Hot4U at the Prince Arthur, Dalston

I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes the fact that all the best restaurants in London seem to be concentrated in the same handful of locations, leaving great swathes of the city with nowhere decent to eat, does seem to be a slight bordering on personal. I normally live in Battersea, which has lovely family-run Mien Tay for Vietnamese and... that's it. Dalston, where I'm temporarily staying while my house is being smashed apart, has the Duke of Richmond, Salvation in Noodles, Pidgin, Bright, Peg, Towpath, Brat, not to mention all the interesting little spots in Netil and Broadway markets AND amazing bakeries like E5 and Pophams. I mean, couldn't just one of them move to SW11? It's so selfish.

Anyway, hot on the heels of the Ethical Butcher at the Spurstowe arms, and as if residents of E8 don't already have enough to be smug about, along comes Hot 4 U's (yes it's a stupid name, just ignore it) residency at the Prince Arthur, literally minutes round the corner, where another lovely old boozer has been given a new lease of life serving inventive modern bistro food. The handwritten menu is a joyfully unpretentious list of interesting things at extremely reasonable prices - oysters for £2.50 a pop, for example, or a burger for £10. Whittling down the list for a dinner for two was less a case of choosing what you'd prefer than deciding which items would be least traumatising to do without, but given that oysters and burgers aren't exactly unheard of in town, we decided instead to try some of the more unusual bits and pieces...

...such as this, dragon cucumber, handsome things dusted with some kind of chilli spice mix and bound by supremely light "whipped cheese", more of a kind of thin yoghurt but which worked really well.

Slices of scallops, either raw or barely cooked, each had a cute little piece of apple perched on top and were marvellously fresh, but the real star of this dish was the sauce underneath which they coyly called "whey" - it was extraordinarily rich and complex, packing a giant umami hit and, with its verdant swirls of bright green and red, beautiful to look at. If the Prince Arthur had served me nothing but a bowl of this I still would have left happy.

I wasn't such a huge fan of the ox tongue but then I believe you can be lucky and unlucky with this particular cut. Unfortunately for the Prince Arthur the last ox tongue I had was in a bagel from Tongue & Brisket on Leather Lane and was marvellously soft and moist; here, it was a little on the dry side with a slightly pappy, mealy texture. The daikon on the side was great though, and little dollops of creme fraiche helped the meat go down a bit easier.

An excellent, smooth tarama came with a generous mound of new potatoes, all glossy and golden, the combination ticking a number of boxes through soft fat and salty roe. I don't know if you've noticed but there seems to be an awful lot of very good tarama on offer around London at the moment, and it's a trend I'm very much in favour of.

Beef tartare was spiked with something called "pinenut xo" which added a nice extra dimension to the raw meat. On top, bonito flakes provided seasoning, and two neat sticks of deep-fried polenta a bit of extra carb and crunch. All very good, and plenty of it too for £12.

We only had room for one dessert. I'm sure the key lime pie would have been lovely, but the promise of tonka bean ice cream with sesame brittle was too enticing, so that's what we ended up with. The ice cream had that ultra silky-smooth texture that means someone really knows their way around a Pacojet, and the sesame crackers were nice and delicately nutty.

We didn't see a bill, but a quick bit of calculation tells me that the total would have, before service, come to £53, which is a great deal for this amount and quality of food. Oh, I should also probably point out that the Prince Arthur do very nice cocktails and have a very decent beer list thanks to a number of entries from 40ft brewery nearby, which is always nice to see. They're also very dog-friendly, meaning on any given night you stand a very good chance of sharing the space - if not your dinner, although that's presumably up to you - with some canines.

In short, there's an awful lot to like about the Hot4U residency, and not very many things to dislike, other than the aformentioned stinging unfairness of a part of the city already blessed with great places to eat has yet another one to call its own. But hey, while I'm a resident of E8 I'm going to put that to the back of my mind and make the most of it, and I very much suggest you do the same and book a table at the Prince Arthur. May you have an evening as good as mine, with craft beer, good food and dogs.

8/10

I was invited to the Prince Arthur and didn't see a bill.