Having a child free weekend it was off to Soho on Saturday night for a bit of adult time.
After a bit of booze shopping at Gerry’s we had a mooch in the Algerian Coffee Stores (52 Old Comption Street). Established in 1887 this has to be one of the best smelling shops in London with 80 fragrant coffees and 120 different teas on sale. You can even get a coffee to go at a bargain £1 for an espresso, beats Starbucks into a cocked hat in my opinion.
Best Little Coffee Shop in London, the Algerian Coffee Stores
Shopping done it was time for a drink so we went to the French House in search of some pastis. It’s not a big boozer and the downstairs was absolutely rammed, but one of London’s best kept secrets is the new upstairs bar where the restaurant used to be.
View from the top, upstairs at the French House
Just like downstairs you can only have beer in halfs, but you can generally get somewhere to sit down. There are some pretty groovy prints on the purple painted walls, featuring some of the French’s illustrious former patrons, like Aleister Crowley, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, which are available to purchase. We settled down at the bar and spent an hour or so chatting with the barmaid over a couple of Henri Bardouins, while waiting for Mr Wolfe to turn up. The French has an interesting history which you can read here
Our dinner date for the evening was at Garlic and Shots (14 Frith Street).
Garlic and Shots
We hadn’t eaten in Garlic and Shots for ages and some of the reviews I had seen on-line recently were pretty rough, but I suspect they must have been by people who hate heavy rock music and just don’t get the Swedish restaurant’s point. There are 50 shots on the menu and garlic comes with everything! It’s in the beer, the starters, main course and desert (garlic and honey ice cream is surprisingly good) . A round of garlic beers ordered we hit the menu. I ordered a crayfish starter which was delicious followed by the enormous garlic burger.
Garlic Burger
It was heavenly. We shared sides of baked whole heads of garlic and the most gigantic slabs of tasty garlic bread ever. I even forced down some of that legendary garlic ice cream. considering that there were four of us and we had three rounds of garlic beer, starters, mains, sides, water and desert I thought the final reckoning of £200 including service wasn’t bad.
shipscooksstuff 
Sounds wonderful, I love garlic. We just don’t have anything that interesting here. We don’t even have one Indonesian restaurant here (my current craving). And I live in a fairly large metropolitan area. I think I’ll go buy some more garlic!
That’s the great thing about London’s cultural melting pot, there’s even a place for garlic heads
I could almost smell the coffee – and the garlic! Will look out for this place next time I’m in Soho
Sounds a bit much to me, but I’d give it a go. How’s your waistline these days, Simon?
Not as narrow as I’d like it to be
No problem with the vampires that night then!
Anyone who bites me will die of alcoholic poisoning, let alone the garlic
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