Borough Market is a weird place. The market itself is now another dreadful London tourist attraction that can be filed alongside the likes of Madam Toussards, The London Eye, and The Emirates Stadium, full of overpriced punnets of fruit, truffle products that aren’t really truffles, Dubaifuckingchocolate, and lavender drinks, whilst the street food traders are a shadow of what they once were. I think I’ve completed them and could maybe name three that are worth your time, with the caveat that you could get those three cheaper and better elsewhere. But the rim
of the market, that’s an entirely different beast. Here is probably Londons best hub of restaurants, all conveniently packed into an area that’s within two minutes of each other and a further minute away from a place I occasionally work at. Camille, OMA, Kolae, Elliott’s, Bao, and Akara to name but a few, with Rambutan one of the ones we’d singled out for lunch and never got around to going to until one day I was riding solo and decided to give it a go.
I wish I could tell you what the inside looked like, but I sat at the corner of the bar, by the front door. Never went the loo. Ate my three dishes and drank tap water. Paid my thirty-five quid and left. Quite enjoyed my three dishes, though wish I had the wife with me to eat more, or at the very least taken up the offer of the lady next to me for some of hers when she ordered the entire menu, took some pictures, scribbled in a pad and left. I’d like her job please. Slices of ripe Alphonso mango dusted in a chilli salt; a bit like being in Thailand but more grounded in spice and less ferocious. And balls of batter the size of ping pongs, dense and dotted with herbs, with a green chutney that’s pokey and yet still fresh.
There’s a rice dish with grilled chicken that’s more like daal, which is good because I really like daal, cooked so that the tempered spice have weaved into the very soul of the short grains, complete with chicken thigh that’s been blistered and blackened over the open grill. And with that I’m out. Good food, good service, a solid 8/10 of anyone’s time and a big recommendation should you ever find yourself in Borough Market contemplating joining the queue for the paella. Rambutan is very nice, as are other restaurants in this area. Go here instead.
8/10
