Affordable dining at "Little Georgia." Photo by AceDiscovery

By Justin Bergman in London–

Fear not, Cheapos, London is not going to drain your wallet when it comes to food. Sure, you can easily blow $200-300 on dinner at one of Gordon Ramsay’s famous restaurants, but you might be bitterly disappointed by the experience—the star chef’s London venues were just trashed by the Harden’s London Restaurants guide as being “dreary” and “outrageously overpriced”.

Instead, save your sterling for drinks at the pub and eat at one of these five stellar restaurants for under £10 a pop:

1.The Albion
2-4 Boundary St., 020 7729-1051

You wouldn’t normally associate Terence Conran, the London designer and developer, with inexpensive. The rooms at his just-opened East London loft hotel, The Boundary, for example, start at around $250 per night. The drinks at the rooftop bar are almost as pricey.

But the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, the Albion, is the exception: Almost all of the dishes on the menu come in at under £10. And the food is amazing—the restaurant serves very lovely and refined takes on classic British dishes like Welsh rabbit, fish pie and kedgeree. (Remarkably, traditional British food is making a comeback on menus all over the city at the moment.) This being a Conran restaurant, the design is impeccable, too, right down to the hand-knit cozies for the teapots on the tables.

2. Little Georgia
87 Goldsmiths Row, 020-7739-8154.

I stumbled upon this little gem one day on a jog through a quiet residential neighborhood in Hackney (East London). It’s a little hard to get to, but well worth the effort. When you walk in, you feel like you’re entering a warm Tbilisi kitchen, circa 1940—there are black and white family photos and an old map of Georgia on the walls and a number of Soviet-era phones on the shelves.

Skip the more expensive main courses and focus instead on the appetizers—you can share a meze of six different starters for £12 total. The best bets are the lobiani (bread stuffed with spicy beans and pork), khachapuri (cheese-filled bread) and pkhali (a minced beetroot and walnut salad). My other tip: Bring your own wine (there’s no corkage fee).

3. Song Que
134 Kingsland Rd., 020 7613-3222.

Unbeknownst to most tourists, London has its own Little Hanoi—a stretch of Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch. The best of the lot is undoubtedly Song Que, a massive restaurant short on style (the décor is bare bones to say the least) but incredibly popular for its delicious beef and seafood pho and summer rolls.

You’ll see all types here—local Vietnamese residents, club kids gearing up for a night out in Shoreditch, and always a handful of tourists who read about the restaurant in their Time Out London guide. This isn’t a place to linger—the staff will rush you out the door as soon as you’re done—but the prices can’t be beat. Expect to spend £10 a person, with drinks.

Gladstone Arms. Photo: Ewan-M.

4. Gladstone Arms
64 Lant St., 020 7407-3962

I’m not going to lie—I trust my Time Out guide. And it says that this may be the “coolest little pub in Southeast London.” I have to agree, not just because of the living-room-like set-up (comfy couches, lots of plants and board games)—it’s also got really tasty English pies made by Pieminister, a Bristol-based company that uses free-range meat and lots of yummy seasonal ingredients. Among the more interesting options are the Matador Pie (beef steak, chorizo, olives, tomato, sherry and butter beans) and the Mr. Porky Pie (west country pork, smoked bacon, apples, leeks, cider and sage). With a pint of Black Sheep bitter beer, your bill will total just over £10.

5. Brick Lane
120-122 Brick Lane, 020 7247-0397

Last but not least is the old standby, Brick Lane, a road stretching through the East End, famous for its Bangali restaurants. Yes, it’s touristy and yes, you’ll have to fight off the touts trying to push you into their restaurants, but it’s an experience worth having in London and the food couldn’t be cheaper.

There are a ton of places on the strip, so choose carefully—cruise the strip and check out the menus first. And if you loiter outside a place long enough, the tout will offer you a free bottle of wine with dinner. One of my favorite places is Preem & Prithi, which serves an excellent balti lamb vindaloo.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Alex’s aunt sets the table for a Cypriot family dinner.

Editor’s Note: This week, the blog will be tagging along with fellow Cheapo Alex Christodoulides as she visits family in Cyprus.

