James Street is full of restaurants. It's near Oxford Street and Bond Street, so an excellent place to enjoy a meal after a hard day of shopping, if that's your thing. We hadn't done any shopping, but after a week at work, a relaxing dinner is always welcome.

Sunday in Brooklyn is their second venue — their first one is in Notting Hill — and styled after a Brooklyn Brunch spot. So good for breakfast (weekdays) and brunch, but they also serve dinner in the evening.

We were seated in the front room with a bunch of other pairs of diners. The vibe was relaxed. The menu is fairly extensive with starters, salads, Italian plates, burgers, and mains. We weren't overly hungry, so picked the corn ribs to share as a starter. These were cut into quarters, slightly crispy, and were served with a slightly underwhelming peanut-flavoured dip (it wasn't really necessary as the corn ribs were delicious by themselves). They weren't the easiest to eat — fingers required — but yet very tasty.

For her main, my wife selected the flame grilled salmon. This came with a smashed avocado and pineapple salsa. Although tasty, the salsa being cold, whilst the salmon was hot, was a little odd. On the side, she also had a green bean and almond side, which worked better with the fish than the cold salsa. I had the grilled sirloin steak, with a peppery three pepper sauce, and served with a side of crispy and garlicky fries.

After our mains, we did have a look at the dessert menu, but opted against it. Even though our waitress was highly recommending having the Sunday Pancake™ that they're apparently famous for. We were too full— maybe something to try another time.

We enjoyed our Friday meal at Sunday in Brooklyn, and perhaps we should come back and have an actual brunch, and then also try their signature pancakes.

The Porter's Table is part of the massive new Guinness Open Gate London development, which features a brewery and tour, a beer garden, and several restaurants. They have a different approach to the original Open Gate in Dublin, where they mostly try out new beers on unsuspecting punters.

Where Gilroy's Loft specialises in seafood, The Porter's Table is focussed on grilling vegetables, fish, and meat. And of course there is a fair amount of different beers to sample as well.

After finding the restaurant, we soon got ourselves one of those while looking over the menu.

We originally only chose the frickels as our starter (beer-batter deep-friend cornichons), but after realising that we didn't have any vegetables with our mains, we decided to add the seasonal Brussels sprouts. When these came (after the frickels, and before the mains), we were glad that we did. They were prepared with beetroot and orange, which made for a delightful combination.

For her main, my wife had the butcher's skewer; lovely cubes of rib-eye, marinated, and grilled on a skewer with red peppers, tomatoes, and red onion slices. I had the pork chop, which came with half a roasted bulb of garlic, cut through horizontally. I enjoyed prising the sweet roasted cloves of garlic flesh out of the papery skin. My meal was seasoned, and nicely moist. We ordered some chips on the side, which were crisp and fluffy. The serving of mayonnaise was too small, but I nearly always find that his the case.

The food was nice, but the service was quite haphazard. Orders went slightly wrong, and were offered food that we hadn't ordered — nor did the tables next to us.

We'll likely return to the Open Gate, but probably to try Gilroy's Loft (the seafood restaurant), or the beer garden with food truck later in the year when the weather is much improved.