EIGHT OVER EIGHT, CHELSEA

I used to love Sex and the City and have watched every episode several times. Like the show, in my twenties I had three very special girlfriends, we all lived close to each other and we regularly used to meet for supper at Eight Over Eight - it was "our place". Fast forward a few years and there have been transatlantic moves, marriages, divorces, babies and so on and it has been a while since we have all got together. However 2 of us had a trip time memory lane to Eight Over Eight last night and it was great to be back. Eight Over Eight is a Pan Asian restaurant owned by restauranteur Will Ricker.

We arrived just before 7pm and the bar was already busy and as was the restaurant which created a great, warming atmosphere. Corrie and I were very pleased to see the menu had hardly changed and we knew exactly what we wanted to order….in all honesty we could probably have ordered the entire menu.

We started with one of my favourite dishes of all time - the seared tuna with miso aioli. This is utterly delicious - the tuna was tender and delectable - and I adored the miso aioli. I could have eaten this whole dish to myself!

We had mixed sashimi which I think was some of the best tuna and salmon I have had in a long time. Sashimi is not normally my favourite but this was so soft and fresh, it did literally melt in your mouth. 

I love a bit of pork belly and this was slightly different to how they used to do it - it now is served in a black vinegar rather than a sticky hoisin sauce. While it is difficult to eat - you basically have to scoff the whole lot in one go - it was so tasty and the crackling was perfectly crispy.

I really like salt and pepper squid but I have to say this is the only dish here that I didn't love love as it is slightly too spicy for me and most of the squid is very small - next time I will order the soft shell crab as an alternative.

Because you can never have enough starters, we also had some prawn and chive dumplings, like the pork, these weren't the easiest to eat as they are pretty big but big is good as these taste great.

For "mains" we had Corrie's favourite which is the duck and watermelon salad. I am not a fan of sweet and savoury so didn't eat the watermelon but I really enjoyed the crispy duck, cashew nuts and different salad leaves and herbs. I liked the fact there was plenty of duck!

Finally for old times sake we had to have the prawn pad thai - big juicy prawns, crispy onions, noodles, spring onions, nuts, lime - mouthwatering!

What a feast - we were stuffed - no room for pudding unfortunately. By the time we had finished the restaurant and bar had gone from busy to heaving, a really fun ambiance. I will definitely not leave it so long between visits next time. It is not cheap (the bill came to £131 for two and that included just one small glass of wine) but the food was so fresh and well presented, it was worth it.

Eight Over Eight

392 Kings Road

London 

SW3 5UZ

Tel: 0207 349 9934

Email: eightovereight@rickerrestaurants.com