On the walk to the restaurant my eye was caught by a line of Ferraris and Lamborghinis with a combined value of well into 7 figures, each the proud recipient of a parking ticket like a badge of honour that I suspect didn’t worry the over-privileged owners but raised a cynical chuckle from me. Thankfully that rather ostentatious display was left outside when I reached the restaurant which had a much more understated exterior than one might expect from the locale. The interior is dominated by an open kitchen and large bar with subtle lighting and plenty of foliage to take off the harder edges, it also features a number of dry-ageing cabinets that are practical as well as decorative. The lunch menu comes in at a remarkably reasonable £29 per person, admittedly caveated that you need to work through it in an hour but given the financial possibilities offered by the a la carte menu and the location that’s quite a shockingly accessible price point.

With a glass of sparkling wine swiftly deposited at the table, we were up and running, waiting for our first course to appear, which it duly did in the form of potato bread accompanied by truffle honey and seaweed butter. Freshly baked and savoury without being too dense and the perfect vessel for those condiments, the truffle honey wearing its positive features particularly well. Alongside this we were served a hummus topped with herbs, mushrooms, a sharp kick of pickled chilli and small chunks of aubergine throughout. Comfortably the best hummus I’ve eaten, taking the concept far beyond any other execution of this old standard and perfect for smearing onto the potato bread. A fresh plate of salad with sharp citrus dressing punctuated proceedings before one of Jeru Mayfair signature plates arrived: halloumi donuts. Any worries I had about these being as rubbery and improbably dense as those found in your average chain-pub melted as quickly as my first bite, light and generously seasoned with more of that truffle honey and goats curd these are quite unique and delicious, an essential order if you visit.

A generous chunk of stone bass on a bed of those pickled chillies came next, complete with muslin wrapped lemon, as well as baked aubergine with a sweet, molasses like drizzle and a spiced lentil topping. Crispy potatoes on the side finished the main section of the meal and this trio did so in fine style. The aubergine was soft and paired delightfully with the lentils, the fish flaking perfectly and the potatoes crisp but fluffy inside making a superb conclusion to the meal. We finished on a sweet note with baklava, also the best execution of this dish that I can recall.

Mayfair is not really an area of London that I’m financially equipped to frequent and it was an unusual confluence of circumstances that led to my dining there. We went a bit beyond the £29 lunch menu but it would never have occurred to me that such an accessibly priced meal would be found adjacent to such ostentatious displays of wealth. I’d assumed that anything in this neighbourhood would be beyond my financial means but not only was this extremely competitively priced but without any compromise, there may not have been any meat in the menu but that’s only something I realised in retrospect. If you’re in the market for a competitively priced and top quality meal amongst the more financially well endowed then this is the place for you.

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Jeff Wayne’s musical version of The War of the Worlds was released upon the world way back in 1978 and featured a notable cast of performers such as Phil Lynott, David Essex and Julie Covington while Richard Burton took up the role of narrator. It may have taken a few liberties with H.G. Wells’ original material but was a notable hit and embedded itself in the psyches of many of us over the next decades…just ask someone around my age what the chances of anything coming from Mars are for an illustration. In 2006, Jeff Wayne succeeded in producing a touring version of his album that took a full size, fire breathing martian fighting machine and a holographic Richard Burton around the country to great acclaim and has since been pleasing audiences over a series of subsequent tours. The level of immersion from that stage set up was certainly a cut above most live performances but now things have moved up another level with the live action War of the Worlds Immersive Experience in London. As a life long fan of the album, I’ve been looking for an excuse to venture South and go through this experience for some time so when the opportunity to attend came up I was booking train tickets in very short order, with the two hour experience making it easy to do as a day trip from York.

