6. Yasai salad, Asa-Kusa, Camden, NW1

Asa-Kusa is one of those restaurants that looks like a total shit-hole from the outside, but is constantly fully booked because the food is amazing and cheap.  I've introduced various people to it over the years because I like to share - except nowadays I usually can't get a table, which makes me realise that perhaps I don't like to share that much at all. 

If I were rich I'd be thin, I'm sure of it, because every day but Sundays I'd go to Asa-Kusa and eat 10 Yasai salads, and be perfectly content. 

The salad's nice enough - firm broccoli, lettuce, cucumber, (avoid the tomatoes, they're a bit flavourless and wet.)  But it's all about the dressing.  I have begged, pleaded and tried to finagle the recipe out of the woman who runs Asa-Kusa, to no avail.  All I seem to have gleaned is that it has apple in it - which is peculiar, as it tastes not a jot of apple.  It does taste of ginger and sesame and something slightly salty sweet, and is, I believe, the finest salad dressing in London.

Totally delicious.  Everything on the menu here is great - particularly the Saba No Misoni - mackerel in miso, and all the sushi.  Plus, it is cheap as chips for the quality - average spend about £14 without booze.  Inevitably it requires advanced booking, and try your hardest not to sit in the basement, as it smells of damp.

Asa-kusa, 265 Eversholt Street, 0207 388 8533

5. Peanut Butter Ice Cream (Bagigio), Gelatio Mio, St Johns Wood, Holland Park, Belsize Park, Fulham

Who knew?  Who knew that an ice cream that's as good, if not better, than Ben and Jerry's, exists, and is only 3 times more expensive than Ben and Jerry's?

Peanut butter ice cream.  The absolute perfect mid-point balance between salty and sweet, smooth with a few rogue crunches of nut.  Entirely show-stoppingly delicious.

Gelato Mio - make sure you ask for the loyalty card!

4. Hot and spicy lamb, Huong Viet, De Beauvoir Town

A lot of folk rave about Kingsland Road offering the best Vietnamese food in the city, but Huong Viet, which is based in this inauspicious looking community centre about ten minutes from the heart of Shoreditch, wins hands down, and is not full of people in silly fluorescents thinking they're all highly individual.

The starters are all fantastic - particularly the prawn, and the gunpowder pork, fresh rolls, with plum sauce.  They don't look too pretty - well, not the way I've shot them at least - but they taste superb.

But my favourite dish here is the hot and spicy lamb - again, apologies for the un-pretty:

DO NOT confuse this dish with the 5 spice lamb, which is as close to a mistake as you can make on this menu.  No, HOT AND SPICY lamb - fiery, rich, slightly sweet and deeply savoury, with onions, peppers, chillis and tender lamb.  Delicious with their egg fried rice and a cold beer....

(Be warned, the service is slow.  Almost unacceptably slow.   Some of my friends refuse to come here because it's so slow but then some of my friends eat at GBK and strictly speaking should not really be called 'friends' - more 'people I used to go out with')

Huong Viet, 12 - 14 Englefield Road, Monday - Saturday

3. Cheeseburger, Hawksmoor

London's best burger bar none.  A perfectly grilled, thick, juicy Longhorn beef patty, salty sharp melted Ogleshield cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and a superlative brioche-like bun.

The proportions are magnificent - perfect heft, utterly satisfying to hold, even better to sink your teeth in to.

Carnal knowledge, yours for £15 including fries.

Hawksmoor, 11 Langley Street, WC2 and157 Commercial Street, E1.

2. Croquetas at Jose, Bermondsey Street, SE1, aka Golden Balls

There are deep fried ham and cheese balls, and there are deep fried ham and cheese balls that move a girl to quote The Bard.*

These perfect golden ham and cheese balls, aka Croquetas de Jamon y Queso, are served at Jose Pizarro's tapas bar, Jose, on Bermondsey Street. 

'A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.'  That's Shakespeare, not me, but I couldn't have summed it up better myself.  Such lightness!  Magnificent.

Apparently the key is partly in Pizarro's use of olive oil instead of butter in the roux.  There's a recipe for ham croquetas in his book, Seasonal Spanish Food.  I challenge anyone to find a croqueta better this side of Seville.


* (A girl who only has a repertoire of four Shakespeare quotes at her immediate disposal.  To be or not to be doesn't go with tapas...)

1. St John Custard Donuts

Perfection for £2.
Available at St John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields on a Sunday morning, and St John Bakery in Bermondsey on a Saturday morning from 9am.  Interview with the doughnut master here.