Cheap Eats
Shuk; (which means street market in Hebrew) is serving up a taste of Tel Aviv in the recently opened Borough Market Kitchen. It’s all about Israeli street food, which you can get in fresh baked pita or as part of a salad box, made using produce from the Middle East as well as the market itself. The pitas include sabich with roast aubergine & eggs, spiced lamb meatballs with chilli yoghurt (which is our fave) and beef brisket with cheese and pickled onions – think cheeseburger vibes. If you wanna skip the bread, you can go for a salad box by choosing from the likes of roasted squash with cous cous or broccoli & carrot with labneh and you can add the pita fillings on if you want something a bit bigger. All the pitas are properly filling too, not to mention way more exciting than a bog standard sarnie.
RIVER CAFE
Not to be confused with the wallet-beating Italian restaurant, this particular River Cafe is an old school caff located right opposite Putney Bridge tube. It’s a stunner inside, with blue and white tiles, creaking plywood wall panels, and formica tables, largely unchanged since the 1960s. There are plenty of nods to the Italian owners too, with walls covered in Italian football flags and posters. The menu is as comforting as the surroundings, with bacon sandwiches and a big Full English for breakfast, and shepherd’s pie, pasta and Italian desserts at lunch. You can eat like a king here and still come with change from a tenner.
Sons + Daughters, the brainchild of James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy (the duo behind award-winning East London restaurant Pidgin) celebrates the sandwich in all its glory. The Coal Drops Yard spot is an ode to all things between two slices of bread. They may have reduced them in size – and in price, dropping them down to £7 – but the sarnies are still epic. We particularly rate the CHICKEN S+DWICH, with Swaledale chicken, pickled cucumber, miso mayo, green sauce, soy-cured parmesan, gem lettuce and wasabi cress, and the EGG SALAD S+DWICH, with Burford Brown eggs, miso mayo, truffle crisps and salad cress. Remember the crisp sandwiches you’d make as a kid? This is like that except way more mindblowing. If sandwiches are what get you out of bed in the morning, then go venture in this playground, it’s like being given a AAA pass at Glasto. Rock on.
Pho & Bun on Shaftesbury Avenue is the sister restaurant to Holborn’s Viet Eat and it’s following in its footsteps by serving up authentic Vietnamese food without breaking the bank. Stepping foot in Pho & Bun it’s everything you would expect from a traditional Vietnamese restaurant, from the decor to the menu. Highlights include the crispy spring rolls and the pho xao – wok fried noodles with choi sum and their secret sauce. You can also bag yourself four courses AND a drink for only £23.95 if you choose from their set dinner menu – bargain!
Neds Noodle Bar (yes they really don’t have an apostrophe in there) has been going since 1998, dishing out fresh, tasty, and cheap noodles to Londoners. With sites in Shoreditch and near the London Eye (as well as a couple outside the city), Neds is a classic Chinese takeaway, complete with the classic card boxes, and an extensive menu of noodle dishes. Crucially, Neds doesn’t use any MSG and makes all its own sauces so the food here does have a slightly fresher feel than some other cheap and cheerful Chinese takeaway options. You start by choosing your base – egg, rice, or udon noodles, or steamed rice – before adding a sauce like yakisoba or black bean, and then finishing off with chicken, beef, vegetables, prawn tofu and more. A basic box will set you back £7.95 with extra toppings such as pickled ginger adding a few more pennies. Portions are huge too so you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck.
You can’t beat a good Vietnamese for spicy flavours and sheer value for money. Pho House is one of the best in the biz. There are plenty of their signature phos to choose from, with all sorts of broth, rice noodle and topping combos Besides their namesake soups, they have quite an extensive menu of just about every other Vietnamese dish you could want, like their amazing crispy salt and chilli prawns. Their spicy monkfish curry is banging, as is the sizzling beef fried in chef’s special sauce with lemongrass, garlic, fresh chillies, Vietnamese basil and celery, served on a hot iron plate that you must not bloody touch. The whole spring chicken marinated in five spice, roasted and dressed in soy sauce is also excellent. The variety is brilliant here and there is so much fun with the food. Whether you are a fan of the spice or can’t stand the heat, their Vietnamese beers are sure to help you either way.
KOKURA
Japanese ramen specialist Kokura is one of our favourite cheap eats in London as it offers some of the best value ramen and katsu curry you can find in the capital. There’s always five hot ramens on offer and the most expensive is £11.50 and they don’t shirk on quality though; the noodles are freshly made and the broth is rich and flavoursome. Kokura also does an amazing chicken or pork katsu curry at only £8.50! Take that Wagamama. For a quick bite in town that’s easy on the wallet, Kokura is a perfect choice.
