Falafel, fish crests and lambs liver

Many thanks to ‘old father thames’ for this guest review.

I am working in Hampton Wick, which although is in Greater London takes 2 hours to get to from my North London lair. So, I stay over one night a week. During the long evenings away from my beloved, my mind turns to nosh and out I go in search of it. The other day I took the short walk over the Thames to the (former) town of Kingston-upon-Thames to sample one of its many restaurants.

Kingston is an ancient market town, where once in their spare moments they would crown a Saxon king or two. It has several fine buildings and has one of my favourite civic crests showing three triple decker fish swimming to the left – as Beyonce might say. And pleasant it is too to wander along the river and admire Bushey Park on the other bank and the jolly old boat people pottering about nautically on their river craft.

The town on the whole though is a bit of a disappointment, however, like many things in life. It has become a large one way system dominated by cars, a massive John Lewis and the usual dreary food and clothing chains. Except for Le Val, a Lebanese restaurant I found lurking on the edge of the main town in Fife Road.

Spacious and well lit, it caters for all. A kindly fellow showed me to my table and took my order of falafels followed by (vegans look away now) lambs liver!

In the blink of an eye the falafel was upon me. What service! Although quick and served with goodly dollop of humous I found the falafel to be a bit on the dry side as is Le Val which sells no beer. When told as much I feared I had committed a cultural faux pas but the same kindly fellow showed no sign of offence and brough me a fizzy water instead.

As is usual for me and, I suspect most falafel eating second coursers, having eaten the falafel there is little room left for anything else so the lambs liver, delicious though it was, was a struggle. I did manage to fit it all in though as I am blessed with a large gut.

Falafel: 3

Kingston Upon Thames: 2

Fish crest: 5