Cafes/Eateries - Brixton Hill Area

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Looking for your thoughts on the following cafes/restaurants/eateries in the Brixton Hill area.

Curry Paradise (opposite White Horse)

Kennedy Chicken

Cafe on the Hill

Onyx (new Caribbean place, formerly Dawn of the Raj)

Alberts (Fish & Chip shop)

Pizza Place (don't know name, near White Horse)

Penh An (Chinese, near the launderette)

The Alchemist (next to Windmill Pub)

Basement Jo's (near George IV pub)

other

[brixtonvilla]

Albert's I've always found to be a good, old-fashioned chippy.

Aside from starters, almost everything I've ever had from Penh Anh has has the same ingredients in it and (unsuprisingly) tasted about the same.

Pizza Ring is just a.n. other bog standard deliver pizza place - big, greasy, doughy bases & unremarkable ingredients.

Basement Jo's - rather good fry-ups IIRC.

Kennedy Chicken - you know what it's like if you've ever been in another bollocks franchise greasy chicken joint like (snigger) Chicken Cottage.

Best places on Brixton Hill are further up, like The Gallery and Ah Bar.

[wiskey]

Cafe on the Hillis great - cept it closes before i get up. but the people who run it are fab and the food is awesome. well worth a visit :)

oh and have you seen the stuff on urban? http://www.urban75.org/brixton/cafes/index.html

[Minnie_the_Minx]

My opinion:

Curry Paradise (opposite White Horse) - I'm barred and it had gone downhill anyway

Kennedy Chicken - pure shite

Cafe on the Hill - Brilliant

Onyx (new Caribbean place, formerly Dawn of the Raj) - not been

Alberts (Fish & Chip shop) - pure shite

Pizza Place (don't know name, near White Horse) - don't eat the crap

Penh An (Chinese, near the launderette) - have to disagree with you here, but if you'd been to the Chinese further up the hill or the Ten Thanks in Tulse Hill, you'd see how much better Penh An was

The Alchemist (next to Windmill Pub) - OK

Basement Jo's (near George IV pub) - good Sunday lunches

other

[hatboy]

Why are you barred from Curry Paradise Minnie?

[Minnie_the_Minx]

well I'm probably not banned now but wouldn't eat there anyway as their food tastes crap.

I was banned a couple of years ago. Supposedly my friend who I was with was racist towards them.

[sunflower]

One of my favourite restaurants is on Brixton Hill. Its a portuguese place called the Gallery. Food is great.:D

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I purposely left that off the list. When you have a little gem, you should hide it

[twisted]

Originally posted by brixtonvilla

Best places on Brixton Hill are further up, like The Gallery and Ah Bar.

Agree on the Gallery...
Always got put off by the Claphamesque appearance of the Ah Bar but it's due a try I suppose.

Pizza Ring - I'll defend it against the likes of Pizza Hut and other takeway pizza places. Some of the toppings are really good and unusual...Rafaello has artichoke, aubergine, and other veg that don;t usually appear on pizza but work well. Having said that I've been using it so often lately that I'm doughed out and it's back to the only other place on the list that I'd regulalry frequent and that's

Penh An - prawn and squid dishes are good value and you get lots of seafood in a portion.

Don;t know anyone who has been to Albert's more than once.

[Minnie_the_Minx]

along with my friends, have called it Poison Alberts for absolutely years

[IntoStella]

I've not been to a single one of those eateries. I must come from the wrong end of town. :confused: ;)

[Minnie_the_Minx]

You're not missing anything then. Only good places are Cafe on the Hill and Penh An

[Pie 1]

Originally posted by twisted

Always got put off by the Claphamesque appearance of the Ah Bar



Don't be.
It's really nice, the owner, Helen Lawson is a sweetheart and the food is excellent & not massively expensive either.
For a real treat, go there on a rainy Sunday morning and have their American breakfast, sausage links, bacon strips over easy eggs and huge pancakes with lashings of real maple syrup.:D

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I'm a bit put off the Ah Bar, looks very yuppified. I prefer real working mens cafes. Somehow I couldn't imagine that with builders in, unlike Cafe on the Hill

[IntoStella]

Originally posted by Minnie_the_Minx
You're not missing anything then. Only good places are Cafe on the Hill and Penh An Why does everyone call me Infostella?? It's a T, not an F. :p

Pie 1 -- how much would that lot set us back?

[Minnie_the_Minx]

must remember to put my glasses on tomorrow

Many apologies InTostella

[Pie 1]

Originally posted by IntoStella

Pie 1 -- how much would that lot set us back?

Last time I went [ for breaky] a few months ago I think it was about £6 or £7 for the American & worth every penny as I remember.

[hatboy]

I still haven't made it to the Ah Bar, but Helen Lawson posted here for awhile and seemed interested in people's opinions and happy to take suggestions from people here. I thought that was friendly.

