Queensbury Deli, Willesden Green
With its large, distressed communal table, clean grey colour scheme and earnest singer-songwriter soundtrack, Queensbury (a useful stop-off on the way up to the stadium, by Willesden Green Tube station), may feel like a rather generic modern deli-cafe, but its food shouts down such reservations. It is fresh, fulsomely tasty and clearly prepared with love.
I was impressed with a sample £5.95 meal of tortilla (full of notably sweet roasted peppers and caramelised onion) paired with a lively, well-judged lentil and chorizo salad (long true flavours, fragrant with flat leaf parsley, the lentils nicely al dente). Elsewhere, the menu runs from breakfast porridge through sandwiches and soups to daily specials, such as chilli con carne. A sample flat white coffee (£2.20) was too hot and a little thin, texturally. All the more reason, therefore, to sample the deli's extensive range of beers from London brewery, Meantime (from £1.35 takeaway).
• Takeaway prices, breakfast from £1.50, sandwiches £3.60. 68 Walm Lane NW2, 020-8451 3332, queensburydeli.co.uk
Gracelands Café, Kensal Rise
If you're heading up to Wembley with the family, you could do worse than jumping off the tube at Kensal Green, and walking to this boho north London neighbourhood diner. There is an indoor play area for a children, a sun-trap yard out back and plenty of interesting food for the adults. A gallery of blackboards list a panoply of dishes from cakes, sandwiches, salads and all-day breakfasts, through light lunches (oven-roasted manchego cheese omelette with rocket salad, say), to a clutch of £9.99 mains, including Cumberland sausage and mash, or Turkish-style spiced lentils and carrots with basmati rice.
A plate of high-quality smoked salmon and light, creamy scrambled eggs was sound, if, at £6.75, a little mean on the salmon, which had been given a good woody, fruity cure. A cappuccino was excellent: sweet, smooth, robust; a sample brownie thoroughly pleasant. One warning, though, Gracelands isn't geared up for quick turnaround dining. Staff are unhurried, the atmosphere easy going. Things take their own sweet time. Kick back, relax, maybe star spot. On this visit, former Arsenal striker Ian Wright was eating at the next table.
• Breakfast dishes £4.75-£7.50, sandwiches from £3.50, meals around £7-£13. 118 College Road NW10, 020-8964 9161, gracelandscafe.com
Allso Thai, Wembley
Watched over by a trio of carved goddesses, this neat Wembley restaurant was, on a Thursday lunchtime, a serene escape from the bustle of Empire Way, the service friendly and obliging. A sample tom yum soup (£4.95) wasn't as dazzling and variegated as the very best examples, but it offered a satisfying double-knot of flavours to unravel and, a few mouthfuls in, an authentically fierce chilli backdraft. It was fiery, fragrant, lip-smacking.
The Allso lunch deal: soft drink, one from five starters and then a main course is particularly good value, at £7.75 to £9.50. But, at night, almost all the main dishes, such as the panang and massaman curries or mixed seafood phad talay, still top out around £10 with rice. Takeaway available too, if you're really watching the pennies or in a hurry to get to the game.
• Set lunch from £7.75, evening mains £5.95-£11.95. 15 Empire Parade, Empire Way HA9, 020-8795 4242, allsothai.co.uk
Ecco, Wembley
Visit Ecco at lunch and you may well be caught in a surge of suits, as Wembley's worker bees descend for a little of its home-cooked magic. It may look like the sort of slightly dated cafe that you can find on every British shopping precinct, but you can hear the reassuring sizzle of real cooking going on in its compact open kitchen, while out front a small selection of daily hot specials (a few lasagne and pasta dishes, chicken escalope served as a generous plateful with salad and potatoes) further whet the appetite.
A takeaway portion of beef lasagne (£4.50) was spot on, the pasta perfectly cooked, the meat ragu well-seasoned and full of herbs and onions, the whole thing lifted by a pleasing sweet note. The acid test, on a day's sampling like this, is whether or not I can stop eating something. This, I couldn't. Ecco also serves good-looking sandwiches and panini which, on a sunny day, you can have in its small back yard. NB: at the time of writing, Ecco was expanding its kitchen. Olympic visitors will be able to eat from a wider Italian menu that will also include pizza.
• Sandwiches from £2.20, hot meals with salad from £5. 89 Wembley Park Drive HA9, 020-8616 0262, no website
Alisan, Wembley
Literally across the car park from Wembley Stadium, this large, new-build Chinese is not the prettiest of spaces. It is like eating in the lobby of a city centre chain hotel. Don't expect fine dining peripherals, either. Service is prompt and friendly, but a glass of tap water arrives as is. No ice, no lemon, no fuss. Such slack details, however, will quickly fade from memory, when you taste Alisan's sophisticated, flavour-packed dim sum. They range from the relatively vanilla – sweet, ornate prawn dumplings, seasoned with some sort of almost astringent, uber-chive – to ox tripe with ginger and spring onion or chicken claws in chilli black bean sauce.
The budget traveller may be tempted to fill up on the larger rice dishes, but, certainly if there is a couple of you, these simpler dishes are best shared, interspersed with the more exciting dim sum. A plate of sweet, spicy barbecued pork and greens was fine, and a main course-sized portion, but rather one dimensional in its flavours. Note: on Wembley event days the dim sum menu is served until 4.30pm, after which Alisan serves a variety of significantly more expensive set menus.
