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Simon previously made a brief mention of Champor Champor ( http://www.champor-champor.com ) on this list earlier in the year. Last night I gave it a try. The restaurant itself was well decorated, and while the tables were a little on the small side, they weren't crammed together and there was still plenty of space. Lots of attention to detail, right down to my name on the table! We started off with two tasty canapé, the best of which was a large mussel in a citrus and chili sauce. The bread basket had a brown and a white bread and tofu skin which I found strangely tasty! The menu from here on includes a good choice of ingredients not often eaten in London so we tackled this by ordering for each other, but then sharing anyway. To start we had crispy eel and green curried frogs legs congee. The eel was battered, deep fried and very tasty. The frogs legs were huge and anatomically obvious, right down to the toes! Tasty, but fiddly removing the bones. At this point I was full! But there was ostrich and monkfish still to come. The ostrich was served medium rare on lemon grass skewers. It was much more tender than I was expecting for a lean meat and had a satisfyingly strong taste. The monkfish was cooked perfectly and the scallops were tender and flavourful. There was durian involved with the monkfish somehow but we couldn't work out where it was -- or rather, nothing smelt like it had died on the plate with the possible exception of the shrimp flakes in one of the side dishes. All of this washed down with a bottle of voignier and we didn't manage to clean every plate. Speaking for myself, that was due to the well sized portions rather than the 'interesting' food. Coming in at about 40 quid (inc wine) a head was a good price for the great atmosphere and the interesting and well prepared food. I managed to get a booking with about a week notice, but that seemed to be with luck on my side so I'll call a little earlier to avoid disappointment. -- David Turner <david@xxxxxxx.xxx> http://figroll.com/
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