Restaurants

Veggie bakes and irresistible desserts at a Covent Garden institution

Legend: Food for Thought
Food for Thought is an institution. A much-loved, long-established vegetarian restaurant and takeaway, it considerately offers jugs of water on its chunky wooden tables. Prepare to queue with students, tourists and the odd celeb for generous proportions of tasty salads, soups, quiches, cakes, scones and hot dishes such as moussaka, lasagne and vegetable bakes served by friendly staff. Duty manager Kuba Paradecki told us that the daily changing quiche (spinach, mushrooms, broccoli, courgette, red pepper and so on) is always a big hit. For £6.30, you get a hefty wodge with four salads. Spicy Thai vegetable curry (£4.20) is another customer favourite. We recommend the soup of the day and one of Food for Thought’s big, moist savoury scones. Its legendary dish is the popular dessert of strawberry and banana scrunch (£3.30) – a recipe that can be found in chef Jane Noraika’s excellent ‘Food for Thought’ cookery book, which is available on site.
Food for Thought, 31 Neal St, WC2H 9PR (020 7836 0239) Covent Garden tube. Feature continues

Proprietors Ursula Kossakowska and Geoff Ho try to scare away their enormous queues

Legend: Fusebox
Located in Borough Market, this modern pan-Asian deli and takeaway was set up nearly five years ago by three friends, Cara Gallardo, Urszula Kossakowska and Geoff Ho, who wanted to provide an interesting alternative to the lunchtime sandwich. There’s a daily changing menu of hot and cold Asian-inspired dishes cooked on the premises. This might include tea-smoked salmon, or wok-fried mushroom noodles with black bean sauce (hot food is £4.90-£5.70). Runaway successes include crispy belly pork with rice and wok-fried vegetables (£5.20) offered on Wednesdays, and noodle dishes, which are served only on Mondays and Fridays. Satay chicken with peanut sauce and cucumber salad is another bestseller, and the same dish is available as a wrap with green salad leaves on Saturdays, freshly cooked on the barbecue outside. Our vote, however, goes to Fusebox’s Indian lentil cake with tomato chutney (£2). This traditional, elaborately made savoury cake, is a comforting homely dish that’s rarely seen outside the kitchens of Asian grannies – but City slickers and local foodies have taken it to their hearts. Made from lentil flour, courgettes and yoghurt, it is topped, as is traditional, with toasted sesame and mustard seeds. Yummy.
Fusebox, 12 Stoney St, SE1 9AD (020 7407 9888/www.fuseboxfoods.com) London Bridge tube/rail.

South Indian heaven in a lunch box care of owner Das Sreedharan

Legend: Rasa Express
Owned by Das Sreedharan, this four-year-old takeaway run from the back door of Rasa Samudra restaurant is a favourite of the Time Out staff for its great-value lunch boxes. The vegetarian lunch box (£2.95) contains two vegetable curries, a side dish, rice, bread, and dessert; the non-vegetarian version (£3.50) is similar, except that one vegetable curry is substituted with chicken curry or biriyani. Daily changing curries come in varieties such as beetroot with spinach or tomato with black-eye beans; and side dishes might include green plantain stir-fry or savoy cabbage thoran (‘dry’ curry). Breads, too, change from poories (round puffy fried breads) to uzhunappam (rice flatbread topped with shallots). For dessert, you may get rice, vermicelli, or mango and semolina puddings. Additionally – and this is little known – masala dosa (south Indian pancakes stuffed with spicy potato curry, accompanied by fresh coconut chutney) are available to take away for £2.50. Too far to walk? There’s a stand-alone branch on Euston Road too.
Rasa Express, 5 Rathbone St, W1T 1NX (020 7637 0222) Goodge St tube.