Paddington Lunch Box

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  • The Cheese Barge

    The Cheese Barge

    So I went to the same place two weeks in a row, The Cheese Barge.

    What gives? Well, I try to keep my lunches under £15.00 (at least on average), and you could easily tick into the £20+ mark here at The Cheese Barge as there is far too much temptation.

    Also there was just far too much choice, there were far too many dishes that I wanted. A review of The Cheese Barge, in this silly little blog really wouldn’t suffice with just one dish.

    Week one – oh glorious sunshine, oh glorious terrace on top of the barge, was about the cheese toastie.

    I wanted to love this, but it was more of a like – the golden toast itself was buttery and delectable, though the main flavour came from the honey (chilli honey but cannot say my previously spice-deranged tongue noticed the chilli).

    The bacon was good quality but didn’t add much context, and the mozzarella lacked flavour…but DURRGGGH, of course mozzarella isn’t especially flavoursome, but it is delightfully gooey.

    For week two, alas it was cloudier but my lunch was one step up from the week before. Like, in an ideal world I’d share 3 dishes between 2 people at lunch, but nobody else in my team seems to want to venture more than 20 metres away from the office at lunch. Unless they go for…a run…urgh.

    Anyway, the butternut squash was really creamy, the spätzle is kind of like gnocchi in texture and was as buttery as described on the menu. The pecorino added a cheesy tang, and the bits of crispy sage were a delight.

    The Cheese Barge is a gorgeous spot for lunch in summer, chilling on the canal, with some rather ace food too.

    Maybe my score is around an 8 out of 10.

    Oh and the service is really welcoming. Do go, but leave a table for me on the top please.

    Oh oh oh and before I go. What did the cheese say to the mirror?

    Helloumi.

  • La Tazza Cafe

    La Tazza Cafe

    Back by zero popular demand, it was time to visit La Tazza Cafe – a very unassuming cafe on Praed Street.

    Alas finances meant 6 months of Gregg’s sausage rolls for lunch, along with the odd M&S sandwich as a special treat, plus fuck walking around in the winter weather on a lunch break, when I could be reading something fascinating like the history of tariffs.

    La Tazza Cafe is a very standard cafe, seemingly run by a young couple, serving fully functioning food – or at least it looked like.

    The difficult with these places is that it is hard to tell what they do best.

    Offerings included salads, breakfasts, steak, paninis, pizza, pasta, omelette, jacket potatoes, fish and chips…I went to a restaurant recently that served one single main. Which was easy…and exceptional.

    But what to order here? Definitely not a steak, pizza should be from a proper pizza shop (maybe there was a hidden pizza oven…who knows), paninis I can have anywhere around Paddington…

    Service was friendly, and there was plenty of seating for lunch – albeit at the later end of the lunch period. I ordered a chicken Caesar salad which took around 10 minutes to arrive.

    There was a sizeable bowl of fun to be had, the lettuce was crisp, the chicken plentiful if not especially juicy, the Caeser sauce more notable in terms of mayonnaise and parmesan than anything else. Some cucumber added the crunch – though I always though Caesar salad was supposed to come with croutons?

    Oh well. And you know this salad was screaming out for some Sicilian tomatoes, but I was never going to be offered that here. Maybe supermarket tomatoes…I expect they would have added if I had asked.

    £11.00 for a Caesar chicken salad and 20 minutes on a plastic seat isn’t too bad value nowadays, and the portion size was generous.

    It’s unlikely I’ll go back to La Tazza Cafe unless I’m craving a jacket potato, but likewise I don’t regret going.

    6.2 out of 10.

  • Bonata

    Bonata

    After a week in the sun it feels like a lifetime ago but I did find a little gem before I went away – Bonata, on the little road that used to end in Pergola.

    Apparently a Middle Eastern Mediterranean fusion grab and go concept, if the term fusion doesn’t scare you like it does me… almost as much as the phrase “we need to change our corporate culture”, you rock up and pick a grains or salad base, then add some meat (or not), followed by multiple sides and a sauce.

    It’s a shame I couldn’t be arsed to post this the same day as my memory is now stretched, but I had a spinach base, with some harissa lemon chicken thighs – which were succulent and flavoursome.

