Madeirinhas — Restaurant in London

Cozy little gem. Very friendly service and lovely tasty pastries. Even though crust of the pasteis de nata lost some crunchiness, the custard was rich and creamy. The almond, custard (yes I love custard), and cinnamon pastry was heartwarming in the winter morning. The toastie was simple but hearty, with unbeatable price. Many thanks for suggesting we order only one toastie!

Definitely worth the easy walk from the hotel and skipping the reportedly dreadful reheated frozen food there.

Also learned a bit about the Madeira region from wiki and travel blogs;)

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Back again two months later! This is mostly the reason why I chose to stay around Heathrow for an early flight.

Octopus was nicely cooked. Tender, springy. The seasoning was simple, but the garlicky savory flavor was great.

Came with good portion of cooked vegetables and lovely potatoes. Octopus is among the most expensive menu items but definitely worth it. (The whole dinner was less than 30 GBP.)

I had a long struggle between octopus and pork ribs and other traditional stews. Will definitely come back for them;)

Again, the place is small, busy, but not crowded thanks to the fast service.

(Tried “Chinese lady”/white coffee this time. 😅 really interested to know more about the origin of the name, which seems to be particular to the region.)

The pastries are irresistible. Had a few to go for late night snacks and tomorrow breakfast, but the chicken pear was gone as soon as I arrived at my hotel… beautifully spiced and delicious even eaten cold. Ham cheese pocket is probably better eaten warm, as the cheese got solid in this weather. Still tasty though. And what’s better than a pastel de nata at the gates?

Eventually I’ll...

I was traveling from San Francisco to Luxembourg and had the misfortune of getting stuck in Heathrow overnight due to my connecting flight cancelation. This restaurant is 3 blocks from Leonardo Heathrow Hotel where I was staying, so only a 4 minute walk. I dined in at the restaurant (opposite side of take out counter) and had the most delicious grilled octopus salad. It's a cold salad with raw onions, tomatoes, red and yellow bell peppers sitting in a generous dressing of olive oil vinaigrette nicely seasoned. The octopus was tender and moist and the combination of the ingredients' flavors and textures was perfect. I also ate the grilled sea bass (served as a whole fish) which was also very good, but the grilled octopus salad really stood out as unique and excellent. The restaurant is not fancy but pleasant and its customers seemed local and were of several different nationalities. Service was also good. My travel misfortune resulted in a fortunate dining experience. I'm glad I discovered this place. Any time I am in London, I plan to stop here to eat for...

So we decided to skip the usual hotel food and try something different. Worse mistake of the trip and we didnt even fly yet!

Chicken gizzards were great, the rest of the meal was a complete disaster.

I ordered the mixed grill. This consisted of 2 pieces of dry chicken i couldnt even cut, a piece of pork that looked like it was on the way to a pork scratching but gave up half way and what appeared to be a piece of very dry steak.

The thing is that steak turned out to be a giant piece of kidney! I mean, who serves a bloodly kidney! It was so dry and powdery in my mouth, i thought i was going to be sick immediately. Abandoned the meal and got out of there at this point, and who could blame us!

Honestly, I dont understand how this place gets the reviews it does. Dingy, weird atmosphere and run down. The toilet upstairs had a sign saying dont flush the toliet paper, but the bin next to it was overflowing with excrement covered toliet paper. Disgusting.

Got back to the hotel and paid for a second edible meal. AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE...