E & O

This time last year I was just out the other side of morning sickness but still in the stage where I was awake for five minutes at a time and only then to eat. So for our anniversary we got sushi delivered I had a glass of champagne, felt drunk and nodded off in front of the tele. As Joe said last night he was 'quite dissatisfied as you insisted we watched things saved on the Sky box, not even a movie'. I was perfectly happy but maybe it wasn't the most romantic of anniversaries... I've always loathed the number three anyway.

This year though was four and everybody likes four. I got peonies, my mum babysat and we resisted the urge to go to the trusty gastro pub round the corner and instead went to E & O on Ladbroke Grove - a restaurant I have wanted to go to for the last couple of years due to a colleagues constant ravings and the fact he never ever goes anywhere else.

Now it did have a bit of a head start in that I have barely been out to dinner with my husband in the last year let alone to a properly nice restaurant and I was amazed by the beautiful people having actual fun and drinking cocktails and looking glamerous so the food could have been a bit below par and I probably wouldn't have minded. But the food was absolutely fantastic - the best I can remember having anywhere.

The menu is a mix of dim sum, sashimi, tempura and things from the grill, the portion sizes are just right and everything we had was cooked to perfection and clearly well sourced. I know I'm not an expert but I eat a lot of sushi and I can tell when sashimi is good or not and this was absolutely spot on fresh and delicious.

We had prawn and chive dumplings, chili salt squid and crispy pork belly with black vinegar to start with. The dumplings were the least exciting but still delicious and perfectly cooked, the squid was absolutely perfect, served in a little wrap of newspaper just enough so you felt you got enough but not too much to spoil your appetite for everything else - this and the pork belly were my favourites. The pork was melt-in-the-mouth cooked with beautifully crispy fat and the black vinegar an ideal match.

Next up was the mixed sashimi - incredibly fresh and simple salmon, tuna and mackerel and wild pink shrimp tempura.

I had to stop there - my nil-by-mouth diet has successfully shrunk my stomach and I couldn't fit anything else in but Joe persevered with sesame and soy po choi and chili chicken with pickled cucumber also delicious apparently.

If I had anything to complain about (I always like to find something) the service was slightly slow but ever so slightly and very polite, no one asked me how my food was when I'd had one mouthful and was mid-conversation (I hate that) and the place was heaving so I really can't blame them for being a little on the slow side. All those people can't be wrong - this place is amazing and well worth going to. It's not cheap (the pink shrimp tempura was £18.50) but for a special occasion or if you don't need to worry about such things, it is worth every penny.

 

Minato

Hammersmith is not the first place that springs to mind when you think of great food - there's Indian Zing which is pretty good and you could always walk to Chiswick where there are some lovely places but in fact Hammersmith does a great line in delicious sushi ranging from the affordable lunch in Wasabi to special birthday supper in Minato via fun date night in Yoshi Sushi.

What I love about Minato is that we're usually the only non-Japanese people in there and even though this restaurant is not the cheapest (it's about £25-£40 per person depending on what you have) it is the real deal. Atmospheric with a wide-ranging menu and thoughtful food presentation I can't think of anything I don't love about this restaurant.

We went last night for my mother's 'special' birthday and it didn't disappoint. It's always quite hard to order for six people and include everything that everyone wants so we decided to have three deluxe sushi and sushimi platters and then just add any starters that we personally wanted. These included tasty but unadventurous squid tempura (the batter was slightly heavier than I expect tempura to be but I'm not an expert), salmon and avocado maki, pork dumplings, salmon roe maki, soft shell crab and most excitingly kimchi (a Korean fermented vegetable dish) - which we got brownie points for ordering.

The deluxe platters were just amazing - they arrive on fan shape boards and one was the perfect amount to share between two sushi lovers. Mackerel, salmon, tuna, squid and other sashimi and the most amazing array of sushi I've ever seen some of which I have no idea what they were. Beautifully made, perfectly sized I'm day dreaming about having this for lunch and I only went last night.

The service was charming, helpful and friendly - when we requested a plate of Japanese pickles and were told that they are hard to get since the earthquake in Japan we were bought all the pickles they had left and complimentary miso soup with incredibly tasty seaweed salad to make up for it. We weren't constantly being asked how the food was and I think the only place I've had similar great service is at the River cafe. Highly recommended not only for sushi fans but those who prefer curry, tempura or noodles but especially those West Londoners who feel they are missing out on anywhere good to find it.

