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A conveyor belt of crisps![/caption]
We love finding quirky places to eat and HipChips is no exception. Who knew that London needed a restaurant for crisps?
This new concept opened only last month and we were delighted to try it out.
Located in Old Compton Street, in the heart of Soho, London, it’s an interesting concept – that your meal should be made up of crisps and dips. But you know what? It works. And it’s got that different kind of vibe which makes it great fun for a different way of eating out (in that way, it reminded me of the Cereal Cafe, which is also great fun for adults, teens and tweens). Mind you, Jess was supremely irritated that it was called HipChips and not Hipcrisps.
There are different options when it comes to the food. We chose a mixture of the savoury and sweet dips, a good decision as it made it a bit more like a conventional meal (we had the savouries first and then the sweet). The crisps, by the way, are made on site and from a variety of different potatoes.
You can choose your own dips, with a choice of two for £4.50, three for £6.75 and six for £11.50. Yes, I know it sounds mad to pay that kind of money for crisps and dips, but actually it’s lunch – and the six dips were enough for us, meaning it wasn’t actually that expensive for a London-based snack. And that’s disregarding the fun value.
We all particularly liked the baba ganoush (aubergine) dip, while Brian scoffed his way through nearly the entire pot of veggie ceviche (basically a kind of salsa made up of tomato, lime, coriander, onion and chilli) and we also enjoyed the katsu curry. I had a taste of the smoky cheese fondue, and the Moroccan Yoghurt also sounded good.
The salted caramel sweet dip was absolutely delicious, but the chocolate praline mousse (nutella, praline crème fraiche) which we thought would be our favourite, was a bit too rich – even for us! Both the kids really liked the strawberry cheesecake one and polished it off, although we didn’t quite finish the crème brulee.
Robert was not a big fan of the crisps themselves, although the rest of us were very happy with them. They are a bit like “posh” crisps and not like the thicker, machine formed ones you buy in average packs (my son is not particularly one for posh food and that may be true of other younger children too). The ones for the sweet dips have a cinnamon sugar coating, but this was quite subtle. We all enjoyed our drinks – which were the German make Fritz and a combination of apple juice, cola and lemonade. There is also wine, beer and soft drinks on offer.
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We did pretty well![/caption]
All in all we enjoyed our unusual lunch and thought it was a great place for sharing. We also think it’s good fun for kids – and were impressed by how busy it was!
Read Jess's piece on five cool places to eat in London
Read about our chocolate walking tour
Labels: Blog, crisps, food in London, HipChips, London, Soho, vegetarian food