Sure, the language spoken in Cyprus is Greek, but the accent is distinctive and so is the food. For one thing, Cyprus recently made its mark in the Guinness Book of World Records with a 41-meter sausage, dedicated in a big ceremony complete with traditional costumes in a town up in the Troodos Mountains.

Adventures in Cypriot Cuisine

The easiest way to get a handle on Cypriot cuisine – and a way to kill several hours trying to put away what looks like not much food – is to order meze, a selection of anywhere from a dozen to 20 hot and cold traditional dishes that most sit-down restaurants offer with little to no variety in the lineup.

First will be the dips, served with pita bread: among them tahini, made from ground sesame seeds and lemon juice, and taramosalata, made from fish roe and thickened with either a lemon-potato mixture or mayonnaise. Grilled halloumi cheese is always on the list somewhere, squeaking as you chew. There will also be meat dishes, leaning heavily on pork. Souvlaki will be among them, but so will hiromeri, a type of cured ham; loukanika, a pork sausage that is often grilled; and lountza, another ham-ish offering. For the pescatarians, there is fish meze, but vegetarians may have a hard time finding an acceptable version of the full menu.

Vegetarians will find that souvlaki joints don’t need to be off limits, since most offer grilled halloumi in place of the meat. Cypriots also eat a lot of veggies and legumes, and many restaurants offer a bean or lentil dish of the day.

Any serious restaurant in Cyprus will let you pick your fish when ordering.

A Cheapo-friendly pick in Nicosia

An inexpensive local favorite in Nicosia for vegetarian and carnivore-friendly homestyle cooking is Mattheos Restaurant, tucked unobtrusively in a corner of Plateia 28 Octobriou alongside the tiny Stavros tou Missirikou Church with its easy-to-spot minaret.

Coffee and dessert

To wake up after a big meal, there’s always coffee. There is not much love lost between Cyprus and Turkey, so locals call the brew Greek coffee or just order it by their preferred sweetness – glyko (sweet), metrio (one sugar) or sketo (black). For those who prefer their caffeine with milk, Italian-style coffee is very popular here, as is Nescafe, which is served hot, chilled or as a frothy iced frappe.

Most of Cyprus’ offerings to the sweet tooth will be familiar, but there are a few things that are typical to the island. Soujouko looks like a length of tan garden hose, but it’s made from dipping strings of almonds into thickened grape juice. Loukoumades are fried dough blobs served hot out of the oil and drizzled with honey, and are usually sold at small stands starting in the late afternoon, or at festivals. Shamishi is the same fried dough filled with a sort of cream made with semolina and flavored with mastic, which has a flavor slightly reminiscent of rosewater.

As you might expect in a hot climate, Cyprus produces its own ice cream. Three big companies, Papafilippou, Erakles and Pahit-Ice, have stores all over the country and a presence in the freezer cases at supermarkets.

Tomorrow: Heading to church

About the author: Alex Christodoulides is one of those push-me-pull-you creatures known as a dual citizen. When not at home in New York City (where she is a freelance writer) or in Cyprus (where she is a freeloader taking advantage of her relatives’ hospitality), she is probably dreaming of a trip to someplace where vaccinations are required and Fodor’s fears to tread.

Popularity: 8% [?]

A reader asks:

“Do you have any advice for inexpensive, authentic Roman restaurants in the center of town?”

Annie Shapero responds:

Here’s the bad news: Rome is a gaping hell mouth of overpriced restaurants aimed at the hungry, innocent traveler.

The good news is that real Roman cuisine is actually a cucina povera, or poor man’s fare—a savory waste-not want-not approach to Italian cooking that utilizes the plant and animal parts you weren’t expecting. It’s hearty and filling, and like Southern soul food in the US, it’s tastiest at its cheapest… even in the center of town.

Near Piazza Navona, Da Francesco (Piazza del Fico, 29), Da Tonino (Via del Governo Vecchio,18 ), and just Alfredo e Ada (Via dei Banchi Nuovi, 14) offer no nonsense trattoria style dining that shouldn’t run you over €15 a person (including wine!)

In Trastevere, Da Augusto (Piazza de’ Renzi, 15) is the bonafide classic.

From Campo de’ Fiori, follow the scent of deep frying to Filetti di Baccalà (Largo dei Librari, 88), which is named for its specialty, fried slabs of salty cod served alongside puntarelle salad, a crispy curly hybrid of celery and romaine hearts, made from the stalks of chicory and garnished with garlic, oil, and anchovy paste.

