Gandhi’s and a Vegan Surprise

Gandhi’s in Kennington Cross is like a dear old aunt to us; always available for sustenance and forever reliable. But, much like that dear old aunt, if we don’t look after it well, it might just kick the bucket and be consigned to history. Or worse, become a Foxtons. So last night we swept away our football related cobwebs of gloom and gave auntie a face to face visit. 

On our visit we were surprised to see that Ghandi’s has really upped it’s game since our last visit in the flesh.  There are now a whole range of vegan dishes,  and from that menu we treated ourselves to a very rich spinach and potato starter. There were also vegan versions of other staples such as Biryani, Balti, Bhuna, and Jalfrezi. We’re used to pure veg South Indian, but vegan Indian is a whole new kettle of tofu. 

My associate had the Lamb Tikka Biryani, and it packed quite a flavour punch. The lamb was spicy and slow cooked in the tandoor and there were generous amounts of it. Mixed into it was rice that was infused with the flavours of the cooking, with additional spices. This came with an accompanying vegetable curry which was adequate, but not a spot on the lamb itself. 

Your intrepid scribe had Chicken Shaslick, which were succulent and dry cooked in the clay oven. There were an array of spices in evidence but the most dominant was cumin. There were also grilled tomatoes and onions thrown in for good measure. It was far from a curry and more like a kebab. 

As you can see by celebrity strewn pictures in the window, if its good enough for Richard and Judy, Neil and Christine Hamilton, and some lady who’s a dead ringer for Hyacinth Bucket then it has to be good enough for us mere mortals.*

*If you’re lucky enough to be under 30 ask your parents who these people actually are. 

Conuco Venezuelan

Venezuela has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, but not due to their cuisine. We recently took a break from the incessant drone of faxes, dial-ups, mimeographs and the background clatter of ‘Loose Women’ at KR towers to take in a leisurely lunch at new joint ‘Conuco’ in Oval and we’re here to give you the score. 

The specialities of Conuco are arepas and empanadas. Arepas is a kind of one handed sandwich made of ground maize dough and can be filled with meat or veg, and at Conuco stuffed with cheese. Empanadas are more well known in the UK (especially if you’ve been to Borough Market) and pretty pervasive at the moment. For those not in the know, they are fried turnovers stuffed with a variety of items such as cheese, chorizo, chicken or shredded beef.

On our visit we had a arepas with pulled beef and a white cheese called ‘costeno’. As you can see, the sandwich was rammed with dripping, shredded beef and towards the end we had to deploy the use of a fork. As it was a hot and sweaty day we had the local drink ‘papelon con limon’, which was a pleasing lemon/orange. A very spicy and peppery sauce and a green sauce with coriander were served with it either to dip or slather over the meat. 

The total came to just over £7, and filled us up until dinner. Conuco has wifi and has a good relaxing vibe and very friendly staff. Eat in or if it’s nice take your grub to Kennington Park. That way if your stuffing falls out you don’t have to clean it up and you’ve just made friends with all the local pigeons and dogs who will soon swirl around you. 

We’re messy eaters. Don’t judge us.

Urban Botanica

It’s only taken us 2 1/2 years, but we’ve finally got around to visiting Urban Botanica in Kennington Cross. The market is increasingly competitive for tea/coffee shops in Greater Kennington, and the USP of this place is that it is an unconventional hybrid of coffee/lunch shop meets garden centre where you consume your flat white amongst a seemingly endless selection of house plants from potted to hanging and from cacti to flowering. Got it?

Of course our priority was food, and the sandwich options consisted of a serrano ham/cheese scenario and a brie and egg. Each served on croissant, we chose the ham which was very good but probably not best served flattened and toasted. You can see the before and after impact below. However flat, it was very tasty and well filled. Our server explained that more lunch options will be rolled out in the coming weeks. There were also a variety of other pastries. On the coffee front, they serve single origin coffees from Horsham Roasters and all the usual players are there such as Espresso, Cappuccino, and Flat White. 

They have a very lovely and unexpected garden in the back and wifi in the main cafe. The garden is suitably verdant and a great way to spend a few hours on your laptop. So, next time you wake up and think ‘god, I really fancy a Minor Figures Nitro Brew and a potted fern but how can I get them IN JUST ONE PLACE’ well your wishes have been answered. 

Urban Botanica is in Windmill Row but it doesn’t have a sign, so just look out for the indoor jungle…….Namaste……

Cabinet, Beaconsfield and a Spot of Tea

For a number of years we’ve been trying to ascertain the function of that strange building that popped up at the back of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens a few years ago. Resembling a posh persons’ house meets North Korean torture centre, it’s actually mostly dedicated to the very intriguing Cabinet Gallery. The current show somehow manages to make a connection between a horse drawn carriage and Oprah so it might be a bit of a stretch for some, but this place is definitely something for that pocket diary that we’ve been telling you get for years now. Check out the website for what’s on. 


