The Kanteen

The first kosher-supervised eaterie in Brent Cross Shopping Centre has been eagerly received. Tables are packed (even outside) with shoppers needing a break from trying on shoes. You walk in past a bakery - who can resist the challah and golden bridge rolls? The menu is jokily written to appeal to children and encompasses dishes that cover the long opening hours, from all-day breakfast, through pasta, pizzas, salads and sandwiches. The appetisers are generous: smoked salmon wrapped around palm hearts, portobello mushrooms or aubergines with cheese. Thai noodles could have had more vegetables, and the pasta sauce could have been more intense, but families with children will appreciate this kind of food: the choice that lets one person have haddock and chips while another tucks into american pancakes with syrup. At less busy times it would make sense to stop off for an Israeli breakfast or a cream tea. Also worth a try is the food you wouldn't usually cook at home: fried egg and chips, deep-fried cigars and vegetarian kibbe. Service is slow, but this allows time to work up an appetite for one of the ice-cream desserts: perhaps pink paradise (soft ice-cream with strawberries).