Lunch at the Hare and Tortoise in Putney

Vegetarian "duck" pancakes

Tofu and Vegetable Lo Mein

The internal auditors from America were visiting my work over the last couple of weeks so we went out for lunch with some of them to the Hare and Tortoise which is a Japanese place near my work in Putney. I think I may have posted about it before, when I got Ramen from them. This time was more delicious!

We were all getting starters so I picked vegetarian duck pancakes which sounded yummy! Also it's something I hadn't seen on a menu before but I had always thought the meat version sounded good. It came with four pancakes filled with deep fried tofu, cucumber, hoisin sauce and spring onions. It also came with a delicious dipping sauce which seemed a bit like plum sauce but maybe with the addition of some soy and maybe even more hoisin. They were delicious, I could have just eaten several portions for my lunch and nothing else! I loved the freshness of the vegetables with the savoury from the tofu and the sweetness from the sauce, so good.

For main I got tofu and vegetable lo mein, there are a lot of choices here so I might have to keep going back until I have tried them all! They gave me an option of rice or noodles with this one but of course I chose noodles since I think rice sucks! It was a bit overloaded with noodles, like far more than I could ever eat, but maybe a good amount for Quentin.

The actual dish was really good, I enjoyed it much more than the Ramen because it had more flavour, although I could have done with a little extra soy, there was none on the table so I ate it as it was. There was a good amount of tofu and vegetables but I think I only got through about a third of the noodles! Not that I am complaining but I do often find things a bit heavy on the carbs when I go out to eat, maybe because vegetables are more expensive than rice/noodles.

I love carbs and love to have them at every meal but I also love vegetables and would prefer an equal amount of each, or more veges than carbs even. Anyway there was good variety in this dish, some bok (or pak or something else) choy, carrots, onions, spring onions, broccoli and mushrooms. The tofu is so good here because it is deep fried but also in such large pieces that it still has that soft delicious inside.

The food here is quite cheap as well, I don't think I would have paid more than 10 pounds for this meal which I think is a good deal. I would give them a 4 out of 5 because the food is delicious, the service is good and it is also good value for money. I definitely intend to go back and try more things there. Yum.