As we were up in the lovely upper Vauxhall neck of the woods anyway, we checked out the critically acclaimed but rarely open Beaconsfield Galley. It’s open this Saturday (12th) and the next (19th) showing one large immersive work by Korean/Uk artist JinHan Lee called ‘Extended Realities’. The concept is an exploration of themes of virtual versus material art and how (or if) they complement one another. Very thought provoking and out questions the limits of how much we can take in without actually seeing it.


All that culture was proving exhausting to our lockdown addled  brains, so we popped into the wistfully eccentric Tea House Theatre for some tea and sandwiches. The sandwiches needed a bit of work (and if you’re reading this Tea House we’re wagging a coronation chicken stained finger at you) but the list of teas were endless and the cakes abundant. Check out their eclectic website for things that are going on there such as themed suppers, talks and kids stuff. When we visited they were even offering a course in….wait for it….picking locks! Another for that pocket diary that you’re on the very cusp of purchasing with your newly socially activated fingertips. 

The Jolly Gardeners

Some of you might remember a curious German themed sports pub called ‘Zeitgeist’ at the top of Black Prince Road. We reviewed it last year and described the fare as ‘food best consumed when you’re not entirely sober’. Shortly afterwards it went under. It has now been resurrected in its original guise –  ‘The Jolly Gardeners’. We had a clandestine and very pleasing meal there a few weeks ago and then caught up with the current proprietors to find out how they plan to please us Greater Kenningtonians. 

The Gardeners was purchased late last year by five mates from Essex, Dan (who now lives next to the Gardeners), Nick, Jonathan, Ryan, and Rob. All come from different professional backgrounds but are rooted in running restaurants and pubs. As the pub is enormous, I asked one of the guys how they plan to use the space. They explained that part of it will be a reservable restaurant in a ‘family sharing vibe’ (think Sunday roasts, bloody Mary’s, scotch eggs, etc.) the other 70% will be more of a traditional pub. They’ve also built an outside area (which rather resembles a ski lodge) which will be useful in the summer, if that ever happens.

On the food and drink front, the boys informed us that over 50% of the food items will be vegan but ‘more interesting than you might think’. They are trying to source things locally and are tapping into local producers. On the subject of tapping they are not tied to a brewer and are trying to use localish brewers such as Coalition. Pub snacks will also be on the menu, featuring items such as confit potatoes and cauliflower wedges. According to the boys, they acknowledge that dining and drinking habits have evolved over the past 18 months, for instance with more people working from home, and they are keen to address this.  

One of the issues with the Gardeners is that it does not have a great deal of footfall and people might forget that it exists. When I asked the guys how they plan to address this niggling issue they replied ‘by serving excellent foot at a reasonable price point so people don’t forget us. 

The menu below might have changed but gives you a sense of what they do. The pub is open now for drinks and food. Even if all the boys aren’t locals, lets embrace them as one of our own! 

Coffee Shop at Park College

Congratulations! If you’re reading this then you’ve probably survived until 17 May. But let’s be honest here, Britain has actually enjoyed ‘being British’ over the past few months. You know you have a secret survivalist thrill when it comes to eating a salad nicoise in 10 degree weather with horizontal rain knocking over your glass of Pinot, or sitting on a bench in Kennington Park drinking your Espresso while getting concussed by tiny hailstones. But all good things must come to an end.

While we all yearn to return to our favourite dining establishments if we can get organised enough to book, we’ve found a lovely café/coffee shop where you don’t have to book and you can also make a difference. The Park College is a local educational institution dedicated to helping young people with autism obtain hands on skills that might turn into paid employment. On our trip we saw students gardening, repairing bikes, and working in a design space. However, the purpose of our visit was to visit the coffee shop, which is open Tuesday to Friday from 9:30am to 3pm. 

The coffee shop at Park College offers breakfast fare including croissants, toasties, cakes and vegan sausage. For lunch, fare included jacket potato, falafel/hummus wrap, and chili jam and goat’s cheese roll among others. Your scribe opted for a mozzarella and tomato sandwich with black olive pesto, served on ciabatta. The students were making the sandwiches with the close guidance of mentors. The work in the café was obviously geared to the interests of individual students, with some in the open kitchen and others on the serving and collecting money side of things. 

As you can see, on our visit inside eating just wasn’t gonna happen,  so we ate our very generously proportioned ciabatta in their outside area. And while we’ve all enjoyed the character building elements of eating in a gale, it will be nice to eat inside again, and especially with the knowledge that you are helping to build careers for vulnerable people.  

The Park College can be found in Kennington Park Place. 

Yard Cafe at Jamyang Buddhist Centre

Some of you might remember the vegetarian/vegan café at the Jamyang London Buddhist centre in Renfrew Road. It sadly went under just before we had a chance to review it, which is unusual as most places we review go under just after we review them. Well, it is now back with a vengeance and has just been taken over by the gastronomically acclaimed restaurant Louie Louie, curiously located in the less than gastronomically acclaimed Walworth Road. The new venture is called The Yard, and is open for lunch on weekdays, 10 to 4. 