• Dim sum £2.60-£4.90, rice and noodle dishes £6-£8.30. The Junction, Engineers Way HA9, 020-8903 3888, alisan.co.uk
Mesopotamia, Wembley Park
With its swagged Sultanate ceiling drapes, solid wood panels, vintage artefacts and Ottoman-style lamps, this Middle Eastern restaurant cuts a dash – on the plate as much as in the carved lions that decorate its walls. Eastern Mediterranean staples such as hummus, fattoush, baba ganoush, aubergine-wrapped kofta, falafel and shish kebabs rub shoulders with the lesser-spotted Persian fesanjun (chicken casseroled in pomegranate molasses, crushed walnuts and caramelised onions), and a history lesson in the form of a curry which pays homage to the purportedly original meat-in-spicy-sauce dishes prepared in Iraq, circa 1700 BC.
The already remarkable prices are a shade cheaper if you take away. My carton of light, fulsomely flavoured lamb meatballs with potatoes, in a rich, buttery, aromatically spiced tomato gravy (£6.25), was delicious.
• Eat-in: starters £3.95-£4.95, mains £6.95-£11.45, plus rice £2.50. 115 Wembley Park Drive HA9, 020-208 453 5555, mesopotamia.ltd.uk
Karahi King, Wembley
An appetite-sharpening 30-minute walk from central stadium (or one stop on the tube to North Wembley), this simple all-day, late-night curry cafe is well worth hunting out. Those pots filled with freshly ground spices on display at the counter-kitchen clearly aren't for show. This the real zingy deal: Indian food given serious depth of flavour by its base masalas, to which further colour and excitement is added by the late addition of bolder herbs and spices.
A daal chicken curry, the lentils almost melted away into its thick broth, is the ultimate warming winter stew, albeit one freshened by clean shell bursts of cardamom and a liberal handful of coriander. The accompanying plain naan was ineffably light and sweet. Takeaway, that cost just £7.50. For food this good, that is a bargain.
• Starters from £2.90-£6.90, mains £3.90-£15, plus rice £2.50. 213 East Lane, HA0, 020-8904 2760, no website
Five Hot Chillies, Sudbury
This Punjabi canteen makes Kahari King look like the Ritz. In the porch entrance, the ill-fitting carpet is curling up at the edges and someone's shattered a pane of glass. Inside, all is plain and utilitarian. A dining room of wipe-clean tables and green plastic chairs looks into an open, no-nonsense, stainless steel kitchen. Prices are keen at all times, but the daily lunch box deal (vegetable/meat curry, rice and drink, £4.50/£5.75), available from midday to 4pm, is particularly good value.
A sample aloo methi was tasty enough, the rice and potatoes done to a T, the savoury colour and depth – that almost zesty iron tang that fresh fenugreek leaves bring to a dish, shining through a strong wave of supposedly "medium" heat. Open until midnight, daily. Nearest station from Wembley Stadium, Sudbury & Harrow Road.
• Starters £1.60-£8, mains £5-£10, plus rice £2.50. 875 Harrow Road HA0, 020-8908 5900, fivehotchillies.co.uk
Shayona, Neasden
Opposite Neasden's spectacular Hindu Swaminarayan Temple, this food store, deli-counter and surprisingly swish restaurant serves up dishes from across the Indian subcontinent, whilst adhering to the tenets of "pure" sattvik cooking (vegetarian, no pungent onion or garlic). If you think that might lead to an absence of big flavours, you couldn't be more wrong. From a brace of snacks, the cigar-shaped noodle-filled samosas were ho-hum, but the kachori (spiced mushy peas fried in dough balls) were fantastic, a lot lighter and less cloyingly sweet than they can be.
Shayona's Bombay bhel, a stunning salad of puffed rice, broken poori, potato, lentils, nuts and more, bound in a tamarind sauce and – at a guess – some sort of lime pickle chutney, is the sort of food to which a man could easily become addicted. I could eat a bucket of it. Should you want to pig-out in that fashion, Shayona serves a weekday buffet until 4pm (£6.99).
• Starters £2.50-£5.25, light meals (dosa etc) £3.95-£4.95, curries £3.95-£6.25, plus rice £2.90. 54-62 Meadow Garth NW10, 020-8965 3365, shayonarestaurants.com
Sushi-Say, Willesden Green
It is an open secret among the capital's connoisseurs that, certainly at these prices, this Willesden Japanese serves some of London's best nigiri and rolls. That said, even working from the takeaway menu (sushi, £2.10-£4.95) the budget traveller will have to box clever in order to sample some of Say's lauded sushi and sate their appetite. If you're a couple or in a group, and you are looking to keep the cost down to around £10-a-head, mix that sushi in with the restaurant's more filling options, such as the katsudon pork cutlet and tempura prawn rice dishes or the teriyaki grilled salmon.
A sample dish of buta kakuni (with rice, £8.95), roasted and then braised pork belly in a faintly sweetish liquor, was a lesson in patient, slow-cooked simplicity. The tender pork delivered big bursts of piggy flavour. The unusually short-grain rice, glutinous but still defined grain by grain, was also very good. Sushi-Say is only open in the evening on weekdays. Lunch served Saturday and Sunday only.
• Takeaway prices: sushi £2.10-£4.95, starters £4.45-£8.20, mains from £8.95 with rice, set lunch £12.50. 33B Walm Lane NW2, 020-8459 2971, no website
Tony travelled from Manchester to London with Virgin Trains (virgintrains.co.uk)