The Duke of Sussex

I'm always slightly suspicious of pubs that do food other than pub food. I've accepted the gastro pub and since the smoking ban I actually prefer them... they seem to smell less like innards than pub pubs... well in London anyway. So although I love tapas and it looks like it should be nice I've always been a little suspicious of the Duke of Sussex in Chiswick which famously does a mainly Spanish menu. However, Joe decided I needed to be taken out for a Friday date night there when on Wednesday morning I announced that I felt like I was having a mental meltdown. I was actually pretty impressed with this idea as even though every time we drive past it I say 'I wonder what it's like... it looks nice...' I have been married long enough to know that 99% of these kinds of musings are completely ignored.

On arrival it was as I expected from a swanky Chiswick pub - floor boards, wooden tables, chalk board menus and waiting staff in black shirts (not noticeably referring to political preferences) but there is something compelling about the restaurant area. It is still floor boarded and wooden tabled but there are genuinely old, distressed mirrors around one corner of the wall and the height of the ceiling is accentuated by curved arches, art deco chandeliers and old fashioned sky lights surrounded by painted cherubs. We could have eaten in the large but attractive garden but I whinged about it being cold (and it did in fact rain half way through dinner so there) and the restaurant did feel special and separate from the pub area even though we were right next to it.

Time Out hate this restaurant - they didn't like the food or the slow service - but Time Out users all seem to have much better experiences and give it 5 out of 5. Knowing all this and dining with an ex-restaurant review I was prepared to be open minded bordering on ruthless but I have to say I came out definitely more in the 5 star camp than the other way. We were seated promptly, given menus to look at and the wine list to peruse.

The menu is a really well thought out mix of tapas and larger main courses so you can either have a mix of both or go all out on the tapas. I thought we were doing the latter but Joe had his eye on the seafood paella and as I'm not allowed to eat prawns until November I decided to have marinated skirt steak and chips - not very Spanish but with yummy alioili. So we chose three tapas dishes to share as our starters - chiporones, pinchos morunos and chorizo con huevos.

Chiporones are basically calamari but not rings of squid they are just bits of the small squid fried. These were yummy and although I like mine as battery as possible these were done just enough to be tasty without making you feel like a heart attack was imminent - less naughty than I'm used too but very appropriate to start off a big supper. I was against getting the pinchos morunos, marinated beef skewers, as I was having steak for my main course - traditionally these are made with marinated pork but this beef version was absolutely delicious and I would definitely have again even with a whole steak coming later. Chorizo con huevos - chorizo sausage with eggs - was probably the weakest of the tapas that we tried but still delicious, it's just that I've had better, but that was in Spain so that's probably not really fair!

Joe's seafood paella looked and smelled delicious and contained enough prawns, clams and mussels to justify it's title. Maybe I'm a cynic or I've been living in London too long but I am no longer surprised when dishes like this arrive with barely a smattering of the good stuff - I frequently get Greek salad with one small cube of tasteless feta. But this really did looked and tasted like the real deal. My skirt steak was beautifully marinated and cooked medium rare automatically. As much as I like the courtesy of being asked how I like my steak cooked (rare... very rare) I really respect chef's who know how they want their food to be eaten. Risky but worth it in my mind.

We were too full for pudding so we sat happily sipping the rest of our wine - very nice Spanish red that I can't remember the name of. One thing I would say is the service - although mostly prompt we were left waiting to order a drink for quite a long time and when we were being served the staff seemed stressed and as if we were slightly taking up their time. Never were they impolite but I slightly felt that perhaps the Duchess of Cambridge was sneakily sitting at another table they had been sent into a flustery tail spin. Our food was all on time - we arrived just before 8 and were ready to leave at 9.30 having taken lots of time over our food and wine - there was just something about the staff that made me feel slightly like their lives would have been easier if we weren't there. Sort of understandable (but never acceptable) in a massively busy, London restaurant but we were one of three tables when we arrived at the Duke of Sussex so a little surprising there.

A definite contender for future birthdays - I think this would be a great place to meet for dinner and then drinks afterwards - you'd feel well fed and relaxed and could move into the lovely pub area for drinks after. I really enjoyed it, will definitely be going back and what was so lovely about this pub was the lovely atmosphere and having a menu where I could immidiately see a whole dinners-worth of other things I wanted to try out.