Cay Tre is a Shoreditch institution, having been doing its thing since 2001. It’s one of the top authentic and traditional Vietnamese restaurants in east London and it’s a cheap eat that rocks. We love the charm of the place, which is a polite way to say it’s a little rough around the edges, but that doesn’t seem to affect its popularity at all. With ample sized portions at Cay Tre you can’t go wrong. It’s no fuss and no hipster Shoreditch-ness, just a good old Vietnamese restaurant. Get it booked in.
It’s no secret that some of the best food you can get in Stokey and Dalston is Turkish, and we LOVE Turkish food. There are so many places to choose from but our fail-safe is Cirrik 19 Numara Bos and in our opinion, it’s the best. The menu mostly focuses on kebabs made from barbecued meats cooked on the charcoal ocakbasi served with an abundance of sides including salad, spicy onions, THOSE balsamic grilled onions, THAT fresh bread (which is unlimited), chilli sauce and garlic mayo. Their speciality is lamb chops, though you can’t really go wrong with their chicken Shish (or anything else for that matter). The place is no frills and concentrates on offering great food and decent service. Go hungry.
Via Emilia specialises in food from the Emilia Romagna region of north Italy (the clue’s in the name). That includes some of the lightest gnocco fritto in town, creamy squacquerone cheese and a delish selection of charcuterie. Then there’s the hand made egg pasta dishes, which are priced from just £5.50 and the red sparkling lambrusco at £5 a glass. The cheapest trip to Italy you’ll go on.
Butchies serve some of the best fried chicken in town, starting from their Broadway Market stall on Saturday mornings and growing to permanent sites in Shoreditch and Clapham. It’s perfect for a quick bite and a beer (or negroni on tap!) and their incredible fried chicken sandwiches start at £7 for the original and creep to just below a tenner for the epic ‘Jenny From the Block’, which comes with guac and smoked bacon. There’s also cheesy fries, nuggets, halloumi fries and wings for a true feast AKA wipe out central.
It may not be as dirt cheap as your average high street chicken shop but then Chick ‘n’ Sours is on a whole new level…not only do you get free range birds, you get crazy sides and sauces you’d never find in Chicken Cottage. You can still eat here on a budget though; the house fry drumstick and thigh with THAT seaweed crack and pickled watermelon is yours for £12 or you could hand over the same amount for The General a beast of a bun with fried thigh, kewpie mayo, cheese and pickles.
If you want your pasta fast-a and can’t wait in the queue for Padella, say hello to Flour & Grape, located not too far away on Bermondsey Street. There’s nine pasta dishes on offer and a handful of starters and desserts, with the most expensive dish topping out at £14.50. The tortelloni packed with roast pork shoulder and sage butter kicks ass and there’s also a decent pappardelle with beef shin and a cacio e pepe bucatini.
House of MoMo isn’t just great because they serve up some bloody good momo, oh no you can also get a bowl of dumplings and beer for just over a tenner. Whether you choose them steamed, pan fried, coated in a sesame creamy curry sauce or a spicy chilli sauce, you won’t be disappointed.
It won OFM’s 2017 Cheap Eats award and is our fave local pizzeria, so it’s only right that Yard Sale makes it in our fave cheap eats. We’re a little bit obsessed with their Holy Pepperoni – it is holy after all, and when we’re pretending to be healthy it’s the TSB with tenderstem broccoli. It’s about a tenner for a 12inch, but if you really want to push the boat out they do HUGE 18inchers too, whatever you choose you definitely won’t go hungry here!
Tucked away in a basement near Euston, Roti King serves up authentic Malaysian grub that’s cheaper than chips. You can get two pieces of roti with dhal for a very wallet friendly price and still have cash to the roti filled with caramelised banana. Or if roti ain’t your thing they do noodle and rice dishes like beef rendang, nasi lemak and kari laksa – one to remember next time you’re catching a train!
Max’s Sandwich Shop, the late night sarnie shop you can get pissed in, might not serve up the cheapest sandwiches in London, but for the comedy value and the fact you probably won’t be able to move after noshing down it’s so worth the money. Expect quirky names and filthy creations. You can’t go wrong with the classic ham, egg ‘n’ chips but we also love The Original Gangster, a braised beef, sauerkraut and “incredibly slutty gravy mayo” creation and don’t miss the crispy potatoes coated in crack-like rose harissa yoghurt either.
Getting a decent burger & fries in London has got pretty pricey these days, but you can get a cheeseburger and fries for under £13 at Bleecker. AND take it from us, they serve up some of the best buns in London, oh and if you’re willing to spend a few extra pennies, go for the angry fries – they’re bloody YUM!