Thursday 21 May 2015

Ask for Janice, Farringdon - Restaurant Review

I have found my favourite cocktail. It's taken years of research and much trial and error but here it is:

Hey Ladies. 
It's 'Breakfast tea infused Beefeater Gin, Creme de Figue, lemon, fig jam, egg white, Prosecco top, and a sherbet rim.'
It's beautiful. It's delicious. It's sweet. It's got everything I love - Prosecco, gin, lemon and some sweeeet sherbet. Mission accomplished.

Hey Ladies; 3 Minute Rule.

At Ask For Janice in Farringdon, there is a new Spring menu and a whole host of newly created cockatils, mostly featuring one or more of their 40+ gins. I tried both the Hey Ladies and the 3 Minute Rule. I had to try them again...

The restaurant on street level looks out onto Smithfield Market, and is only a few minute's walk from the Barbican (the tube station and the actual Barbican). It opened only last year, and I don't know who Janice is, nor did I ask for her, but she has created a fantastic menu featuring locally sourced seasonal ingredients, some even foraged in Hackney. I had some crispy fried wild garlic flower - delicious. Like some kind of tempura batter, but seeming healthy as it's totally natural and wild inside. With those amazing cocktails, they are beautifully complementary.
Crisp Pork Crackling with sloe cider jelly; Wild Garlic Flower Fritters; Cod Cheeks with braised Fennel; Asparagus salad with Somerset ricotta and hazelnuts.
Another starter/nibble worth the visit is the pork crackling. Crisp, really crisp, served with a sticky cider jelly. The perfect snack to whet your appetite for the rest of the menu, which is all billed as British, with a modern creative twist. All seasonal, all locally sourced. All delicious.
There was asparagus salad with Somerset ricotta and hazelnuts, cod cheeks with braised wild fennel and lemon - again very more-ish, and marinated flank steak with Young Buck blue cheese. So tender and so tempting.

For dessert Ask For Janice has taken the traditional British dessert Poor Knights of Windsor and turned it into the Farrindgon version - a brandy-soaked walnut bread and butter pudding, with caramelized peaches, served with custard. Not too sweet and not too stodgy, the perfect end to a meal.

Poor Knights of Farrindgon

The basement bar at Ask For Janice is a laid back, trendy area where you can choose from a gin list, a wine list, and a cocktail list. You can even hire it out for private events. Did I mention the Hey Ladies? Go and try it. It's wonderful.


50-52 Long Lane
Farrindgon
EC1A 9EJ

020 7600 2255

Read my review on behalf of Love Food Love Drink magazine here.


Ask For Janice on Urbanspoon Square Meal