Lao Dao and El Marsem, Elephant and Castle
Since returning to London full time, I have been somewhat despondent about the food scene here.
Before I left London in 2016 to chase low tax rates and sunshine in Asia, I was a staunch defender of and reasonably knowledgeable about where you could go to get a good meal in the city, and spent a lot of my time and disposable income on keeping that knowledge up to date.
In those days the occasional fancy meal at Barrafina or Moro were the exceptions. The mid and low range was where I did my best work. I would visit places like Roti King in Euston, The Regency Club in Harrow and the Indian YMCA in Russell Square in the pursuit of authentic no frills non-European fare. I would trawl food blogs for hints and tips. And my perseverance was rewarded generously with some spectacular meals at places that, at the time, felt a little off the beaten track and known only to people who could be bothered to find out about them.
At the time, you had to enjoy the hunt, not just the catch. Spending time unearthing these gems and then seeking them out was very much part of the fun of it. So it feels a little sad that many of these places are now overrun, having become too popular and Instagrammable for their own good. So now my former hidden gems are well-known, the queues too long and the appeal too obvious to be fun anymore. Add to that rising inflation – making the occasional fancy meal at Barrafina or Moro only slightly less expensive than a long haul flight – it meant that my return to London’s food scene was rather flatter and a good deal sadder than I had hoped.
But, as it turns out, I still had the desire for the hunt in me. It just turns out that the means had to change. Trawling food blogs was very early 2000s, so I returned to the real world, happening upon treasures without the use of a map or guide. It helps, I guess, that I live in one of the few areas of central London that still retains the life affirming realness of proper immigrant communities. If you were to draw up a new Monopoly board of London, the Old Kent Road would still be the cheapest place to buy. And walking the streets of South London is still the best way to find places with little time or need for Instagram accounts, as they are there primarily to serve the communities around them.
My first sighting while wandering the streets was Lao Dao, a homey looking Xinjiang spot on the ever-salubrious Walworth Road. I picked it for a dinner with friends on a whim, having walked past a few times and been intrigued by the possibility of lamb skewers and other similar delights. We had booked for five people, and were seated, cautiously at a large, heavy wooden table which, like all the other furniture there, looked like they had stolen it from the front room of an old Chinese couple. The waiter became suspicious when our friends didn’t immediately arrive, and continued peppering us with sideways glances until they eventually did. I tried not to take this personally, reminding myself that brusque service and delicious cuisine were, at least in my experience in Hong Kong, often directly correlated in the best possible way. The service didn’t get any better, although I guess dining with two women who looked East Asian meant they softened the demeanour a little. That said, I was far too busy to notice, as I was quickly gobbling down lamb skewers as fast as I could, which were bloody delicious. They were juicy, spicy and charred with the smoke of the grill. Even through my heavy cold, they were a delight. We cycled through a few other bits before hurriedly ordering a dish we saw go to another table, which was a concoction of hand pulled noodles and chicken which looked – and eventually was – mind blowingly good. At £25 a head, it won’t break the bank either.
My second street find was El Marsem, an unpromisingly titled “coffee and sandwich bar” on Old Kent Road. I had spotted it from a bus, a bit like a safari guide from the top of a jeep. “Ahoy” I proclaimed, gesturing with my imaginary wooden cane in its direction as the 53 bus sped past. I waited for others to turn and admire my superior spotting skills. The fact no-one so much as batted an eyelid was disappointing, but probably more of a reflection of the fact that everyone knows you shouldn’t engage with random shouty men on buses in South London.
If my fellow commuters had engaged, and had visited El Marsem the following day as I did, they would have been treated to an array of incredible (apparently Algerian) baked goods. There were flaky paratha-like breads stuffed with spinach and cheese. Other slightly more generous ones with potatoes and egg and olive. There were sweet cakes cooked in those massive round pans and drenched in sugar syrup. I didn’t, and still don’t, know the actual names of any of these delights, but I do know that they were all delicious, cheap (about £2 each) and oily in the best possible way. If you had closed your eyes to block out the massive Tesco just up the road, and put your fingers in your ears to block out he never-ending wailing blue-lights of South London, you could easily have been standing on a quiet street in North Africa eating a pastry you would dream about again for weeks to come.
It is apt I think, as I sit here at the turn of another year, that I can feel my despondency about London’s food scene dissipating, and a cautious optimism creeping back in. The weather may be wet, the skies grey and most restaurants perennially overpriced, but dig a little deeper and spend some time on the South London streets and there are still gems to uncover. There are a few more on my list of “places I’ve spotted from a bus” still to try – Pho N.A., Horangee Pocha and Galaxy amongst them – but for now it feels good to luxuriate in the delicious, inexpensive treats I have unearthed already. The gentle optimism of a new year is a delightful thing.
