Camino in King’s Cross is an often-mentioned place for a cheap bite to eat; London Budget finally paid this place a visit to check it out!
One of London Budget’s favourite activities is hanging out in Granary Square in King’s Cross. Even when there’s nothing on – no food trucks, no music, nothing – she hangs around, admiring the surroundings and thinking about what the area once was like and how far it’s come. (Yes, London Budget should really get a life.)
But all that admiring and thinking makes London Budget hungry, and there’s a little venue in Varnisher’s Yard that’s perfect for a few nibbles – the tapas joint, Camino.
Everyone in Camino seems ridiculously friendly – from the greeter to the wait staff to the servers. Our efficient waiter was particularly giggly, and also made sure to compliment us on our pronunciation of dishes with tounge-twister-like names…’salad’…’noodles’…’bread’.
Tapas is obviously for sharing unless you’re like me and Joey from Friends and you don’t ‘do’ sharing. However, I like to think that Joey would also make an exception for this type of Spanish cuisine, just like I do – the dishes obviously being on the small side, so it’s not so much sharing but tasting many things.
Chorizo
Jamon Teruel & Iberico Cebo
We choose six items from the menu between two of us, but could easily have done with one less, supremely filling as they were. The picks were Jamon Teruel & Iberico Cebo (cured mountain ham); chorizo; fiduea (baked noodles with crab and cuttlefish); chipirones a la Andaluza (crispy-fried baby squid); txigorki (baked bread with tomato, pepper and goats cheese); and alcachofas (baked artichoke hearts with a chickpea stuffing).
The pile of thick chorizo slices was probably the least satisfying choice we made, with the large pieces being quite oily and – well – much like chorizo that I’ve tried many times before. The cured ham, however, was exquisite and I could happy have had many more servings of that. The baby squid was light and deliciously crispy, whilst the baked noodles were not something I’d come across before – the noodles being very small and thin in texture meaning the whole dish was quite risotto like. The taste of the crab and cuttlefish wasn’t particularly strong, but I still rather liked this unusual baked noodle dish.
The txigorki (great to pronounce – see, I was only joking about ‘salad’) was almost like a halved sandwich with a generous middle – the fluffy bread being filled with the excellent pepper, tomato and goats cheese combo. Finally, the alcachofas (another fun thing to say out loud) were pretty unusual – two rather large dumplings of artichoke and chickpeas mixed together, with a breaded coating. I certainly liked them, seeing as I like strange things like artichoke and chickpeas, although I do wonder if these would have been more enjoyable in smaller form.
Txigorki
Alcachofas
Camino is certainly an excellent London Budget-friendly choice in King’s Cross, with a very reasonably priced menu. There’s plenty of tapas ‘regulars’ on the menu and – I think – a number of more unusual choices too for you to try something a little different.
Better still, Camino have special offers! There’s a lunch option (weekdays from 12pm to 4pm) where you can have two tapas dishes for £6.95; on Saturdays and Sundays, 5pm to 8pm, you can get 2 for 1 on cocktails and beer and £5 off bottles of wine.
Certainly a tapas win!
Camino
3 Varnishers Yard
The Regent’s Quarter
Kings Cross
N1 9FD
www.camino.uk.com/restaurants/kings-cross/
Also in Blackfriars and Momument
