Finding food in London

Travel is a mixed blessing where food is concerned.
On the plus side, you get to try out new things in restaurants, but on the minus side you rarely get an opportunity to cook for yourself. While exploratory eating is an important part of what makes travel fun, it is expensive and the quality of the food is unreliable.

Although I grew up in London, I am currently only there for a few days each year and am usually pretty busy going to galleries, theatres or shops. Bars and restaurants in London change constantly, which makes it difficult to develop patterns. Nonetheless, I have two current favourites, both of which serve good food and very good drinks at a reasonable cost.

Canela
http://www.canelacafe.com
33 Earlham Street (just off Neal Street in Covent Garden)
I discovered this cafe a week or so ago and already I love it. It is a Brazilian Cafe and bar, which is nice to find in a country where that offers little Latin American food. Canela has the atmosphere of an intimate, relaxed atmosphere but an impressive range of food including cakes, salads, quiches and mezze snacks. Drinks-wise, there is Brazilian style coffee, a considerable wine list, mainly of Brazilian and Portuguese origin, and surprisingly good Caipirinhas. All this adds up to the fact that it is a lovely and relaxing place to go for lunch, a drink or a pre-theatre dinner while you're in London. Being a short walk from both the English National Opera and the Royal Opera House is the icing on the cake.

Belgo Nord
http://www.belgo-restaurants.com/
72 Chalk Farm Road (close to Chalk Farm and Camden tubes)
There are 2 Belgo restaurants in London, one of which is in Chalk Farm and the other is in Covent Garden (opposite Canela, as it happens). The food and drinks are the same in both locations, but while the Belgo Centraal is cavernously huge, making it liable to be very loud and have dubious service, the Belgo Nord is smaller and nicer. Both are Belgian themed restaurant-bars that offer food centred on frites and mussels (although there are other options) and an enormous range of beers. Really, an awful lot of beers and unsurprisingly they're Belgian. Now, I like beer and I like it to be interesting, so a bar that serves drinks ranging from pale or golden beers to fruit beers, lambics and Trappist ales is very much my sort of place. Many of the beers don't come cheap, so if you want a moderate, cheap pint then this isn't for you, but any budding beer connoisseur should check it out - just don't touch the banana Fruili.