    Followed by butter beans, tomatoes, cucumber and a spicy harissa dressing.

    Was a little spicy (more would have been fine), everything was fresh, good quality ingredients…yeah I enjoyed Bonata.

    Rating of 8 out of 10.

    I do wish I had smuggled a proper knife and fork from the kitchen at work though.

  • Granier

    Granier

    Ahhh another day in a very noisy office, and even had the joy of someone on deodorant detox next to me. Someone take me back to Spain…maybe to Granier…

    Well. I made it to Granier bakery which surprisingly is the same chain I saw in Malaga last year.

    There’s an impressive range of cakes in the window, and smoothies also on offer. But this is a lunchtime adventure so I was sandwich focused.

    Selection of sandwiches

    After asking the lady behind the counter for her favourite, I then ignored her and went for the chicken with peri peri focaccia sandwich.

    The toaster was a little bit more effective as my colleague’s nonexistent deodorant, it came hot if not especially toasted after around 10 minutes under the grill. How so long?

    Chicken breast was decent, peri peri was just on half the sandwich.

    Inside the chicken peri-peri sandwich

    It was reasonable but maybe I should have gone for a bagel. Like the lady recommended.

    Priced at £6.95 I think so not too much lost.

    Rating of 6.50 out of 10. I might go back next year. I might not.

    So how do you tell a hotdesking colleague you’ve never met before, that deodorant is a thing?

  • Vapiano, Paddington

    Vapiano, Paddington

    A brief story about Vapiano, but first…ahhh don’t you love it when you arrive on the platform and your tube leaves…and the next one is in a mysterious amount of time that ends up being nearly 20 minutes. 🤬

    Another one of those commutes but at least ordering my lunch at Vapiano was blissfully simple. Order on an app, pay on the app and it turns up 10 minutes later. Super smooth and perfect for lunchtime.

    Menu at Vapiano

    The menu pretty much consists of pasta, pizza and salad – I went for the latter, and there is a lunchtime deal for just £9.95 on selected dishes. 😎

    I had the chicken Caesar salad…not an especially high amount of chicken, maybe a quarter of a chicken breast, but tons of kale, of course.

    Chicken Caesar salad, plenty of parmesan on top

    It actually worked well, the cheese, light dressing and the edible croutons made a good match. Would have loved more chicken but I guess that’s why they try to upsell on the app.

    Rating of 7.3 out of 10.

    I’d go back… colleagues eating pizza and gnocchi, respectively, seemed happy too.

    Wall with a sign "recipes are made to be broken" in a modern looking place
  • Cleopatra

    Cleopatra

    Yet another chicken shawarma, this time at Cleopatra.

    In my defence, it’s been a while and I’ve never had an Egyptian chicken shawarma.

    Cleopatra is an Egyptian restaurant on Praed Street, selling very affordable food – just £8.50 for this and they didn’t charge a sitting down tax.

    Good job I sat down as it wasn’t very elegant to eat, the wrap couldn’t hold it together so I resorted to knife and fork for a wrap. English weirdo, aha.

    Chicken was tasty, wrap itself was pretty ordinary and the salad a bit too fruity and tangy for my tastes. Perhaps I should have ordered it with fries instead.

    I think it’s worth a 7 out of 10.

    I’d go back again but order from the hot mezze section which is where the most interesting dishes seem to be.

    What? I’ve not moaned about the office yet? Have I really forgotten that the air conditioning was broken in August?

  • Taste of Lahore

    Taste of Lahore

    There was only one thing pissing me off more than the commute last week, and that was xenophobic, Islamophobic grunts smashing towns up. So I went to a Pakistani restaurant, Taste of Lahore, for my lunch.

    A smart, clean looking restaurant just opposite the M&S on Edgware Road, they have a very extensive menu as everywhere seems to have around here.

    Menu at Taste Of Lahore

    So I stuck to the specials and the waiter’s recommendation which was the Nihari, plus I ordered some naan bread to go with it…I was getting a vibe of needing to dip bread.

    What arrived was a lamk shank in a huge bowl of gravy…where is this amount of gravy when you go for a Sunday roast in London?

