Once upon a time London was full of beautiful buildings…

Now it’s just anonymous, glass clad, ugly high rise, oddly shaped horrors… surrouding some sad, lonely left over buildings, staunch witness to the city’s glorious past. This is happening pretty much everywhere, from the City to Paddington (oh the old post office, site of the amazing Drowned Man…), from Blackfriars (who remembers Imbibe and the upside down house?) to Borough (let’s not even think about this one).Victoria is one of these areas too, where a development called Nova has trashed and obliterated some beautiful victorian and edwardian terraces to make way for a one site, fits all, chain led, shopping area.

It is obvious I hate these locations and what architects and developers are doing to the city I live in, so rant over.

In Victoria, amongst the usual chains (Nando’s and EAT and the likes) there are a couple of worthy places too, so it’s not all that bad I guess. One of these is Timmy Green, the latest outlet of Australian independent coffee shop mini chain which started with Daisy Green. I am a regular of their Broadgate Beany Green where I pretty much pick up a coffee each weekday, have visited their Paddington branch too in the summer, and was quite keen to try out this latest opening, since the menu features a lot of grills (they use a Josper grill).

All of our beef comes from small UK farms in the South of England where it is reared slowly to ensure flavour & preserve animal welfare.

While the other branches are famous for their brunches, this location does dinner pretty well too, so I took @bmcboy for a meaty feast. We begun by sharing one of the starters, Halloumi Fries with yougurt and pomegranate: I love halloumi and this dish was a great way to showcase the Cypriot cheese, soft sticks deep fried in breadcrumbs, crunchy, salty, mooreish.

Great choice on the mains, we both opted for classics though. He went for Steak and twice cooked duck fat fries, well cooked to his liking and served with salads and sauces, a generous portion at 200gr. I chose the Burgers with black charcoal brioche bun and sweet potato wedges, cheddar and chili pineapple salsa, which I really enjoyed, well cooked, well presented and finally got to try the famous charcoal bread. The brioche was a little dry, I thought ,but then brioche buns are not my favourite type of bread to have with burgers (I prefer something more substantial and bodied). Loved the wedges too, overall a great dish.

We left some room for dessert, and amongst the various options I went, of course, for the lighter one: Josper roasted pineapple, mint, vanilla ice cream. I have only had grilled pineapple once or twice before, it is an odd way to serve fruit but pineapple works really well and eating it warm, with mint and juice, was really enjoyable. The ice cream comes from Dorset and is creamy and deliciously rich.

We were lucky enough to visit during 50% off which made the meal overall great value, yet we will definitely be back, especially to try their brunch in their al fresco terrace outside as we’ll be able to take Amber with us. The coffee is of course, Beany Green’s coffee and the cakes are their classics too, during the day: lamingtons, banana bread, coconut bread, protein balls.

Worth a visit, one just has to put up with the surrounding architecture!