100 Hoxton is on Hoxton Street which is having a bit of a renaissance and currently has a nice blend of pubs, places where you can buy 4 avocados for a pound (read that and weep Tesco et al) and more and more good places to eat. The latest is 100 Hoxton, which describes itself as food with an Asian and Eastern European influence – don’t let that put you off, there isn’t any silk dressage in sight and this is true Shoreditch – stripped back concrete, 80s inspired stencilled coloured table and Beirut and Haim playing in background.
There were some crazy looking cocktails available but we
went for the standardly priced wine, given the sunny weather and drink to cost ratio it affords (priorities). The menu is arranged into veggy options, meat
options, fish options and some sides. They do small plates – despite it being
done with the best intention London waiting staff should stop explaining the
small plate concept – we understand that duck for a tenner won’t be a huge main
course and the concept of dishes coming out at
different times and ‘designed to be shared’. When you expand your empire to
regions which don’t understand these concepts, like Swansea, then you can
start explaining small plates again.
I wanted to eat every dish on the menu which is rare but I
fretfully ordered the 7 spiced quail and cod
fishcakes with basil sauce. This frustratingly mean't depriving myself of
intresting variations of duck, prawns, slow roasted pork and cuttlefish and other veggy
stuff I generally ignore. The quail was a deep fried meaty ball which was as
satisfying as it sounded – the improvement of KFC concepts knows no bounds –
this dish took technique and the two tiny wing bones which remained on my plate
attested to how good it was – the side salad was a well thought out combination of chicory, baby
onion and a sweet plum dressing to cut they huge deep fried gamey delight. The
cod cakes were very interesting – very light, pearly white discs on a bed of
basil dressing. Not a breadcrumb in sight which helped balance the brutal quail
assault. The fish was a tiny bit lost in the floral tasting dressing but it was
an innovative dish and worth tasting on its own right to see how fishcakes
could be done.
My girlfriend had a haloumi and broadbean fritter. This dish
could easily take on most onion bahjis in London in terms of taste and texture – a
deep smokey, middle eastern flavour with cheese chucked in for banter, as good as it sounds and worth coming here for that dish alone.
Excellent. A salad with shredded coconut and a million other tropical flavours
which would compete with a can of lilt was also actually really well balanced
and tasty. We shared a flatbread covered with onion jam and chilli and
coriander which was similar and almost as good as the amazing breads they do in polpo.
Prices are all fair, the meats come in at around 10, the
fish 8 and the veggy 6 and snacks only 3.50. All in all, 100 Hoxton is
definitely worth a visit for inventive, but comforting, food and to see the East
London take on food of an Asian persuasion - where else are you going to see
pickled papaya? Just make sure you get your avocados whilst your in the area.