    Nihari - basically a bowl of gravy with a lamb shank and some coriander on top

    The shank itself on the pink side, not the meatiest ever but commendable. The spicy gravy was the stand out part, hot in terms of temperature with a spicy twang. This was of course more fun with the naan…which was decent but didn’t seem especially fresh or homemade. Maybe it was homemade, I’m not going to pronounce myself a naan expert, but it did seem similar in texture to those from M&S.

    Naan in a basket

    A crisp salad came with it too, all fresh.

    Not an especially outstanding meal, which cost around £22, but I’d go back to Taste Of Lahore.

    7 out of 10.

  • Lockhouse, Paddington Basin

    Lockhouse, Paddington Basin

    What a disaster of a commute. My usual train delayed by 15 minutes, then a Circle line that just never turns up. Sometimes I wonder if the Circle line exists. And then I went to Lockhouse.

    Gosh I hate going to the office. Don’t mind being there…but fuck the commute.

    And as you may have worked out, lunch didn’t improve matters.

    Well, the beer did. Sat outside Lockhouse on Paddington basin, it was a pleasant time with a pint of Steady Rolling Man in the very warm sunshine. ☀️

    A beer!

    And then my beer battered haddock sandwich arrived, apparently 1200 calories according to their menu, and definitely £13.50 in price.

    Alas it was more of a salad sandwich. Yep I’d paid £13.50 for a load of salad in two slices of bread, with some puny bits of fish in batter. And of course more batter than fish.

    Tiny bits of haddock, plenty of lettuce and some bread.

    At least the bread was good quality.

    Damn, easily the worst meal I’ve had around here. Well, except that fried chicken at Chicking.

    Side on view of a fish finger sandwich

    I did enjoy my beer in the sun though.

    Rating of 3 out of 10.

  • Bizarro

    Bizarro

    Yo yo Bizarro I was back in the corner of the office trying not to speak to anyone, enjoying the 56kb dial up modem WiFi that we are blessed with.

    And then I went for a bang average Italian at Bizarro near Paddington station.

    They had a million things on their menu as is common in restaurants with no specialities, so I mistakenly ordered from their specials menu.

    I could have had pizza, pasta, loads of different varieties of chicken or veal meals…but ended up going for chicken, peppers, ham and goats cheese special, thinking it might actually be special.

    Nope.

    Carrots and potatoes at the back, some heated up cheese on top of stuff at the front.

    To be fair, the grilled goats cheese actually was quite special, it had some depth to the flavour and a slightly crispy outside.

    Alas the ham was like sliced ham from a pack of 100 slices at Tesco, peppers and chicken were decent enough but it didn’t work well together as a dish. Why such basic ham?

    Average boiled vegetables to the side with slightly tough and dry potatoes, but edible. The tomato sauce was pleasant but nothing special. Nothing really was apart from the name of the corner of the menu I ordered from.

    Quick and friendly service, there was certainly a buzz about the place for 2pm on a Wednesday…if I run out of places to try then I might go back for pizza perhaps.

    Price came to about £19 I think.

    Rating of 6.2 out of 10.

  • Wahaca, Paddington Square

    Wahaca, Paddington Square

    Hola Wahaca! It was kind of sunny and therefore time for Mexican. Si?

    Wahaca has opened in the new Paddington Square development, which is far more than a large office building.

    The restaurant is really bright and spacious inside, perhaps too spacious as they took a while to bring me a menu… maybe they couldn’t see me.

    Small plates menu at Wahaca

    The menu consists of tacos, platitos, quesadillas, tostada and salads…at least for the small plates section. There were larger plates too but I didn’t really consider them.

    Fried cauliflower bites were close to superb but really needed longer in the deep fat fryer… crispy yet lacking a proper golden crunch. The jalapeno alioli added some pleasant warmth and a slight kick…I approved.

    Fried cauliflower with green dip

    Alas the chorizo quesadillas weren’t so delightful…I could pretty much only taste over-caramelised red onion, which had a tang if burnt to it.

    Flat looking quesadillas with a tiny flag sticking out, with a W on.

    It’s a pleasant place, though a tad pricey too…£19 ish including service charge.

    There’s plenty else on the menu I’d like to try…but also plenty other places to try in Paddington.

    Rating of 6.5 out of 10.