Randomness Guide to London

Evening RGL crew!

This week's featured article is for the Ivy Leaf in distant Dartford. It's a Good Beer Guide pub so there's plenty to drink, as well as that holy grail of pub menus: a decent fishfinger sandwich. Remember how much Sean Connery wanted the holy grail in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade? That is roughly how much I want a decent fishfinger sandwich on an average day.

Some new additions have arrived as well! Soul Flame is a good quality Turkish restaurant in Putney; the Rendezvous Cafe in Beckenham serves their tea on the strong side (unless you make a point of telling them otherwise), while down in Purley, Cafe Blue and Mekan offer cooked breakfasts and Turkish food respectively.

Finally, the InSpiral Lounge veggie cafe in Camden has morphed into a completely different veggie cafe - i.e. they are still extremely unlikely to offer me a fishfinger sandwich.

Evening everyone!

Our featured article this week is for the Old Orchard in Harefield, a large pub with plenty of tasty beer and food. On a nice day you can sit outside and look over the picturesque gravel pits of the Colne Valley, which I last visited around 2001 for a civilised Boxing Day stroll with my parents. Like the Colne Valley, the Old Orchard is a bit of an effort to get to unless you have a car, or live near my parents.

There's an update for the Yardbird in Hammersmith following a recent visit. This particular pub I last visited around 2001, when it was still called The Trout, so I didn't feel the need to form a rock supergroup. As far as I know Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck have never been in a band called The Trouts, but there is still time for them to get on the case.

We have new pages for two drinking establishments in Camden: firstly, a branch of the steadily-growing BrewDog empire, which reportedly has some non-BrewDog guest beers as well as their usual loopy juice. A few steps up towards Camden Town tube station, there's also the somewhat infamous rock pub, the World's End. This particular pub I last visited around 2001, when I got barred for what could be deemed 'rock'n'roll behaviour'. For some reason I can't remember the details but I was probably starting a supergroup in an overenthusiastic fashion. Eric and Jeff could learn from my example.

Morning all!

This week's featured article is for Cirilo, E1 8JG, a small Filipino restaurant in Whitechapel (on the western end of Cable Street). You might just be able to see the DLR go past through the window, as you eat your massive plate of pancit guisado.

We've got new articles for Marylebone's uber-trendy Chiltern Firehouse (great food and cocktails, but massively overpriced), and for the refurbished Betsey Trotwood in Clerkenwell, which despite its new-ish coat of paint remains a cracking little pub and club/gig venue -- unless you have a phobia of Alvin Stardust.

Finally we have one closure to report: the Crown and Goose in Camden.

Have you been to any new pubs, cafes or restaurants this Spring? Let us know about them in the comments and we'll go and check them out.