You guys know the drill by now, I just can’t resist an invitation that involves food. So last week I headed to The Diner in Soho with my wonderful friend Verity and an empty belly, to try out their brand new menu.
For the uninitiated, The Diner is an American haven in London, serving up proper US comfort food. We visited the Soho branch, tucked away two minutes behind Oxford Circus. Their new menu claims to have hunted out the best food offerings from all four corners of the US, and, whilst their menu was definitely pretty American before, the new one takes it to a whole new level.
If you know me at all you’ll know I get very worried when I’m somewhere new (or trying out a new menu) that I’m going to order the wrong thing. I get serious food envy, and definitely food FOMO, if you will. With that in mind and a giant new menu to peruse, Verity and I figured ordering some cocktails first was probably a good idea, you know, sustenance for the menu browsing.
I ordered a ‘Red Slushy’, a sweet berry confection of Cherry Davna, Chambord, super berry tea & raspberry sorbet. Aside from the fact this was BLOODY DELICIOUS and basically the grown up equivalent of a Slush Puppy, it was also served with a heaping of crushed ice. Crushed ice is my jam right now, I’m super anaemic and one of the symptoms means I’m constantly crunching on ice cubes, so I was a seriously happy bunny. It’s the simple things, right?
Verity ordered the Diner Mojito, which got a thumbs up for being an excellent mojito, but she did make the mistake of trying my drink first, and getting a little drink envy. I think mine may have been a little too drinkable!
Now, I’m pretty slow at picking a meal anyway, but MAN was it hard to pick off this menu. Verity and I literally spent thirty minutes sipping our cocktails and flip flopping on dinner choices, because everything sounds SO GOOD. We ended up collaring our friendly server (shout out to the staff at this location, they were all so bloody lovely, and didn’t judge us for ordering too much food, or our consequent meat coma) for their advice.
We ended up ordering the Super Queso to start, The Diner’s take on nachos, after being told it was ‘The Bomb’. They certainly weren’t wrong, a bed of melted cheese, hot chilli beef, salsa, sour cream, guac + tortilla chips, topped with jalepeños. It was SO good, proper food porn at it’s best. If we had one complaint it was that it could have been a little warmer, but in all fairness it took us a hella long time to eat it all, so that could have been the problem!
I went with our friendly waiter’s burger rec, The Arch Burger, a magnificent confection of hamburger, St. Louis pulled pork, Monteray Jack Cheese, homemade slaw & pickle, encased in a sesame bun. I also added in Caramelised Onions, after being advised that we should add caramelised onions to everything. And OH MY GOD the word magnificent doesn’t even cut it. The flavour combination was on point, so rich and tasty, and everything tasted fresh! It was goey and perfectly cooked, and I think it may have ruined all other burgers for a while.
Verity couldn’t resist the call of the buttermilk chicken, so she ordered The DCB, buttermilk chicken, streaky bacon, Monteray Jack cheese, slaw & pickles, and of course – caramelized onions. She let out a groan with the first bite, so I’m going to take that to mean it was real good.
We were clearly really digging the onions, since we also ordered the Onion Rings, and a side of Hanger Fries, skinny fries topped with cheese, smoky onions and the Diner’s own burger sauce. The onion rings were good but the fries were awesome, super gooey, cheesey and utterly delicious! We desperately wanted to try the Chilli Cheese Fries that are so raved about, but thought they’d be too much and we were definitely right, we left with a giant doggy bag as it was. Our leftovers got a thumbs up from our significant others though, so another + for the Diner.
The staff were super nice and let us hang out long after we’d stopped eating, whilst we waited out the first waves of our food coma. We for sure ordered too much food, but it was all incredibly reasonably priced, and utterly delicious. The server said that most people end up taking leftovers to go, which made us feel better, and they were incredibly sweet about me unbuttoning my jeans at the table.
If you haven’t tried the Diner out before, or you haven’t tried their new menu, definitely head to one of their locations – handily dotted round London, to check them out. I’m super excited that Southampton is getting one soon, I won’t ever be too far from a Red Slushy!
Our meal was complimentary but all thoughts, raves & jean unbuttoning was entirely my own.