Polpetto

Polpetto, 49 Dean Street, London W1D 5BG 

The Bitter: Very small tables; seating for 28 in a space the size of a large living room; no bookings taken in the evenings; probable queues

The Sweet: Lovely small plates of cicchetti; friendly staff; fantastic people-watching opportunities; wine by the carafe; no bookings taken in the evenings

This is probably the thousandth review of one of either Polpo, Spuntino, da Polpo or Polpetto to be found on someone's blog, so I'll try to keep it short.

Polpetto is the first of these restaurants I have been to, and it came highly recommended by many. It's certainly a trendy place to say you're going - usually met with an appreciative 'Ooooh!' quickly followed by, 'you'd better get going, they don't take bookings in the evenings'. It's tiny, seating only 28 diners, although it felt like maybe they'd managed to cram in more than that last night. We walked in at five to seven and luckily nabbed the last table, sandwiched between beautiful Soho couples on the banquettes at the back.

Our waitresses were friendly punk rockers, some sporting a pierced septum, one with Ramones t-shirt, all with tattoos. There was none of this 'cooler than you' rubbish that you get at many a trendy London nightspot. The service was fast and unfussy, and we were left to pour our own water and wine. I enjoyed that. Wine, by the way, comes in carafes - brilliant - of either 25, 50, or 75cl. A 25cl small carafe (about 2 glasses) of house white was £5.50, which is unheard of in this part of town.

The menu is concise,with four main areas : breads, fish, meat and vegetables/salad. The Mister and I ordered one plate from each area, starting with brown shrimp w/braised baby gem and Devon crab with trofie (Ligurian pasta twirls, I now know). Both were tasty but the pasta dish won out, with a red chilli and parsley garnish, it was just the right side of too salty and managed to be decadent in a really simple way. Next up was our bread: baked ricotta bruschetta & grelot onions. Two pieces of toast arrived with a beautiful caramelised whole baby onion on top. They were oily and sweet and cheesy and soft and crunchy all at the same time. I used mine to mop up the remains of the sauce from the brown shrimp. Dee-lish.

We also ordered the chargrilled zucchini, pecorino and honey and a bistecca served with rocket and fennel. The steak was a very upmarket minute steak, soft and perfectly beaten out, free of any fat and entirely delicious, but a little small for the price of £9. The zucchini, by comparison, was a huge overflowing plate which was well worth £4.50.

Small plates do fill you up, it seems, and we were sated by the time we were asked about desserts, but I'd heard they were excellent here, and it seemed churlish to share a pudding (in Soho?! Never!), so we ordered both the tiramisu pot and the pannacotta with blackberries. Boy, was I glad we did. The tiramisu was about as authentic as they come, with a heavenly dark cocoa dusting and very alcoholic sponge at the bottom. It was gone in about four spoonfuls. The pannacotta was light and sinful at the same time, with the most amazing red topping from the fruit. Espresso served in a small glass was thick, rich and moreish, finishing off everything perfectly.

We enjoyed the the small plates, and the ambience, and couldn't fault the service. Still, it struck me that if you could get here by 6pm with a big group of friends and take over the entire place, it could be one of the best nights ever. As it was, crammed in next to Soho's beautiful people, it was still pretty good... even if those tables did make my arse feel positively enormous.

The Thing

We have this great local fishmonger, Fish Tale, in Streatham Hill and the family who run it are friendly, chatty, and helpful. They're always busy now, which is a heartening sign of the well-deserved welcome they are getting from the local community. We don't visit as often as I'd like, but have been in there maybe four or five times and have always been greeted with a smile and a genuine hello.

Last Sunday we went in at around 5.30pm and they were almost sold out of the fish on their ice counter, but the proprietress assured me they had more in the chiller. In the end we bought some gorgeous cod and haddock fillets marinated in chilli and herbs (which were delicious, but we'll have to get to that another time).

As we were paying up, by way of conversation, the nice lady mentioned that they would soon be getting a lobster tank in store. Excited by this, I asked her how much a lobster would be (she didn't actually say, but looking at their website I can see they're normally £9.99) - and she said they would have live crabs, too. At this point, I exclaimed, "I love crab!" Quick as a flash, she was on her way out the back again."Wait there," she said. "I'll give you one." Catching our uncertain glances to one another, she added to the Mister and I, "for free!"

The Mister gave me a look that said, BONUS. I didn't argue, and before we knew it she was handing us a weighty carrier bag with a huge orange crustacean staring up at us with beady, dead eyes.

"I had a customer who ordered it," said the diminutive shopkeeper, "but she couldn't cook it live, so she asked me to do it, and said she would collect it on Friday. That was two days ago, and I can't sell it, so have it. Tell me how it is," she winked, "but don't eat it if it smells funny," she added, with a look of warning.

"But how do we get into it?" I asked. "And aren't there some bits we can't eat?" I was vaguely remembering something about dead man's fingers.

"Naaah, darleeen," came the reply. "Just put a sharp knife into it (she mimed a straight-down, stabbing motion) and it will be lovely."

Well. One hour later, we were staring at our new Cornish friend in the kitchen sink.

"I feel sorry for it," I said.

The Mister started to try to split it in half as per the instructions given, but succeeded only in dulling our sharpest kitchen knife. So we did what any pansy-assed, lily-livered city slickers who didn't know our crab's ass from its elbow would do:

We youtubed it. (You have to watch this. It's the least enthusiastic instruction video ever.)

Following our nasal young instructor's method step-by-step, we (well, I say we)  dissected the primeval, alien creature, bit by bit. We had to keep stopping to rinse it, because it was pretty horrible and all covered in brown goop.

I documented the Mister's disgust, mild nausea, and sheer incredulity with great interest.

Eventually we got the hang of getting the meat out, using our ill-equipped kitchen implements such as chopsticks, knives, and our garlic crushers. After an hour of hard toil, we ended up with this much meat.

What a crock.

It did make a lovely crab linguine, though. But your bin doesn't half stink the next day.