In London, where to eat on a budget

LONDON: A newcomer to London has to start with the premise that very little is affordable in this city. For starters, there is the £4 subway ride that will take you one stop. And then the check for a modest restaurant meal often looks eerily similar to what you might expect in New York: except the figure is in pounds not dollars, roughly doubling the cost.

Still, London is in a buoyant mood these days, and many Londoners — count among them Russians, Middle Easterners and Asians of all kinds — seem impervious to the prices, just shrugging their shoulders, as they eat and drink at stratospheric prices.

One way to keep down the cost of eating out in London is to choose places that specialize in tapas or that feature "grazing" menus. But finding interesting food at good prices can be a quest of word-of-mouth, luck and instinct.

Tendido Cero

The least expensive of a pair of Spanish restaurants under the same ownership on Old Brompton Road in South Kensington, Tendido Cero offers a lively atmosphere and fresh tapas, including baby iron squid cooked in ink with rice for £6.50 ($13 at $2 to the pound), baby anchovies marinated in olive oil with parsley and garlic, rather heavy on the garlic (£5) and fresh green asparagus fried in olive oil and sea salt (£4.50). A recent selection of four Spanish cheeses with quince included a hard Manchego (£6.50). For a splurge, ham devotees could choose the most expensive item on the menu: 100 grams of jamon de bettota from the acorn-fed black pig (£14.50).

Friendly neighborhood people fill the black banquettes. The décor is modern: a huge vase of sunflowers at the entrance, crimson ceiling and metal shelves packed with Spanish food wares along part of one wall sets the informal tone.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

The soul of old London and staid British food are the hallmarks of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a warren of dark wood paneled bars and dining areas spread over three floors in a 16th-century building on Fleet Street. The place seems untouched since Samuel Johnson ate in the Chop Room, a dining area at the front of the premises. A portrait of Dr. Johnson in a gold frame peers down at his old table. When we visited, the table was filled by a former British newspaper editor and a male colleague dressed in suit and tie, rapidly consuming a bottle of red wine with lunch. These patrons could afford a smarter restaurant, but even among some sophisticated Londoners, the Cheshire Cheese keeps an affectionate hold.

The food was remarkable for its 1950s character: a ham salad of two slices of thin ham, seemingly from a packet, set on iceberg lettuce and beetroot (£7.25). The poached salmon salad featured a thin piece of salmon atop a similar salad (£7.50). The fish and chips — two pieces of battered fish with a generous serving of French fries — came with "mushy peas," meaning well-boiled green peas common in English boarding schools (£7.75). The exceedingly sweet treacle pudding is the real thing, served with hot custard (£3.95). The beer is considered about the best value of any London pub: £1.07 for a half pint of bitter ale.

Bar Shu

Sichuan cooking took a while to hit London but is now flowering at Bar Shu on Frith Street in the heart of Soho. The restaurant, spread across two floors, opened a year ago to considerable gasps from food writers in London. The dishes were too spicy, the critics said. But, if you stay away from the most expensive items and concentrate on the more modest classic dishes, the critics noted that the menu was a good value. I was told to try Bar Shu for the best green beans in town.

The dry fried green beans cooked with minced pork and ya chai, a mustard green from Sichuan (£8.50), were indeed addictively good. (And not hot.) The hot dried beef, lavishly topped with chili and Sichuan pepper, had a warning — two red pepper symbols. It lived up to its billing: a mound of tiny pieces of beef came smothered with red peppers and was screamingly hot (£8.90). Our favorite dish was the milder stir-fired calamari with Chinese chives (£12). Instead of a sweet desert, I finished with the recommended chicken soup, a mild broth with flecks of a root vegetable and silver ear fungus (£3). There is a full wine list, and wine by the glass is £4.50.