In Rome’s grimier neighborhoods, you’ll spend even less. Testaccio and Garbatella (both within walking or busing distance from the Piramide Metro stop) have snubbed the made-for-tourists makeover and are well worth exploring for local “character.” Agustarello (Via G.Branca, 100) has been lauded by locals and the travel media alike as cheap and tasty. They do half portions too!

In Garbatella, Il Grottino del Traslocatore (Via delle sette chiese, 2) is best in the summer when tables spill out on the sidewalk. Otherwise, it’s a steamy basement setting serving huge portions of la cucina romanesca… which does include guts of all varieties in addition to the sumptuous spaghetti alla carbonara, matriciana, and gricia. This is not for the weak at heart.

Rules of the road:

1. At the Roman trattoria or osteria, portions are big and prices are low. You get what you pay for where service is concerned, but hey—you asked for authentic.

2. Order house wine only.

3. Ask for half portions.

4. Ask for their recommendations, not the menu.

5. Don’t ask for a receipt until they’ve quoted you a price. They often write it on the paper tablecloth.

Annie Shapero lives, writes, and eats in Rome. Annie wrote hotel reviews for EuroCheapo’s guides to hotels in Rome, Florence, and Venice. You can read many more posts by Annie in the EuroCheapo blog.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Photograph by padesig

The slum-ridden Casilino-Mandrione neighborhood was once home to a bedraggled collection of gypsies, prostitutes, and violent criminals. It was such a zone of desperation that Pasolini turned to Madrione when he wanted to capture utter squalor. These days, the ‘hood is on the upswing. While (gratefully) far from any sort of SoHo makover, Mandrione has developed into a vibrant working-class area. It’s solidly Roman—dialect included—with the Felice Acqueduct (see above) running straight down its middle for extra authenticity.

At local restaurant Betto e Mary (Via dei Savorgnan, 99. Tel. 0645421780) you’ll find it next to impossible to spend over €15. No ties are allowed; in fact, all ties are confiscated at the door. The friendly waiters have a penchant for cows, and jokingly alert customers to the use of Mucca Pazza (mad cow) meat on the premises. Enjoy heaping piles of grilled meat of all kinds, pasta trios, and classic Roman cuisine at prices you’ll swear they’ve miscalculated.

Betto e Mary is definitely worth the trek. Booking is essential.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Photo courtesy of travelingmcmahans

One of the cheapest eats in Rome is also one of the most sinfully delicious, deep-fried foods you may ever sink your teeth into: Arancini. These tasty little temptations are baseball-sized rice balls stuffed with anything from prosciutto and mozzarella, to squid ink and pistachios. Gourmands may recognize them as the fat Sicilian cousins of the equally delish suppli.

At Mondo Arancina, the city’s undisputed arancini king, they cost you a shiny €2 coin. (So, fine, they’re more like $2.64!) The shop also specializes in pizza buy the slice, but what’s the novelty in that?

Popularity: 10% [?]

photograph courtesy of Kaymaria Daskarolis

If you have ever attended a Greek cultural festival, you have probably tasted loukoumades. And if they were prepared at all like the divine ones served up every May during the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension’s annual Greek Festival in Oakland, California, you probably wished you could eat them every day.

A little piece of heaven, that’s what loukoumades are. They’re small balls of fried dough, usually topped with honey and walnuts.

In central Athens, stop by Krinos (Aiolou 87, tel: 210-321-6852) to devour some luscious loukoumades. The selection at Krinos is always hot and fresh; the quick turnover is a byproduct of the patisserie’s popularity with locals. Krinos is open from 7.15 a.m. onwards Monday through Saturday, and is closed on Sunday. Prepare to pay €2.70 for an order of seven loukoumades when you eat them in, just €2.30 when you take them with you.

The one drawback—or perhaps saving grace—of loukoumades is their filling sweetness. Downing an entire serving of five or six by yourself can be a challenge. We recommend sharing an order with a friend, or asking the servers at Krinos Café to limit your order to three or four pieces.

Just don’t expect a reduction in price for your diminished serving.

Popularity: 4% [?]