Princess of Wales

The Princess of Wales Pub is located near Primrose Hill, on a bright, wealthy residential street. A little challenging to get to, especially on a hot summer's day with the London Underground acting up on a typical weekend, forcing you to squeeze on replacement bus services with sweat clinging on to everything.

Colourful nearby houses

I decided to pay this particular pub – which is quite out of the way for me – a visit as a result of winning Zomato's weekly Write-For-A-Bite contest. (They did originally offer me £50 off my bill at Bacco's, but there was some complication with the restaurant, so they gave me £30 off The Princess of Wales instead.)

The view from atop Primrose Hill

The pub was quiet upon our arrival at 1.30pm. (The transport delayed us for an hour. Welcome to London!) The sun was shining, and the shutters were wide open. The place is wood-panelled all over, with the bar in the middle, and there's a cosy garden-basement just down the stairs.

English pubs are great for getting, well, English food. My sister ordered some chicken with gravy and a Yorkshire pudding, as it was Sunday, and they had roast specials with a live jazz band playing at 4pm! The chicken was tender, the gravy just-right, and the veggies soft and generous.

Her husband got a prawn salad with beetroot, which was part of the Sunday specials as a main, but it was quite a scarce portion for the price. (approx. £13)

I got grilled sea bass with potatoes, sliced courgette, and smoked mackerel pâté. The sea bass was very impressive – it had a tasty, crispy skin, and soft meat. The mackerel pâté was particularly interesting – smoky, fishy, tasty, but rather oily – and went well with the cool courgette salad.

By the time the jazz band started playing, the pub was filled and buzzed with summer, pint-induced liveliness. Dessert was a scoop of salted caramel-flavoured ice cream atop a nut-filled brownie. The brownie had rather hard edges, but a soft, cake-y inside. The salted caramel ice cream was so good, I was tempted to lick the plate clean.

We ended up with a bill of about £60, but the voucher helped to pay half of that. The Princess of Wales is a great place to chill and have drinks with friends. Sunday brings you more reasons to visit, due to the roast specials and the live jazz band. A walk afterwards on Primrose Hill followed by a nap under a tree – there was no better way to complete this particular summer Sunday.

The Princess of Wales

22 Chalcot Road

London NW1 8LL

0207 722 0354

Uncle Lim's Kitchen

Oh look, an Asian restaurant whose name has nothing to do with the oriental nickname of table tennis, a bloody dragon, golden-something, and doesn't claim to be some royal moon legend king of Sichuan and dumpling village.

Me? A problem with unoriginal, stereotypical Chinese restaurant names? No...

I was, however, comforted by the fact that this Malaysian eating place had a name close to home: Uncle Lim's. In Southeast Asia, most particularly in Singapore and Malaysia, middle-aged to elderly men can be addressed as 'uncle', even if they are not a sibling of your parent. You can approach a 60-something year old man for $1 ice cream and greet him as 'uncle'.

When you go into a place with a name like 'Golden Dragon', you expect food which tastes unauthentic and mediocre, just like its unoriginal name. (Having said that, I've never eaten at Golden Dragon, so I can't judge just yet, but I'm already turned off anyway.) When you go to a Malaysian canteen-style eating place called 'Uncle Lim's', you are like, hey, I feel like I know this Uncle Lim guy already, and I'm going to see a balding, aproned Chinese man take my order with a smile and a familiar slang.

Maybe my expectations were a little high, as I had my order taken by one of two caucasian ladies who were standing behind the steaming trays of various meat and vegetable dishes, which were choices for meal deals which come with steamed rice or noodles.

I shared a plate of Hainanese Chicken Rice (£5) with a friend, as the portions are said to be huge, and they were indeed. The dish was served with steamed chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, and  fragrant rice cooked with chicken broth. For chicken rice so far from home, they really have managed to get the correct taste of both the rice and the tender chicken, plus the black sauce drizzled on top. Five more gold stars for the extra large portion as well. The only thing I was sceptical about was the fact that the skin on the chicken was yellow – quite a scary yellow. However, I did some research, and it appears that yellow-skinned chicken is corn-fed, and therefore extra tasty.

I'm definitely going to return to Uncle Lim's one day, to try their famed Char Kway Teow, (stir-fried, flat and broad rice noodles) and the mixed rice/noodle dishes. It is a good fix for a hometown-food-craving, with great value and a decent variety.

Uncle Lim's Kitchen (Croydon)
The Whitgift Centre (top floor)
Wellesley Rd
Surrey
Greater London
CR0 1UZ
020 8688 6378