It’s just a short hop on the tube from Kings Cross to Bank or Aldgate to arrive at the Spirit of Man bar which is the precursor to your War of the Worlds Immersive experience, complete with smoke-spewing Martian fighting machine and regular blasts of music as the background to food and drinks. Organisation on arrival was seamless with lockers available at no extra charge to store bags that would interfere with our efforts to repel other-worldly invaders, and check in was handled quickly. With the admin complete, we were grouped up and set on our way through the 24 scenes that make up the experience. I’m mindful of giving away too much and ruining the surprise so I’ll steer clear of too much detail but the framing device places you post the unsuccessful Martian invasion to experience those events for yourself, with a nod to fake news as it’s suggested that in this timeline, the history has been massaged to make it appear humans were more pro-active in this success than truthful. With that preamble out of the way, events loosely follow the original album, starting with the opportunity to track the Martians progress from their home planet to Earth via a fully realised telescope before being taken onto the common to see the vessel for ourselves, as well as the unfortunate fate of the astronomer.

After the tone is dramatically set, you’re hustled onwards by a range of actors who direct you through windows and trenches as well as over a water-logged bridge. The various set-pieces use physical and audio effects to bring the story to life, all set to the appropriate soundtrack in places of course and the experience is well paced, letting you draw breath occasionally as the suspense is allowed to build. What really elevates the experience is the periodic use of virtual reality headsets to push the sense of immersion to a degree I’d not felt before, sitting in fully realised sets to give a sense of physical immersion while the headsets take care of a couple more of your senses. One thing worth noting is that the sensation is so convincing both my friend and I felt a bit of motion sickness, which we recovered from quickly in the Red Weed bar with a Red Weed cocktail in the interval.

The rest of the experience didn’t let up in terms of intensity, immersion or inventiveness with VR and physical effects seamlessly interacting to really throw you into the story. The technology that tracks one’s hands to allow them to appear in the VR in particular adding another layer, letting you see yourself interact with the virtual representations of physical objects that you really are interacting with. Given my affection for the source material, I was unlikely to be disappointed with this experience but even with a rather more objective hat on, I’d find it hard to recommend this enough for the £50 or so that tickets start from (though you can spend significantly more by adding extras or choosing different times). In fact the friend who accompanied me is an actor who’s appeared in a few similar stagings and expressed a very high opinion of the War of the Worlds Immersive experience. London is usually a year or two ahead of more provincial cities and, while York has a good few Escape Rooms already, we’re just starting to see the more experiential stuff arrive in the city centre. Our city centres may be under a degree of threat, but at least that’s not from Martian fighting machines, who I’ll be glad to encounter again any time!

(Disclaimer – PR tickets at no charge)

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Sticky Mango in Waterloo has been on my list for a couple of years now after some strong recommendations brought it to my attention, particularly as the pricing seemed very fair for a decent meal in London. It was an easy choice to get a booking sorted and arrange to catch up with a couple of old school friends who commute from Milton Keynes, where I was brought up in the distant past. Sticky Mango London is owned by Peter Lloyd who built a strong reputation prior to taking it over, having completed stages with Pierre Koffmann, Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White as well as stints in various reputed kitchens. It’s clear that the intention here is to marry great value to big flavours which inspire plenty of repeat custom: should be a pretty open goal in London if the balance is right.

The restaurant is just a short walk from Waterloo station and immediately identifiable from the large mural of Anthony Bourdain that dominates the front of the building along with a quote from the much missed chef and author. The rest of the signage is attractive enough to draw you in without dominating the street unduly, though things ramp up a notch when you climb the stairs to the dining room which is dominated by a vibrant pink blossom tree. Sadly we didn’t have time to go through the whole tasting menu but the a la carte is perfectly broad enough and gave plenty for our table of 3 to go at. We started with steamed edamame in a truffle teriyaki dressing, chicken and shrimp rolls and some crab dumplings in a laksa sauce that I’d had my eye on. For mains we agreed on glazed duck, whole seabass and a green vegetable curry while we made doubly sure our collective appetite would be met with sides of crispy baby potatoes and truffled egg fried rice.

