Randomness Guide to London

Evening RGLers! This week's featured article is for Simpson's, a venerable old pub in the City which is even older than Jonathan the tortoise. It's closed on weekends but makes up for it by opening early for breakfast during the week - worth a visit if you're after a fry-up in EC3.

A trio of new pages to report: Maria and Aldo's Coffee Bar in Beckenham, a pleasant local cafe with a vintage feel; De-Lites, a small Bengali cafe/takeaway near Shadwell station, and Crystal Palace Market, which is not a market at all, but a busy gastropub-style restaurant and bar. Apparently they do oysters! (I did not try the oysters.)

Finally, in lift refurbishment news, the lifts have now been refurbished at Lambeth North tube, and it's fully reopened.

The blog is taking a short break next week - we'll be back in a fortnight!

Evening everyone! I hope you all found time to do something interesting over the holiday weekend. We're taking a few weeks off for some beer-related investigations, but there's plenty this week to tide you over until then.

Our featured article is for Redemption in Shoreditch, a vegan restaurant with an interesting (and 100% non-alcoholic) drinks menu. I don't think I've ever heard of a cocktail with lettuce in it before, let alone drunk one.

We've been to Swanley! The station is now in TfL zone 8, giving Oystery access to the Greene King-owned Lullingstone Castle pub, the Blue Harbour fish'n'chip shop (big portions, give the peas a miss), The Chef Chinese Restaurant and Sharon's Card Crafts, which sounds like a must-visit for papercrafters.

If for some reason Swanley doesn't float your boat (perhaps you are allergic to swans?) there are new articles for Cafe Adagio in Addiscombe, the Tulse Hill Hotel pub (another Greene King establishment), Pepe Italian Street Food (a pizza/pasta takeaway in Soho), The Finsbury pub near Manor Park station and the Somali Town Restaurant in Streatham, where the menu options have a refreshing simplicity (no lettuce cocktails).

The Mimosa cafe in Herne Hill has had an update following a visit, as has the Old Ale Emporium in Harringay (not to be confused with Haringey) and our old Ewok-village friend in Finsbury Park, the Faltering Fullback.

Finally, one sad closure to report: the lovely old Tudor Rose in Marylebone is going to become a restaurant. When I worked nearby I was always happy to spend time in this pub, especially in winter with its open fire and seemingly semi-permanent Christmas decorations hung all around the walls.

Happy New Year to all our RGL readers!

Our first featured article of 2016 is Fresh Fields Market in Croydon, a supermarket that stocks interesting craft beers, including some on cask.

A whole bunch of new stuff has arrived over the Xmas break: also hailing from Croydon is An Nam, a Vietnamese restaurant in the Wing Yip centre, and just across the Purley Way is Tigris, serving Middle Eastern food. A fast train to Victoria will plonk you outside the St George's Tavern, a large, busy Nicholson's pub which you can book out for events. Moving East to Limehouse, the Husk is a coffee shop and community space run by the London City Mission, just down the road from the Old Ship (a trad pub that still has some carpet left) and Shanshuijian, a Chinese restaurant specialising in a tasty-sounding lamb hotpot.

Holland Park tube station has decided to sit out most of 2016 and get its lifts replaced instead. After hauling myself off the sofa and back into the office today, I have to say don't blame it.