Ho-ja

If you work in W12 or need somewhere to fill up before a gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, then Ho-Ja is a very useful place to have in your back pocket. A small, casual Taiwanese restaurant and shop on Goldhawk Road, this is the kind of place where students come for stir-fried udon noodles, and locals stop by with pyjama tops on under their coats to pick up bubble tea and a bag of frozen gyoza. This place will feed you quickly and almost everything is under a tenner. The bao tend to be underfilled and lack flavour, but you can’t go wrong with a rainy Wednesday emergency order of steaming beef noodle soup, or the hefty Taiwanese pancake katsu roll. It ranks as one of the best grab-and-go lunchtime options in the area.