Our server was hitting the balance between formality and conviviality nicely by this point, delivering our dishes and drinks promptly without any sense of being rushed, the edamame beans arriving first to make a mess of our hands while we extracted the beans from their pods and made sure to alert every party at the table to discard the casings before too many had been consumed. The chicken and shrimp rolls went above and beyond, paired with fresh crisp leaves and a lively dipping sauce, but the stand out starter was the quartet of crab dumplings. These could have easily been overwhelmed by the punch of the laksa sauce but everything on the plate rubbed along very well indeed with the crab still making itself heard and quail egg bringing a touch of delicacy to presentation.

Expectations were high after those first few plates and further met by the dishes that followed with duck first to make an appearance. The meat, which had been confit and roasted, shredded with virtually no effort and paired nicely with the fresh watermelon for a neat contrast of texture, flavour and taste that was extremely satisfying. The seabass lived up to the promise of being boneless, requiring only the slightest effort to get at the meat and was sharpened up nicely with some pickled veg. The green curry made use of okra as a neat point of difference that set it aside from more commonly found examples of this dish, a reassuring suggestion of the effort going into flavour making and presentation. Crispy baby potatoes were dressed with peanut, mayonnaise and plenty of spring onion that kept us picking at them until the plate was empty but the truffled leek rice was the star of the side dishes, topped with a fried egg that the server mixed through the rice at the table. The hit of truffle went particularly neatly with the duck and the fresh watermelon…and frankly what dish isn’t improved by the addition of a fried egg?

Sadly by this point I was in serious danger of missing my return train to York, which actually turned out to be a four hour odyssey of discomfort all to reminiscent of the worst days of our mass transport network, so dessert had to be skipped and I sadly missed the establishment’s titular dish. Being back in London and catching up with old friends had put me in a more forgiving mood but I didn’t need to draw down on any of that good will for this meal. I’d expected Sticky Mango to offer bold flavours, a kick of originality and good value and it delivered on that with great aplomb.

(Disclaimer – PR meal)

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Located at Gatwick’s South Terminal, Bloc offers budget accommodation right by departures so is perfect for grabbing a decent portion of sleep before an early start. In my case, I was due to meet a group to fly at 7am which would have meant a 6 hour drive or a very early start. Bloc seemed like a good alternative.

The reception desk is located just a few yards from departures so really couldn’t do more to help you grab an extra ten minutes in bed. With little in the way of opportunity to rack up extra charges from mini-bars or food from the stripped back offering, check-in is a brief affair that exchanges an entry card for a brief glimpse of ID. That entry card can be used to get the airport lifts to the appropriate floor, the eighth in my case, where you’re met by an expansive corridor and a notable lack of natural light.

There are a variety of room and suite options that can offer the opportunity to have a runway view or more space but I was going for the most pure representation of the Bloc experience, foregoing luxuries such as windows and natural light. The basic room was certainly small and didn’t have much in the way of amenity but was clean and comfortable, a touch screen by the bed giving you control over lights and temperature. To maximise space, the bathroom was configured as a wetroom, some frosted glass allowing some light in from the main space. Everything functioned as it should, but I’ve yet to see a wet room that hasn’t resulted in wet socks at some point.

This isn’t designed to be a room for socialising, eating or spending a lot of time in, so I retired to the terminal’s Wetherspoons for some calories to see me through to the flight. That said, post food it was an entirely acceptable place to relax for an hour or two. The bed was large and luxurious, though pressed against a wall that would have been inconvenient for one party had Mrs Fork been with me. There had clearly been some significant effort put into tuning the artificial ambient light, so the sense of being stuck in a box was minimised and I woke suitably refreshed to fight through an EasyJet flight.

Obviously this isn’t somewhere you’d want to spend more than one night, but it’s explicitly not designed for that. As a modern take on utilitarian airport accommodation, Bloc really hit the spot, delivering a snug cocoon I could retreat to safe in the knowledge I wouldn’t be in danger of missing my flight in the morning. It might be basic but that’s all part of the appeal and it does everything it sets out to do, giving you a comfortable space in which to anticipate your travels.

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