Peckham Bazaar - Consort Road, SE15

One top tip for bloggers out there if you wan't to avoid writers block; never read a review of a restaurant by a much better writer before trying to write your own...  Faye Maschler went to try Peckham Bazaar the day after us and ordered more or less identically.  She put it much better than I could with some lovely words and I recommend you read dem words here.

Silk Road - Camberwell Church Street, SE5

Silk Road does lot's of things really bloody well but fuck me the lamb shish is just amazing.  Smokey, salty, cumin skewered lamb with a little bit of chilli.  Each nugget of lamb next to a nugget of creamy fat...

Noa - Upper Street, N1

Is there anything more noble than kebab meat and chips?  Noa on Upper Street in Islington is one of my new favourite kebab houses and I've eaten there quite regularly in the last few months.  The doner meat is exceptional; crisp, tender, and perfectly fatty.

Mangal 2 - Stoke Newington Rd, N16

A few months ago I moved away from Victoria and I’ve been feeling something akin to withdrawal.  For a long time I’ve had a two kebab a week habit at the frankly excellent Cyprus Mangal and I am need of a fix!

You want Sauce? Dirty Kebab House Chilli Sauce

 

If you are anything like me you are probably not much a stranger to the humble Kebab.  It’s a long standing favourite of mine and the combination of meat and spice satisfies like nothing else after a few drinks.

Cyprus Mangal - Warwick Way, SW1

The perfect Doner

I’m a simple man, I get excited by simple things and one of those is a proper Kebab. Something about the sweet scorched meat, crisp and juicy at the same time just gets me salivating like a fatty eyeing up a Mars bar.

Ephesus Mangal - Bishopgate, Leeds

Sometimes things go so well and so right you are just amazed by the outcome... Leeds is a great party town but in my mind suffers a dearth of those little places that make a boozy night out end really well!

I’m not on about clubs and late night Whiskey bars, I’m on about the great little restaurants that look like hell but serve the best post pub food you could ever hope for...

I found a good one at last, so good I’ll be going back during the day. Ephesus Mangal is an amazing Turkish place in the Dark Arches (next door to Fry Ups) near the Leeds city train station.

It used to be a newsagents and has what we’d call beaten up charm about the place. Plastic table cloths, wooden chairs and you can see a chef preparing food whilst sat on an office chair.

None of this matters when you walk in though, you are met with this most delicious smell of meat cooking on a charcoal grill, they have a counter to display the kebabs in all their meaty glory as well as you walk in so immediately you know you are in for a treat.

The menu is what you’d expect... Grilled meats! Starters though come in hot and cold.  We went for the Patlican (Aubergine dip) with Bread and a Feta and Filo pastry dish.

The pastry was lush but completely overshadowed by the amazing Patlican also a dish of fresh tomato and oil was brought over to add another dish of dipping goodness to the spread.

The mains were immense... 2 large Cop Kebabs skewers (little cubes of Lamb) and 2 large Chicken Kebab Skewers, both were served huge plates of salad and rice. Now given that I’d been to the pub before hand and the place is BYOB I was starting to get a little hazy by this point.

The meal came to about £20 which was great and all was served incredibly quickly and professionally. Needless to say I’d missed my bus as I’d left it too late and ended up walking half the way home till the next one came but I was drunk and stuffed so It didn’t matter at all!