Last month, after a very successful ER readers’ lunch at Kungfu Kitchen – a total of fifty-six guests in attendance and what felt like about the same number of different dishes to try – the hardcore lunch-goers were sitting in the luxurious surrounds of Park House up on campus, shooting the breeze. It was early evening and even though it was right at the beginning of December it felt, to me at least, like the start of the festive season.

I always love that bit, when the event has gone well and everybody is full and happy and I get to have a few pints and chat to all the people I haven’t yet caught up with. The readers’ lunches have been going for six years now and although there are always newcomers, many of my regulars have been coming along for a fair old time, a few since the very beginning. 

On this particular occasion I found myself in conversation with Jonathan, a newbie who very specifically wanted to talk to me about a bugbear of his: how come there weren’t any good neighbourhood restaurants where he lived in east Reading? I thought about it, and told him I had to agree. I said that since O Portugues had mysteriously closed in the spring there was nothing that even came close.

You could eat in the likes of Rizouq on the Wokingham Road, I supposed, as it had a few tables, and I’d heard suggestions that a burger joint, Pattie N’ Pulled, was operating out of the Roebuck (it looks like they’ve since moved on). But apart from that, and the artist formerly known as the Garden Of Gulab, restaurants were thin on the ground. I thought that would be the end of the conversation, but Jonathan wanted to talk about it in more detail, as if I had the power to change it.

I do get it though. As a proud East Reading resident myself, albeit one living far closer to the centre, it is an enduring mystery that it’s such a dead zone for restaurants. Caversham is well served, and Whitley and Katesgrove have a handful of places. Tilehurst, with the addition of spots like The Switch and Vesuvio, is seeing a bit of a resurgence and the Oxford Road has always been a crucible of culinary invention. Even dear old Woodley, where I grew up, has a handful of restaurants worth a visit.

By comparison, the Wokingham Road feels like slim pickings. It has takeaways, and two biryani places, and the likes of Earley Café and Chaiiwala, but nothing you could describe as a neighbourhood restaurant. It’s almost as if the people living near Palmer Park are expected to hop on the 17, walk to Kungfu Kitchen, settle for the Hope And Bear or, if all else fails, fall into Ye Babam Ye. If it wasn’t for the likes of Smash N Grab and Cake & Cream, you might struggle to see redeeming features at all. And Smash N Grab, sad to say, has its last ever service tomorrow.

I did remember, though, talking to Jonathan that there was one possible contender in the form of Hala Lebanese. It opened last June on the Wokingham Road, just past the stretch of shops, in a spot formerly occupied by another Lebanese restaurant, Alona. I still remembered Alona, partly for the astroturf but mainly for the wobbly shawarma that had slightly traumatised my dining companion John and me. I told Jonathan I would get to Hala as soon as I could and, what with Christmas and Covid, I think I’ve pretty much kept my promise: last Saturday Zoë and I trekked up the Wokingham Road to give it a whirl.