You want Olympic legacy projects? We got 'em. Yes, in preparation for the descent of hundreds of thousands of gullible tourists upon London, Guardian Travel dispatched a crack team - of, erm, me - to the areas around each Olympic venue to try and find, in each case, 10 venues where you can eat well for under £10 a head.
Using the following links, you can review my choices in and around Wembley, the ExCeL centre and Canning Town, Greenwich and the main stadium. More importantly, we'd like your contributions. Forget Westfield Stratford City, together we can turn this budget eating guide into the most useful ongoing resource to emerge from London 2012.
OK, I exaggerate for feeble comic effect, but this is a rare opportunity to throw the spotlight on to some less-examined parts of London. As a northerner, I'm used to complaining about London media bias. After this project, perhaps I should talk more specifically about inner London media bias. To the mainstream media it seems outer London is another country, while, in London's poorer boroughs, there is a sharp drop-off in the number of bloggers scrutinising the local food scene, enthusiasts reporting back to Qype, and little action from yer self-selecting social media chatterati.
Personal tips, therefore, were more important than ever in putting together these lists. That is no bad thing. From community cafes in work placement centres and charity outreach projects to Hindu temples, outlying curry cafes, experimental city farms, Hackney Wick hipster hang-outs and hidden 1940's US diners, via all manner of unusual venues which in their different ways are fighting a rearguard action against homogenisation, this research was - for this outsider - a bit of an adventure across a London that the tourist might not ordinarily see.
In case that sounds a bit self-serving and snobbish, I should also point out that you will also find round-ups of Canary Wharf and Westfield in these tens, as well as a few places that attentive foodies will certainly know well. Hopefully, all food life is here, in its sub-£10 variety.
Not that it was all sweetness and digestive delight, of course. There were a few stinkers along the way. In the vain hope of finding something edible on the corporate "campus" at ExCeL I ate a plate of lobster linguine at the Docklands Bar & Grill which tasted of nothing. I then walked to the Thames Barrier Park Pavilion cafe to eat a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich which was like something you might have thrown together for a kids' party. If you didn't particularly like children. Chuck in an insipid coffee (total price, £5.75) and you had an experience that, despite the serene location, despite the novelty of - on the walk there - planes flying low over your head into City Airport, seemed to sum up the worst of rip-off London. It's not just the borderline obvious candidates who let you down, either. Breakfast at Forman's was ho hum, albeit much better than my eggs Benedict at the very busy Chapter's All Day Dining. The Hollandaise was curiously paste-like, the top bizarrely browned as if it had been quickly shoved under a grill or left under the pass lamps too long. And this, unbelievably, at the sister establishment to a Michelin star restaurant.
As ever, of course, there were also places I meant to swing by but which for reasons of time or chronic indigestion, I couldn't. So I'd appreciate any reports on Mogul, Buenos Aires and Tai Won Mein in Greenwich, as well as the nearby Deptford Project cafe; Green Papaya and Spit Jacks in Hackney; Masa in Wealdstone, Ram's in Kenton and the Reindeer Cafe at Wing Yip; Nakhon Thai, Yi-Ban and Pepenero down near the ExCeL.
I should also mention Caravanserai, an interesting project in Canning Town which will be up and running for the Olympics, and the nearby Corner Bistro at St Luke's Business Centre. It's a lovely place (in an old church, obviously) and it's super-cheap, but my chicken schnitzel didn't quite cut it. Did I catch it on a bad day? Choose an unrepresentative dish?
Come on, London, share. Where else would you point the cash-strapped Olympic tourist?
