A night in Kings Cross

Regeneration of both St Pancras and Kings Cross stations has impact on the surrounding areas which have been developed and are no longer up and coming, they’ve arrived.

I started out with a drink at the Golden Arrow, the bar and restaurant in the Pullman Hotel on Euston Road, right next to the British Museum. The USP for the Golden Arrow is it’s enomatic machine, this allows customers to try lots of different wines by the glass, keeping the remainder of the bottle perfectly preserved (or at least that’s how they sell the machines!)

We tried a selection of their wines – a Vignoier Chardonnay blend, a Reisling, and two reds, which I can’t remember, but which were very tasty! My friend thought the white wine wasn’t cold enough, but in general the wines were fine. The service wasn’t quite up to par though, it took a while to flag someone down to both order and to get the bill at the end. The staff don’t quite seem to have a working system yet… 

I then went for dinner at Think Eat Drink (aka T.E.D) restaurant on Caledonian Road. Now the concept behind the restaurant is all very laudable – sustainable, seasonal, local food. The website looks great – a lovely room with booths and a light and bright decor. However it doesn’t tell you where the door is! I walked right past the main door looking for the name, now you could put that down to me having a blonde moment, except we then saw many others doing the same!

I think it’s best to go as a table for 3 or more. As a table for 2 we were seated by the second door (which is where everyone who missed the first one came in!), between the stairs to some mystery area and the toilets… Not the most salubrious of tables with people pushing past – bit of a shame.

Looking at the menu I wasn’t very inspired, maybe it was the way in which it was written, but only a few things grabbed me. Having seen someone else’s photos of the crab it looked fantastic, the description on the menu didn’t do it justice. I ended up with steak tartare and a risotto with peas and girolles. All very tasty, but my friend won the meal with the seared cap rump steak followed by the English lamb with spiced aubergines – the lamb was amazing! We also had the Swiss chard gratin after seeing our neighbours order it.

Lamb, risotto and chard gratin.

Lamb perfectly cooked

I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more English wine on the menu – only one bottle of rosé listed, however I know other restaurants sometimes struggle to get the stock for English wines, I would be interested to see if this is the case here.

The service was variable – from very attentive pouring of water and wine, to disappearing when we actually wanted to order or get the bill! (But the restaurant had filled up by then). We weren’t inspired by the dessert options – especially after being at The Pudding Bar the other week, so instead left for another drink.

We stumbled across Simmons on Caledonian Road. This is a tiny little bar decorated like an alcoholic granny – tea pots interspersed with cans of beer!

Wall of beer.

Glitter skull – of course…