Randomness Guide to London

Evening readers!

This week's featured article is for Kiraku, a Japanese restaurant-pub combo, near Ealing Common tube station, where the quality of the cooking justifies the above-average price tag.

We have new articles for three veggie and vegan-friendly cafes: the Rail House Cafe in Victoria has some interesting breakfast options, the St Gabriel Ethiopian Delicatessen in Finsbury Park has flavoursome food in big portions, and Cafe Provencal in Herne Hill offers breakfasts and burgers that make up for their lack of structural stability with high levels of tastiness. But wait - there's more new cafe pages! Le Delice in Ladywell sounds like a pleasant, relaxing place to pass the morning, while Morden-based Romanian cafe Time In Ro feels like it should be a pun, but on what, I'm not sure (frankly there's Morden enough puns available in the area already).

Rounding off the week, there's an update to the Ladywell Tavern page following a recent visit, while the Gowlett pub in Peckham ('East Dulwich borders') has closed down.

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.

Afternoon everyone! A slight hiccup disintegrated last week's blog post, which would have had Nunhead's Beer Shop as the featured article. Who knows what Ewan would have written about this new micropub/bottle shop? Well, he wrote the article being featured so you can have a decent guess. Instead I will tell you about this week's featured article, which is for Vijay in Kilburn, a South Indian restaurant which claims to be the first such restaurant to open in the UK (in 1964). It does a decent mathanga erissery along with other vegetarian, meat and fish specialities. Apparently the Indian cricket team have been known to pop in for a biryani following a hard day's batting at Lord's...

There are updates to the articles for the George pub and Mirch Masala (both in Croydon), and the Riverside Bookshop has moved a few yards from Hay's Galleria to Tooley Street. Meanwhile, Swedish haunt The Harcourt has closed for refurbishment until June 2015, and has relocated to the nearby Duke of York (so Eurovision fans will still have somewhere to watch Melodifestivalen this spring).

A whole bunch of closures to report: the clanging chimes of doom have clung for the Marquis of Wellington and Royal Delight (both in Bermondsey), the Iron Duke inside Victoria station (now replaced with The Beer House Victoria - you can probably guess what font its sign uses without even clicking), the Hobgoblin in New Cross (now reopened as the Rose Pub & Kitchen), Broca Food Market in Brockley, Books For Amnesty in Hammersmith, the Duke of Edinburgh in Upton Park, and the Prince of Wales in Hillingdon. I don't think you could have watched Melodifestivalen in any of those places.