The menu continues to be totally vegetarian and vegan and they also sell ice cream sandwiches and a few groceries. They also sell…..wait for it…..ice cream for dogs. Your scribe had a feta, labneh, roast carrot and tomato sandwich with rocket, with a bread that also rocked. My dining partner had a salad of chickpeas and chard with baba ganoush, roast carrot and tomato, green beans and leaves. Bagels and toasties were also available and looked good. 

The building that houses Jamyang is an old courthouse dating from 1869, in its later days used as a maximum security court for special remands, including IRA terrorists, the Kray twins, and members of the gang who seized the Iranian Embassy. Despite that, when the sun is shining, Kennington has nowhere more peaceful to eat your healthy lunch. 

Greater Kennington Opens Up – Above the Stag

The last in our series brings us to LGBT+ theatre ‘Above the Stag’ in Vauxhall. They are a small, independent but highly acclaimed theatre that has, as you can imagine, been more or less shut for over a year. Over the past few weeks we have watched them build a large outdoor area and it opened over the weekend for drinks and nibbles. The clever idea is that now you can go to the venue and enjoy a drink without seeing a show. 

Saturday night we just walked up without a reservation. As it turns out the servers are often actors themselves and they knew what was going with the place. The crowd was an eclectic mix of young women taking Instagram shots of their cocktails and lads who’d just finished football practice. We’re going to assume this is not the precise Above The Stag demographic. Our point being that it really doesn’t matter what your sexuality is, if you have one in the first place, to have a good time there. 

The terrace is open Thursday to Sunday from 5 – 10 for drinks and nibbles. They have Heineken on tap, bottled beers, wines and they make cocktails. The also had several enormous umbrellas so you can drown your sorrows even if its raining. 

Positives –  It is very open and has sweeping views across Vauxhall

Negatives –  It is very open and has sweeping views across Vauxhall

Greater Kennington Opens Up – The Duchy Arms

We’ve always felt a little sorry for the Duchy Arms and have developed a soft spot for the place. Located off the main drag, its never enjoyed the passing trade of other venues and has seemed a bit, well, lost. However, it has benefitted from one quirky trait not enjoyed by other pubs…..it has a car park. The car park has now been transformed into an umbrella strewn beer garden, so it’s moment has arrived. As it is truly outside the area has more space and circulation than the Dog House and you do not feel fork to fork next to your fellow diner. Although more spread out, it still has a lively ‘we’ve just come from football practice’ vibe about it. And great staff. 

Your scribe and a Runoff colleague enjoyed the lamb kofta with couscous, flatbread and little bowl of tzatziki. It was well spiced lamb and they brought more tzatziki when requested. Another colleague had beer battered haddock with mushy peas and hand cut chips. It was described as ‘lovely, nice and fresh with a crisp batter’. As for the chips, they were definitely made fresh and had not visited the north pole. Our French colleague had the pie of the day, which was creamy chicken and leek. When asked to describe the quality, the colleague shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat. We’ll interpret that as ‘pretty good’. 

If you are planning an outing to a Greater Kennington pub in the next week or so if it is within popular hours we strongly suggest that you book first. And after our sub polar dining experience we think it might good to idea to book earlier in the evening.  And please remember to bundle up. Humans can do many great things, but eating dinner in a 7 degree car park requires a degree of forward thinking. 

Greater Kennington Opens Up – Vauxhall City Farm

On it’s second day of opening we paid a lunchtime visit to glorious local institution Vauxhall City Farm. In case you haven’t been, VCF is a charity and home to over 100 farm animals. They have a breeding programme, a riding school, education programmes, work experience and school tours, amongst other things. 

One of the invaluable things about the Farm is that it allows, for free, young people in Greater Kennington to experience farm animals who they might have otherwise never seen. It’s also fun for adults just to stroll around, but right now you can’t feed them (the animals, not your fellow adults). On our visit we saw chickens, lambs, sheep, turkeys, rabbits, goats, pigs, ducks and birds. They additionally house larger animals such as donkeys and horses. Later in the spring they will be selling fresh eggs from the chickens. They are actually green, and wonderful. 

In addition to the animals, the Farm also has a café/gift shop which are vital sources of revenue for them. So after comingling with the critters we sat down for a bite to eat. The food unfortunately is not vegetarian, but fortunately it is not made onsite. It would be a little distressing to build up a relationship with little Louie the lamb only to later encounter Louie in a kebab format. They do have homemade cakes, however, and the nice man at the counter assured us that in a few weeks their regular onsite kitchen and menu will be up and running. 

The Farm is totally free and as a registered charity VCF relies on donations from the likes of us to keep it afloat, and as you can imagine the past 12 months have been pretty grim times for even the most upbeat bunny. There are several ways to donate onsite by text message, or multiple ways you can get involved financially by clicking here. Moooo!