Duck Soup

Duck Soup is a small, friendly and busy restaurant in the heart of Soho, and I visited last week. They don't take reservations like quite a lot of places around there, which is cool, because anyone can get in, but also bad, because it is a small restaurant and if you don't get there early enough, you could be waiting at the door for some time (it starts to really fill up around 6.30).

Image c/o Duck Soup

The layout is similar to a lot of restaurant/diners around the area, with a large bar taking up most of the space, a reasonable-sized table in the back and a couple of tables squeezed along the wall (and I mean squeezed) - so you probably shouldn't come here if you don't want to be so close you can smell your neighbour's perfume.

We were handed a menu that was charmingly handwritten - I thought it was a nice touch. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, we couldn't actually read a lot of the writing and a lot of it was crossed out which looked a bit weird (not sure mistake or trying to look edgy?). Some of the menu was in Italian, so we had to ask in a most unsophisticated manner what about 7 of their dishes were, but the waitress was very obliging and patient whilst we made our minds up.

Once we had ordered the food and wine, we sat back (as much as we could) and waited for the food to come. It all comes out at different times, but it's a good thing as it's a kind of tapas-y set-up: we ordered a few small dishes and a few medium ones (partly under recommendations from the friendly waitress).

Our wine arrived (we went for a couple of glasses of the house white) and whilst I wasn't prepared for the yellow cloudy liquid (I was expecting a crisp Chablis. Not that I ordered it but it's what I expected of a house white. That was pretty prejudiced of me actually. Must try harder) it was actually pretty nice - quite sweet but flavoursome. The food arrived and it was even more impressive than it sounded like on the menu. We had:

• Deep-fried courgette with tahini yoghurt (amazing)
• Pork cheek on toast (far from what I imagined, it was a bit like parma ham: beautiful)
• Purple sprouting broccoli, anchovy, ricotta and chilli (some of the broccoli went a bit stringy after a bit but when hot, was tender and deliciously contrasting)
• Pumpkin puree, goat's curd and parsley (Easily my favourite, my only qualm that there wasn't enough) 
• Plump chorizo pieces (we ate this with sourdough, which was a beautiful accompaniment) 

All in all, it was a most pleasant evening with tasty, surprisingly filling food and friendly service but space was limited (And bring reading glasses for the menu)! 8/10