An Indian in Paris

Sunday night in Paris. Vegetarian food? Ha! No point in even trying a smart French restaurant for that sort of thing. The best thing to do if you want cheap and veggie in Paris is go ethnic. Moroccan or cous-cous, Indian, Chinese, whatever.
Close to our hotel we found Restaurant Sabraj (175, rue Saint Jacques, 75005 Paris, tel: 01 43 26 70 03). Our main criteria for choosing it? It was covered in hammered and punched tin and copper sheet. The door, the windows, the whole frontage was done in an Indian styled metal makeover. Inside was the same. The tables were old doors covered in glass and filled behind the glass with spices and herbs.
And one thing you see in France that you just don't get in the UK is people dining alone and reading, looking perfectly happy and pretentiously intellectual, as they do so well in France.
What did we eat? Can't remember specifics, but it was creamy soft curries with good spicing, naan breads, etc. It was supposed to be a northern Indian, Kashmiri driven menu, but I don't know enough to judge its authenticity. But it was good.

Jojo's restaurant in Tankerton

Today we had a late lazy lunch in lieu of decorating the bathroom or spare bedroom and chose to spend it at Jojo's in Tankerton. Where you all cry? I heard about this place six months or so ago when it was reviewed in The Observer. Sounded like a nice place and I saw on their website that they were soon to be closing for renovations so we got in quick before they shut for a while.
Phoning up to book a table, it must be a testament to their popularity that over a week in advance, they had one table for two left at 2:30, and on a cold Saturday at the end of January. In a very drab street back from the sea front.
They don't have a license so it's a BYO for £1 corkage. Allegedly The Threshers down the road does a roaring trade off the back of the place. It felt really weird walking up to a restauarant clutching a bottle of wine, like you're arriving at someone's place for a party. But once inside, bottle on table, the waiter/husband/Paul plonked a corkscrew down on the table, leaving us to do the business. The menu (as you can see on the web site) is quite heavily based on Mediterranean small dishes; tapas, mezze sort of thing. Paul suggested the number of dishes to order which we followed and then promptly felt stuffed with. Dolmadas, stuffed risotto balls, patatas bravas, manchego cheese (with some mind-blowingly potent candied pear slices), hummus, breads, olives, etc. The food is cooked in the kitchen right there in the restaurant (it doubles up as the family kitchen outside of opening hours) and arrived in waves. Paul's wife, Nicki, does most of the cooking with an assistant and Paul dishes out the food from the counter to the tables hardly any distance away. It's all one light airy room, decorated with local photographer's prints, wood flooring, etc. The food isn't the best I've ever had, but it is damn good and it's the whole package that makes the place work; the kitchen, the atmosphere, the service, the regulars fetching their drinks from the fridge. Very informal and friendly; they call you by name if they can. When booking they only wanted a first name, couldn't be bothered with the rest.
They're closing very shortly (February 12th) so they can expand downstairs through to the back. But before you think that this is going to ruin the atmosphere of the place, they're going to keep the same number of covers per day. Whereas currently they sit a mere 14 people in two sittings, the plan is to sit the same number but without having to usher the first sitting out to make way for the seconds. So a few more tables (with some more elbow room they say) but the table will be yours for the day.
Worth a visit, definitely. I hope to go back when they re-open and see what the changes have done for it.

Brighton

Went to Food for friends in Brighton today. Haven't been there for years, so it was quite fun to see how much the place has changed. If I recall correctly, it claims to be the oldest veggie place in Brighton and I remember it (from probably ten years back) as being quite a virtuous sort of veggie place, all soya beans and fresh juice drinks sort of thing. In the mean time, Brighton has acquired the fantastic Terre a terre, which has really pushed the envelope in terms of veggie food. So I was curious to see if Food for friends has responded to the challenge in anyway.
Being a a cold New Years Day bank holiday thing, everywhere was busy and buzzing, but luckily we got a table for two whilst other larger parties seemed to suffer a much longer wait. The short menu with about 8 mains seemed at first appearance suggested that vast steps had been taken towards modernising the menu. Closer inspection though reveled layers of tofu buried in some dishes and an alarming preponderance for brown rice. It's all nicely done and listed with fashionably long titles for the dishes but there still lurks the heart of an 80s wholefood cafe inside.
For instance, my "crispy feta cutlet in spiky japanese breadcrumbs, served with a brandy apple sauce and silky caper and white pepper mash" (£9.45) was machine cut square with perfectly applied and even breadcrumbs. I sort of expected something a bit more casual and less converyor belt, a rough lump of feta half oozing out of its coating.
Ah well, not bad, especially for vegetarian food. Maybe I'm being too fussy, but the prices are not cafe style, and the food didn't quite meet expectations. Shame.