Restaurant Review: The Begging Bowl

I tried for a long time to get Joe to move to North West London. I took him for long walks on the Heath, Sunday roasts at The Bull and Last, and coffee and doughnuts at Fields Beneath. And for a time it worked, he temporarily resided in Tufnell Park. Until about a month ago when he moved to South East London. Yep, about as far away from NW residing me as you can get (I’m trying not to take it personally). It may or may not have something to do with his new fella, who gleefully pointed out to me that just a few weeks after they’d started dating, while he was away skiing, Joe moved a 20 minute walk away. Stalker much? Joe says it’s just a coincidence… but I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. However the flip side of Joe living on the other side of London is that it gives me a reason to explore a part of the city that I haven’t as yet. I’d only been to Peckham once before, to meet Sean and one of his friends for a drink. I came out of the station and turned the wrong way, ending up on a street that, in the dark and in heels, made me feel very uncomfortable. I called Sean who came to find me, and within a minute we were on a quiet, middle-class, suburban street, littered with gastro-pubs and the like. I love this patchwork quality to London, how in just the space of a street, the entire character of an area can completely change.

Anyway, back to South East London, or rather, back to me sitting on my bed on Easter Friday morning looking at the TFL website in a state of mild despair. Every single useful line was down. Thank god for citymapper, the Thameslink, and my very comfy New Balance trainers. I got the train down to Loughborough Junction, and then had a lovely walk across to Peckham, taking a detour through the Edwardian Rushkin Park (a few photos of which are on my Instagram). We’d arranged to meet at The Begging Bowl, a Thai restaurant that frequently makes appearances on South East Londoners’ Instagram feeds (most notably Hollow Legs), and one that I had filed away to try, but never quite got around to. I initially took a seat outside the restaurant, in their delightful road-side covered veranda, complete with tropical plants, but the increasingly cloud covered sky and chilly wind drove me inside.

Inside The Begging Bowl

The Begging Bowl serves Thai street food, and the modest sized menu (always a good thing in my book – I don’t like too much choice) is colour coded into four different price brackets, from £6.25 to £14.75, rather like Yo! Sushi. We started with two Thai lemonades which Joe found a bit too sweet but I very much enjoyed. We then ordered the set lunch menu – three dishes and rice for £12.50 each. A cured prawn salad was served alongside fish cakes with sweet chilli dipping sauce. The salad was the highlight of the meal – lightly cured pieces of seafood tossed with plenty of herbs, chilli, and chewy pieces of fried garlic (I think…). There were notes of hot, fresh and sharp in every single mouthful. The fishcakes were slightly disappointing, over relying on the sauce for flavour, but they did have a great texture.

Cured prawn salad and Thai fishcakes at The Begging Bowl

Joe then had sweet soy marinated pork ribs, which looked incredible, and he very much enjoyed, gleefully licking the sticky sauce off his fingers at the end of the meal. As this was still within Lent (I gave up red meat and the Daily Mail side bar of shame), I swapped these for sweet potato and Thai basil fritters, which were lovely and crisp, and served with the same sauce as the fish cakes. Rather than the generic bowl of sticky msg-laden substance you often get, it had more of a light syrup consistency, and was served with floating pieces of cucumber, coriander, chilli and red onion. It was sweet, but not sickly, and had a good, back-of-the-throat kick to it. We were also given a bowl of jasmine rice, and a bamboo basket of unnecessary sticky rice – while it was perfectly nice, I think you only really need one type of rice with a meal.

Sweet potato fritters with sweet chilli sauce at The Begging Bowl

Sweet soy marinated pork ribs at The Begging Bowl

We finished up with a pudding to share, taking a punt on a pandanas leaf granita with lemon grass syrup, pomelo, physillas and rambutan. No, I didn’t know what half those things were either. Pandanas is a dark green leaf with an aromatic, herby flavour to it, and the granita was a cleansing end to the meal, especially when soaked in a mouthful of sweet, pungent, lemongrass syrup. However, the accompaniments: physillas, a tomato looking, orange tasting fruit; pomelo, a small citrus fruit; and rambutan, lychee like in texture, but lacking any of the flavour punch of its sister, were all underwhelming, and when paired together, slightly odd. Despite continual protests from Joe that he wasn’t convinced by the dessert, he did keep eating it, as I did I, and I grew to like it more and more with every taste.

Pandanas leaf granita with lemon grass syrup, pomelo, physillas and rambutan at The Begging Bowl

Our meal wasn’t perfect, but it was very enjoyable. The restaurant itself is a lovely light, casual space, with an orange, green and brown striped wooden wall at the back (that reminded me a little of The Rum Kitchen), and friendly staff. Our set lunch was fairly good value, but I did feel the portions were a bit on the small size, especially as I think Joe’s bowl of ribs was meant for the two of us to share (it wouldn’t have), and although we left full, I wasn’t quite satisfied. We will however be back, Joe probably sooner than I, and it was a good start to my South East London explorations.

After we left we picked up coffees at the delightful Anderson & Co just across the road. They serve excellent Square Mile coffee and I loved the lights and delicious looking cakes. Joe and I are already planning to come back for brunch sometime soon.

Anderson & Co, Peckham