London Ladies: Please tell me your favourite cheap restaurants!

[Laugs]

We have booked a 3-day honeymoon in London and promptly found ourselves skint!

So we are looking for some lovely cheap places to eat out. We like cuisine. Tucked down a back alley/ bring your own booze/ early bird specials - I know they are lurking somewhere in the capital, but I don't know where. Please let me into your secrets!!

Thanks x

Cafe Emm on Frith St
Sofra often do a fixed price menu

Most of the Brick Lane Bangladeshi restaurants are well priced if you fancy a tasty indian meal, for excellent value chinese as mentioned check out China Town and I also recommend Wong Kei

Wong Kei

For tasty Thai this is one we also try to go to, always has queues though:
busaba eathai

For thai noodle soups or thai
wagamama

absolute must try even if you are not a vegetarian is Diwana's, it's not much to look at and quite basic inside but the food is divine and they have amazing cheap buffets at lunch time

Diwana

There are lots of other's non ethnic eg european place stoo but I can't concentrate now my mouth is watering!

Just remembered if you are in the Brick Lane area and want a snack rather than a meal
Brick Lane Beigel Bakery
This is the place to try a salt beef bagel, it's a pop in and buy place and they are always fresh as they really sell like hot cakes even at 2am in the morning, you won't confuse it with the one that's next door or so as this is where the people will be

Is the lovely veggie Indian place opposite Euston still there? Can't remember the name but they did incredible dhosas.
Centrale takes me down memory lane - we used to BYO when we were at university in the early 80s.

pierre victoire in soho if it's not een mentioned already?

also go to La Porchetta rather than Pizza Express - Soho, Islington, Finsury Park and Muswell Hill, best pizzas in London

West End Kitchen is quite basic (menu's limited), but the food is lovely and the portions are generous and it's very cheap. I always eat there when I'm in the West End (it's just off Leicester Square)

for good Indian food, Drummond Street is great. I can thoroughly recommend Ravi Shankars.

There's a fabulous chain called Leon - very wholesome, tasty and cheap.

I second Godawfulsmallaffair about La Porchetta. I work with a lot of Italian people, and they all say the pizzas are nearly as good as in Italy...

Gem on upper st in islington was a huge favorite of mine, huge portions of delicious middle eastern type food (Kurdish specifically), cheap & v friendly.

For bring your own booze, there's a top Iranian in Westbourne Grove called Alounak. If you've done Portobello for instance on the Saturday you could wander back up Westbourne Grove towards Queensway. You often have to queue outside though.

A lot of the Indian places on Brick Lane let you bring your own booze but standards vary.

In fact - here's a list...

www.wine-pages.com/food/byoblist.shtml#london

As a non drinker I like going to bring your own booze places as it stops me getting lumbered with everyone else's drink bill when we split the bill

Lot's of recommendations for Wong Kei I see - I got food poisoning there once but it was about 1992 so as it's still there, I would say I'm the exception rather than the rule. Hate the service though, don't find it funny. Lots of other good cheap places in ChinaTown as well.