Bubbledogs - Hot dog and Champagne bar

After 5 + City Pig’s summary

Snapshot
Cuisine:	Hot dogs specialist and champagne bar
Price:	£12 - Approximate cost for lunch based on a hot dog, one side,a drink and service charge.
Healthy:	·         Posh fast food. ·         Not a place to find your 5 a day but due to small portion sizes this is probably not a sinful treat.
Tasty:	·         2.5/5 – Food ·         3/5 – Service ·         2.5/5 – Overall rating
Occasion:	·         Supposedly a quirky restaurant and champagne bar.
Address:	70 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 4QG
Opening times	Tuesday – Saturday: 11:30am-4pm; 5:30pm – 11pm T
Eat in/Takeaway:	Eat-in
Recommended dishes & drinks	Sloppy Joe hot dog.
Vegetarian dishes	Yes – Vegetarian hot dog.
Loyalty card	No.
Website	http://www.bubbledogs.co.uk/
Notes	A hot dog and champagne bar – an odd combination serving very average hot dogs.

After 5 + City Pig’s analysis

After much anticipated hype, I decided to finally check out Bubbledogs. A cute and intriguing name but what is all the fuss?

With the current trend of restaurants only serving one dish, Bubble dogs, follows this concept and specialises in hot dogs oddly with a champagne bar. Not sure when hot dogs and champagne were a hot item but this seems to be a new trend perhaps.

This place is very small, so you have to come very early and even then, you may be turned away. Apparently bookings can only be taken for parties of 6 or more. Be warned that you may need a plan B, if you were thinking of taking a date here. Luckily, I managed to get to Bubbledogs at 6pm and managed to get the last table for two.

I opted to choose the New Yorker and City Pig’s pal chose the Sloppy Joe. The menu comprises of 13 hot dogs ranging from classic flavours to more adventurous Kimichi flavoured hot dogs.

The hot dogs served here is available in beef, pork and vegetarian.

The hot dogs are rather small and was disappointing in taste. It did not replicate the US style hot dogs at all. At an average cost of £6-7 a hot dog, this was not satisfying. I much rather have a burger and could think of many others that would satisfy my appetite for this price.

The sides of tots was nothing special and felt let down as it seemed so hard to get a table here, yet the food was very average.

A cosy restaurant, with pictures of dogs in hot dogs reflects the cute and quirky side of Bubbledogs. However, the hot dogs really is not worth all the queuing in the cold. I really feel it needs more deep flavours and bigger hot dogs.

Royal China Club

After 5 + City Pig’s summary

Snapshot
Cuisine:	Chinese
Price:	£25 - Approximate cost for lunch based on dim sum dishes.
Healthy:	·         Steamed dim sum ·         A variety of fish and vegetable based dim sums
Tasty:	·         5/5 – Food (Based on dim sum) ·         3.5/5 – Service ·         4.5/5 – Overall rating
Occasion:	·         Long lunches and dinners with friends and family ·         Business dining
Address:	40-42 Baker Street, W1U 7AJ
Opening times	Monday to Thursday – 12pm – 11pm Friday – 12pm – 11:30pm Saturday to Sunday – 12pm -10:30pm
Eat in/Takeaway:	Eat-in
Recommended dishes & drinks	Dim Sum – Cheung funs; turnip pastes. Dessert – Black sesame glutinous balls.
Vegetarian dishes	Yes
Loyalty card	No.
Website	http://www2.royalchinagroup.biz/
Notes	Upmarket Chinese restaurant bringing high quality Chinese food. Mainly specialising in dim sum and Cantonese dishes. Expect to pay a lot more than your usual Chinese restaurants.

After 5 + City Pig’s analysis

Royal China Club is the upper end of the well-established Royal China restaurant group.

It prides itself with its reputation of delivering high quality dim sum and Cantonese dishes.

Its restaurant sets it apart from its competitors as offering tasty and consistently well cooked Chinese food.

I went to Royal China Club as I am a fan of the Royal China group restaurants and was curious to see what was more special.

The inside of the restaurant does not feel that much different from the other Royal Chinas. Here you will find a contemporary looking Chinese restaurant.

We were asked to sit in one of the private rooms as the main restaurant was already full.

The dim sum here is much more expensive than standard Chinese restaurants because of the variety of dim sum found here and the quality.

The menu consists of other ingredients that may not be the standard dim sum e.g. there may be fish dumplings rather than pork or prawn. Expect to see other more interesting dumplings and be brave and try them. I found a fried roll with fish and aubergine tucked inside with a black bean sauce dip. Most of the standard dim sum dishes are here as well e.g. turnip paste which was not greasy at all.

The dim sum is very tasty and is very high quality for outside of South East Asia. I know that a lot of people from Hong Kong who come to London also recognise that Royal China delivers excellent Chinese cuisine.

Sometimes the staff can be a little distant and not attentive. This seems to be a common theme in London Chinese restaurants unfortunately. I found the price to be very expensive as most Chinese dim sum averages about £12-£15.However, I thoroughly enjoyed the food and the creativity in some of the dim sum created. It is very authentic despite being top end, it has Chinese people eating here too.

square meal

Salvation Jane - Cafe

City Pig’s summary

Snapshot
Cuisine:	Cafe
Price:	£15 Approximate cost for lunch and drink (one main dish and a soft drink.)
Healthy:	·         A variety of dishes have vegetables. ·         Beware of the cakes.
Tasty:	·         2.5/5 – Food (main dishes) (Desserts and coffees 3/5) ·         3/5 – Service ·         3/5 – Overall rating
Occasion:	·         Eat in. ·         Take-away. ·         Coffee catch ups or business meetings
Address:	Unit 2, 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Rd, EC1Y1HQ (near Old Street tube station).
Opening times	Monday to Friday – 7:30am-3pm Saturday to Sunday – 9am-3:30pm
Eat in/Takeaway:	Eat-in and take-aways.
Recommended dishes & drinks	Cheesecake Latte
Vegetarian dishes	Yes
Loyalty card	No.
Website	http://www.salvationjanecafe.co.uk/
Notes	Another Aussie style café – similar to its sister restaurant Lantana. Amazing cakes and coffees that keeps this place going.

City Pig’s analysis

After, having been to Lantana, I thought why not try the sister café Salvation Jane. It is near Old Street station and is a good sized café compared to the small Lantana café.

This is an Aussie style café that brings one of the best coffees and cakes to the City. Take-away baguettes and sandwiches are at the front. The menu for sit down is much more expensive than one may expect.

A range of food can be found here, ranging from Thai fish cakes to risottos to salads.

I noticed how small the dishes were and was not impressed seeing the cost for a main was around £9. My colleagues and I had ordered Thai fishcakes, Duck noodle salad and the risotto.

All were relatively small and we all even had room for dessert.

The desserts were amazing, the cheesecake was divine. Everything about it was perfect. It was smooth and light. The lemon polenta cake was also very refreshing and went well with my latte.

The service was efficient and polite. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience as it was spacious here too.

However, the mains could be tastier and the price is too steep in comparison to the portion size. I much preferred the coffee and cakes and think an afternoon coffee break here would be ideal.