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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.

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 @bonatauk .

Rating of 8 out of 10.

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

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…

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Yet another chicken shawarma.

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?

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.

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?

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.

A crisp salad came with it too, all fresh.

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

7 out of 10.

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.

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 @lockhouselondon on Paddington basin, it was a pleasant time with a pint of Steady Rolling Man in the very warm sunshine. ☀️

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.

At least the bread was good quality.

Damn, easily the worst meal I’ve had around here.

I did enjoy my beer in the sun though.

Rating of 3 out of 10.

Yo 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.

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.

Hola! 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.

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.

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.

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.

Last Wednesday was just one of those days where everything went right.

No 15 minute wait for a circle line… straight on! 😱
Had the perfect corner desk at work so I could look at lingerie models without anyone seeing. 😬
England won a semi final… again!😱😱

And I went to The Bear…who easily have the best beer range in Paddington, around 15 different beers on draught of all types, maybe more…I didn’t count. Some are a bit pricey and the one I wanted, by Pressure Drop was out.

I settled for a pint of Yes, a decent session IPA… I couldn’t have anything too strong with my 1:1 straight after lunch… I’m still deluded enough to think a promotion isn’t impossible this decade.

Food is mostly burgers, or some sides of the sort that come with burgers, like chips.

Burgers are not my favourite cuisine but I enjoy them enough, and this more than most. I had the Cajun chicken burger, plenty of Cajun sauce, a little avocado and lettuce, a decent brioche bun that didn’t fall apart… important to someone who gets annoyed eating sloppy burgers.

And the chicken was good too, freshly cooked and marinated, plus a nice tang afterwards but not too much.

Chips were slightly more fries, salty and crispy… about as good as they get.

Extra points for Stokes ketchup instead of cheap shit…and 4 different types to choose from.

High scores from me. An 8.3 out of 10.

Great pub, super beers and top burgers. What more do you want? 😍