It's a small room with limited tables which spill out onto the pavement outside where everyone sits cheek by jowl so get comfy or get going. The menu is brief and devoid of such clutter as starters or mains. Everything on the menu is to share and sharing is absolutely vital because otherwise you have no hope of trying everything that you should. The recommendation is to order five dishes between two people but I can assure you that if we had followed that advice (there were four of us plus The Child) we would have been absolutely destroyed. Dishes come as and when cooked by the kitchen which basically means they cook one dish at a time for the entire restaurant. Plates of salad are distributed, followed by another wave of beef, or squid or, well you get the picture. It's an interesting process but it meant that we sometimes waited quite a while for our next dish to come through. Luckily the rice is unlimited in both sticky and jasmine varieties, which is probably another reason why following the five dish endorsement is an act of lunacy.
First we had some fish cakes - I enjoyed these, crunchy and juicy. Sweet chilli sauce gave a great accompaniment to the salty fishy balls. I did think though that these tasted almost exactly like mine so I would be worried if I didn't like them. Not spectacular but very solid, otherwise I wouldn't make them like this myself.
Prawns with coconut sticky rice (wrapped in the banana leaf) and covered in some kind of magical brown sludge that tasted of milk supped from the very teat of Aphrodite the Goddess of Love herself. The Child and I couldn't physically control ourselves and physically fought the other members of the table for the final morsel. We shared the heads between us, sucking on the cavities for every last drop of the sweet, rich, nutty prawny gunge. We liked this one.
Stir fry greens were the unexpected surprise of the evening, these were peppery, crunchy and superb. Everyone liked them.
On the other hand the 'Son-in-law eggs' were, while expertly deep fried with a runny centre and crunchy outer coating, eggs. I'm sure loads of people will love these but me? More prawns please.
Soft beef short rib was sweet with a deep sugar taste, possibly brown sugar or palm sugar in the mix here and it was high on the list for a couple of the party. I have to confess that sweet beef won't be making my top ten best eats but it was still good and the plate was finished then licked clean. Literally.
An entire sea bream cooked in a salt crust was perfectly delish but it was that dipping sauce that was heavy on the fish sauce, heavy on the coriander, heavy on the vinegar and mega heavy on the birds eye chilli that got eyebrows raised and people gesturing with cutlery. This one was super good
Pork belly with crackling was... OK. The belly was good but not great being quite chewy towards the bottom but the soy and the crackling were brill. I tried to work out what was in the violently red dip but couldn't get it. It was a bit flaccid and just couldn't compete amid a meal of serious flavour contenders.
This pomelo salad was the last thing out and by this time we were all glad to slow down a bit. A pomelo is a bit like a bitter grapefruit and not much of anything by itself but stick that on a plate with some salad leaves, coriander and nuts and we've got ourselves a party.
The upshot of The Begging Bowl is that we had some real highlights and other plates that were fairly standard. All in for four and a half people plus drinks the bill came to just over £100 which, for a Friday night in London is pretty good. Put it on your list and go if you get the opportunity, you won't regret it. Just one word of advice; don't fall into the trap of ordering five plates per couple unless you want to start scraping plates into your pocket to eat on the bus ride home.
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