for £19.00 which comes in considerably cheaper than a standard meal off the menu, only to arrive and find out that online booking isn’t quite as reliable as you’d hope and that our booking hadn’t been confirmed.

After trying again by booking over the phone, we secured a booking on the last day of the offer, hurrah.

If you don’t know about Teppanyaki, it’s origins are from Japan, where food is cooked in front of you by a talented chef over a Hibachi grill, usually accompanied by flaming mountains of onion rings, tricks performed with the utensils, flicking food into peoples mouths, and lots of crazy barely coherant singing.

It’s apparently a bit of a tourist thing over in Japan, and having been for Teppenyaki three times so far I can kind of see why you’d get bored of it if you went too often, it’s good for parties and the like.

Anyhoo, in terms of quality of food, the menu at Benihana didn’t disappoint, whilst sipping on some hot sake we were presented with the following seven courses:

• Benihani’s Japanese onion soup
• Salad with ginger dressing
• California roll (I had to ask for wasabi, the shame)
• Hibachi vegetables (onion, shitake mushroom, courgette)
• Egg fried rice with vegetables
• Fried salmon with ginger dressing
• Rare steak with mustard dressing
• Side vegetables (bamboo shoots mostly)

All in all the menu was pretty filling and everything was cooked beautifully, but it was a bit disappointing that we were offered forks, and we had to ask for wasabi, there’s nothing I dislike more than being treated like an idiot when you’re in a place that serves Japanese food.

Our chef was pretty boring, failing to really engage with us or perform any tricks other than the onion ring volcano, but chefs at other tables were getting cheers and causing mayhem with fire, so like most Teppenyaki places I guess it was just luck of the draw.

Overall, if you’ve got the cash or there is a special deal on then you’ll probably enjoy Benihana, otherwise you’ll probably be better off going to the smaller and generally more fun Sen Nin Teppanyaki in Islington (formally known as Ah-So).