I went for dinner with Walid, the genius behind Trusted Places, tonight at the Easton in between Farringdon and King's Cross. I had steamed in from Somerset and Walid had flown in from Berlin which made my measly commute seem pretty pathetic.
It's a run down, shabby looking pub very close to Mount Pleasant Post Office. It's in an area that is awash with gastro pubs. The legendary Eagle is down the road for instance. I had a pint of Red Stripe whilst waiting for Walid and was really keen on every dish on the chalk board menu. Beef and red wine pie, roast salmon fillet, rump of lamb and rib eye steak all sounded great. Classic gastro pub fayre.
Red Stripe is a sure sign of being in a cool pub. Well done Charles Wells. It amazed me that a Carribbean lager brewed in Bedford can have such cache value and say so much about a bar... hell I'm even writing about it!
Walid is a bit of a hero really. He's managed to set up Trusted Places which is a fantastic social networking places designed to enable people to share their views on bars, restaurants, hotels etc. in a way that's fun and allows you to meet like minded people. It's doing really well. Every day sees their user numbers rise and the feeling within the usership is that it's about to reach a much wider mainstream audience. Walid is brilliant at involving his core members to evolve the site and use this energy to keep the site in a state of perpetual beta whilst driving the site forward. He's full of energy and ideas many of which we are due to see soon.
My salmon was delicious. I very rarely have salmon in a restaurant. And I am so glad that I did. It was only just cooked but also crispy on top and really well seasoned. I love it when chefs over season food. It's just have I would do it! The potatoes it rested on were equally well salted and just as awesome! Maybe if salmon was always this good in restaurants I would order it more often.
Walid's lamb looked great too. We were both majorly impressed.
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