£6 or £7 for a breakfast isn't cheap, but for a special American style breakfast as a treat, why not. Must get up there soon. What are the customers/crowd there like?

[suzee blue cheese]

One of my favourite restaurants is on Brixton Hill. Its a portuguese place called the Gallery. Food is great.

You know how it looks a bit hidden away, it's like that for a reason: The owner wants to keep it a low key word of mouth recommendation kind of thing. Otherwise he'd advertise and have a frontage that looks like a restaurant.

Cafe on the Hill - my favourite

Basement Jo's - seemed expensive but maybe the food is worth it.

White Horse does a cracking sunday lunch.

The Vera Cruz at the bottom end of the Hill does good tapas options as well as the usual english breakfast stuff plus it's licensed.

[Pie 1]

Originally posted by hatboy


What are the customers/crowd there like? [@ Ah Bar]

It's always been pretty low key in there whenever I've been.
The place is actually quite small so has quite a nice atmosphere. I've been there with the folks for a family dinner & just with Mrs Pie on our own and it suited both occasions very well.
Everyone else in there seemed to just be out for a nice relaxed evening too - nothing too pretentious if thats what you're getting at. ;)

[edgarlesty]

My thoughts FWIW...

Curry Paradise: Don't know what your friend said to upset them, but I've been going to CP for over 5 years and have alwasy had a good laugh with the guys behind the counter, the food isn't as good as Khans near the Hob but is certainly zingier than some other curries in Brixton

Kennedy Chicken: NEVER EAT HERE

Alberts (Fish & Chip shop): Elderly fish and soggy chips, not a patch on Ollies in Herne Hill (but then it's not £5 for a portion either)

Pizza Ring: Only get thin crust to avoid bloating to Staypuft marshamllow man size proportions! We used to order so much they recognised our phone number! :o

Penh An: Give away nice Chinese calendars at Chinese New Year - but nowt special food-wise

Basement Jo's: Small, friendly, personal place that I think is great - top Sunday lunches and brekkie, not cheap but not unreasonable and it's like eating in your mate's kitchen it's so homely gossipy!

Galleria: TOP! Jedungo chicken rocks if you like things spicy, and the Portugese stews in the 'secret' restaurant out back are amazing if you've got a huge appetite...Portu-geezers indeed!

Ah Bar: I live above it so maybe biased, food OK, drinks at skanky prices I feel (but then it's so close I tend to grab a bottle of beer for £1 at UK Food & Wine than pay £3.50 to drink it in there!). Mate of mine did a shift running the place for free as a trail for a job, then never heard from them again - bit cheeky and rude I thought...

Cafe Spice 2000 (on Morrish Road) the only take away on that part of the Hill that stays open LATE at the weekend - does fucking ace Carribbean curries that really do taste home cooked!

must stop now, getting hungry:p

[Baub]

Curry Paradise - better than any other Indian takeaway in Brixton. Khans is very good too but they have more scope as they are also a fairly decent sized restaurant.

Cafe on the Hill - great place to attempt a hangover cure, basic fatty food for the fcked.

The Alchemist: Alchemists famously tried to turn base metal into gold; The Windmill has had a go at turning a rotting little storage shed into a restaurant by painting over everything. The menu looks as if it could be interesting but I don't want to eat in a place situated next to a stinking rubbish tip on one side and a back yard liberally sprinkled with dog shit on the other.

Basement Jo's - good food but not that good that you should be expected to wait for 50 minutes for it.

[ats]

Originally posted by Baub
Cafe on the Hill - great place to attempt a hangover cure, basic fatty food for the fcked.

The thing that makes the Cafe on the Hill special from a food point of view is that it marries that sort of fry-up - cooked by the inestimable Heather, the best short-order cook in the world - with tremendous Thai food, with a different special every day of the week.

It's also amazingly welcoming, used by a wider variety of people than any other eating establishment I can think of.

It's an interesting fact that the newspaer readers in the Cafe on the Hill divide almost exclusively into Sun readers and Guardian readers.

[UDancing?]

i really like n reccomend Basement Jo's... the lady who runs it is always lovely n very welcoming. funky decor n a good veggie selection. try the veggie burger or the veggie breakfast. yum YUM.
slightly pricey, perhaps, but it's all cooked to order which makes it that much better, zesty n good.
i know it's a bitch to wait when u're hungry but it's a small place with one cook and fresh ingredients... give it a try u will come back for more.

Oooh anyone tried their sunday roasts?

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Yep, I've tried their Sunday Roast and it's fine. Think I had chicken and b/f had lamb. Nice big portions. Worth the money I think.

Tried a roast in Telegraph once and it was manky. Looked like it had come out of a cardboard box.