Kake

Many thanks for this recommendation! I was going to be in Cambridge this week anyway, and when I saw this thread I knew where I was going for dinner. I met up with a few friends and we had a very good evening at Alimentum. I put some photos on Flickr here and a small writeup on the Open Guide to Cambridge here. Basically, I felt that it was at least comparable to similar places in London, and somewhere I'd certainly go back to (and, for me, that does involve a journey from London).

Yep — I was there last week. Overall, I liked it. They're aiming for an informal atmosphere, and I think they've hit the right note; the staff are friendly but not overfriendly, the tables and chairs are canteen-style but a sturdy kind of canteen-style, and the decor is "cool" but not overpolished. The food is also quite reasonably priced. The quality of the food was slightly lacking, though. First of all, almost all of it arrived lukewarm. We'd been assured by the waitstaff that dishes would arrive as they were ready, and so we shouldn't expect things to come all at once. Given this, why wasn't any of it hot? I'll assume this is a problem that will be sorted out once they've been open a bit longer, though. Second, many of the dishes could really have done with a bit of seasoning. Neither chilli nor salt was in evidence in most of them; in fact, the only items that really tasted of anything were those that included intrinsically-salty ingredients like chorizo or goats' cheese. We had a chat to a staff member after our meal, and it turns out that this is a deliberate decision to allow customers to salt and chillify their food to their own taste. I am not very keen on this idea, but it may work out for them. I've put a more extended writeup here (Randomness Guide to London).

I was there last month (writeup here) and had the £20 a la carte, even though it was evening (though it was Sunday; it might not be available in the evening on other days). I did go for the cheese; I was undecided until I saw someone at another table getting the cheeseboard, and my mind was then made up! A good selection, including the gooey smelly kinds I like (you get to choose five from the selection). The food came quite promptly on our visit. I also thought the staff were very personable and friendly, and that's what really clinched it for me since while I enjoyed the food I wasn't bowled over by it. I think I'll go back, but then it's not too hard to get to for me (Bermondsey). Not sure I'd travel across London for it.

I went to Bacchus earlier this month with the boyfriends; writeup is on chowhound. Overall, it was a Good Thing, and I'm working out diary dates to go back with more people, probably in September. Some of the details I liked, some I didn't; but for everything I disliked, there was one of my companions who liked it. I reckon that's a good sign.

It's worth considering Umu. It's £125 per person for the nine-course tasting menu with matched sake, and you can get a couple of cocktails each with the change. Went there earlier this year; my writeup is here. Summary: real wasabi; interesting vegetables and herbs; varied and well-matched sake choices; nine courses is rather too much food for a Kake.

Going off at a slight tangent, can anyone recommend any pubs in London that actually do decent Thai food? I quite liked the seafood dish I had at the King's Arms near Waterloo station a few months ago, but I've only eaten there that one time; it was also quite unpleasantly crowded (we were lucky and grabbed a tucked-away table fairly early on). Kake