Lokshen pudding. Did I say lokshen pudding? I'll say it again, lokshen pudding. I am on a diet so I try not to be tempted every time I drive or walk past B and K. But when I am overseas I dream of this place. It's addictive. I have a hugely overweight friend who orders from here several times a week. I think it cheers him up (except when he looks in the mirror).
When I eat in I like to start with hot chicken soup with vermicelli and dumplings or ravioli or both. (Lokshen soup with kneidlach.) Chicken soup cures everything, except appetite. An alternative is the mixed hors d'oevre which could feed four, or three, or two, or one hungry person (me). The chicken soup is usually served with a side plate of rye bread.
After that I try to order chips as well as latkes (fried, grated potato cakes, flattened like Swiss rosti or American hash brownies). This makes me very unpopular with the diet police. What with? Salt beef. Or Viennas (like Frankfurters but better). I've never found anybody from Vienna or Frankfurt to debate this point. One would need a portion of both to compare.
Maybe if this place is a danger to dieters it could be a cure for anorexics. I was diverted from the restaurant with a promise of a take away. Hot latkes were still warm when they reached home. Yes I was treated to a diet-breaking potato latke, not half a potato latke, but a whole one. Plus a huge piece of cooked lamb on the bone with some turkey. (Why no salt beef? I didn't say anything.) Plus a mixed chopped salad - that doesn't count.
The highlight was the dessert. Lokshen pudding with lemon. If you don't know lokshen pudding it's a compressed noodle pudding, what the Italians would call vermicelli. B & K makes it with succulent sultanas and the not so secret ingredient is lemon juice. If you like lemon juice - mwah! If not, you might change your mind and make an exception for B & K lokshen pudding.
I've tried all the dishes in other places over the years, in New York, and New Jersey and in Washington DC (where I lived for a while) plus a long gone place in Singapore, but nowhere makes food as good as B & K. Unfortunately the surroundings are rather plain, although the mural might puts you in the mood and entertain foreign visitors.
So mostly we get tempting take away (take out if you are reading in the USA). It's good value. You can buy enough food to feast a king and leave you grumbling but not broke. Eat in or take away this is the place for latkes and lokshen pudding.
£21 bought enough food for a meal for two, plus leftovers for another meal. I am planning to sneak back when the family are away. Don't tell them. But I'm still dieting to look good in summer clothes, in case we have a summer. All right then, I'll go back after the summer. Something to look forward to.
B and K salt beef bar and restaurant
Hatch End
Pinner
HA
If you are in London, this branch is near Hatch End Station (Euston to Watford line). Another branch is in Edgware, end of the Northern line.
Maybe I have praised it too highly. Maybe you will go there and say, it was an ordinary looking little place. What was all the fuss about? Then you'll eat at a few other places and start thinking, "I wish we had gone back to B and K again."
PS Chopped liver and egg and onion!
This place is not kosher. That gives it the advantage of being open on Saturday.
Look in Golders Green or Stamford Hill if you want kosher food, in restaurants which follow Jewish holiday opening times (closing on the Sabbath - following daylight and dusk so they close early on Friday in winter and open Saturday evening, whilst in summer they are open later on Friday and open late at night on Saturday and other holidays similarly.
London has lots to offer, bagels 24 hours in Brick Lane in the East End and Scottish smoked salmon everywhere in supermarkets and kosher delicatessens, kosher food in supermarkets such as Tesco and Marks and Spencer and Waitrose, especially in NW London. Plus of course two branches of B and K salt beef. (See my other posts on salt beef, bagels, this restaurant and others.)
Photos by Angela Lansbury.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
When I eat in I like to start with hot chicken soup with vermicelli and dumplings or ravioli or both. (Lokshen soup with kneidlach.) Chicken soup cures everything, except appetite. An alternative is the mixed hors d'oevre which could feed four, or three, or two, or one hungry person (me). The chicken soup is usually served with a side plate of rye bread.
Here's the latke and cucumber salad.
Photo by Angela Lansbury.
Maybe if this place is a danger to dieters it could be a cure for anorexics. I was diverted from the restaurant with a promise of a take away. Hot latkes were still warm when they reached home. Yes I was treated to a diet-breaking potato latke, not half a potato latke, but a whole one. Plus a huge piece of cooked lamb on the bone with some turkey. (Why no salt beef? I didn't say anything.) Plus a mixed chopped salad - that doesn't count.
A piece of meat.
Photo by Angela Lansbury.
We added oranges and yogurt to the lokshen pudding. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
So mostly we get tempting take away (take out if you are reading in the USA). It's good value. You can buy enough food to feast a king and leave you grumbling but not broke. Eat in or take away this is the place for latkes and lokshen pudding.
£21 bought enough food for a meal for two, plus leftovers for another meal. I am planning to sneak back when the family are away. Don't tell them. But I'm still dieting to look good in summer clothes, in case we have a summer. All right then, I'll go back after the summer. Something to look forward to.
B and K salt beef bar and restaurant
Hatch End
Pinner
HA
If you are in London, this branch is near Hatch End Station (Euston to Watford line). Another branch is in Edgware, end of the Northern line.
Maybe I have praised it too highly. Maybe you will go there and say, it was an ordinary looking little place. What was all the fuss about? Then you'll eat at a few other places and start thinking, "I wish we had gone back to B and K again."
PS Chopped liver and egg and onion!
This place is not kosher. That gives it the advantage of being open on Saturday.
Look in Golders Green or Stamford Hill if you want kosher food, in restaurants which follow Jewish holiday opening times (closing on the Sabbath - following daylight and dusk so they close early on Friday in winter and open Saturday evening, whilst in summer they are open later on Friday and open late at night on Saturday and other holidays similarly.
London has lots to offer, bagels 24 hours in Brick Lane in the East End and Scottish smoked salmon everywhere in supermarkets and kosher delicatessens, kosher food in supermarkets such as Tesco and Marks and Spencer and Waitrose, especially in NW London. Plus of course two branches of B and K salt beef. (See my other posts on salt beef, bagels, this restaurant and others.)
Photos by Angela Lansbury.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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