Restaurant review: KOUZU (Belgravia)

I bought a voucher to dine at Kouzu on BuyAGift. The restaurant fancies itself an upmarket Japanese restaurant, and the deal retails at £49 ordinarily, so I will be assessing it as if I paid this amount for the deal (in fact, I got a fair bit off the price due to a discount code, but I’m aware discount codes don’t occur all the time).

The starters were perfunctory. With regards to the salmon, if they were going for the 'high quality and low quantity' vibe that's typical of many high-class restaurants, they really needed to work on the presentation, because what is photographed below doesn't scream 'high-class' to me:

Restaurant review: PREZZO (New Oxford Street)

Now that there’s a post-Oscar lull, my blog feels weirdly directionless. I’m currently consuming any black and white films I can get my hands on, so expect random review of classic movies! I shall also attempt to make my way through the huge backlog of restaurants and bars I’ve frequented (although the rate I dine out far outstrips the rate at which I review places!).

I attended Prezzo with a BuyAGift voucher, where the deal on the website was £30 for a three-course-meal with a glass of wine.

Restaurant review: GALVIN AT WINDOWS (Mayfair)

Back in February, I had the pleasure of being able to try the five-course tasting menu at Galvin at Windows, at the Park Lane Hilton. With the exception of Yuauatcha and Sticks’n’Sushi, I rarely dine at expensive places, so when I got the opportunity to, it always feels like a special occasion!

Restaurant review: CHAPTER ONE (Orpington)

Chapter One is basically the only restaurant in Orpington to carry any kind of distinction. It used to possess one Michelin star (was sadly stripped of it in 2014), but for Bromley, that's enough to make it stand out. I’d never been there before, but for my 27th birthday, my friend Joy kindly treated me to a three course meal on the lunchtime menu there.

Restaurant review: TRUC VERT (Mayfair)

Bungled away down one of the hectic Oxford Circus sidestreets is French restaurant Truc Vert. I went last November using a LivingSocial deal but amazingly, it bucked the trend set by their rival deal site, Groupon, in that dining at Truc Vert was actually a positive experience!

Truc Vert has elegant European-style furnishings but graciously, unlike Hawksmoor, say, isn’t so over-ornate that the decorations feel ominous.

For starters, we ordered:

Restaurant Review: VIBE GELATERIA BAR (Orpington)

Me and my friend had an hour to kill before Bridget Jones’ Baby last week so we gave Vibe, the latest dessert parlour to open in Orpington, our patronage. (To be quite honest, there are now more ice cream places than Orpington needs. After all, the town only has a population of 15,000!)

I complained about one of Vibe’s main competitors, Cream’s, for having idiots for sales assistants, but at least the quality of their ice cream was infallible. The same cannot be said for Vibe, which was selling something as crap as this for £5.50:

It probably looks harmless, but the ingredients had a distinctly C-list taste to it, as opposed to Cream’s, where I was wolfing down my ice cream due to the moreish components of the inventions. Also, if you just peruse over the menus of the two parlours, you’ll find that you’ll get much value for £5 at Creams’ than you will here. And the banana tasted off. Just saying.

The main thing that irritated me about Vibe, however, wasn’t the below-par ice cream, but the ‘service’ (if you can call it that) that we got from the pushy waiter. Because Vibe has just opened, they were doing a deal, which was all cocktails a fiver. Normally, I’d be all over that; there are precious few things that make me happier than a good cocktail. But, like everything in life that I enjoy, there’s a time and a place for everything. A weekday where both of us had work the next day wasn’t the time for a cocktail, so we politely declined. Yet, he still kept trying to pressure us into buying one.

This man seriously needs a lesson in consent. No means NO. A fiver isn’t much money by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still OUR money, and up to us how to see fit how to dispense the money. If we said we didn’t feel like a cocktail, he shouldn’t have been so damn persistent. Especially when, in a desperate attempt to stay relevant, the cocktails were named after films, and the Word Art job on the menu was not the most enticing: -

‘Godfather’ is one word, just saying. And maybe they should have named one of the cocktails 'Enchantress', given that if this gelateria were an actress, it would be Cara Delevingne.

Something else which irked me was that when I got my phone out to take a photo of the creation, to point out how poor value for £5.50 it offers compared to Cream’s £4.75 creation, the waiter asked me to check into Facebook, to ‘raise publicity for Vibe, as it had just opened’.

Mate, do I look like a shill to you? And even shills get paid. If he wanted me to check in, he should have said they’d waive the fee of the (crap) ice cream, or throw in something free for us. I sure wasn’t going to publicly acknowledge I’d been to this hellhole on Facebook for free. Nothing for nothing in this world, mate. Nothing for nothing.

Final part of the rant: the manager of the restaurant was working that evening, cruising each of the tables to ingratiate himself with the punters. He spent more time with tables which were larger, which is completely fair enough, as by Law of Averages, there’s more people on that table that are likely to generate word of mouth about Vibe. But when he came over to our table, all we got was a brief ‘good evening?’ and before we’d had time to give a decent response, he’d bounced onto the next table.

I am not impressed with that. We may have been but two mid-20s girls who seemed reluctant to part with our money, and sharing one dessert between two of us, but we were still paying customers like everyone else there. The manager made a huge oversight by ignoring us. I can generate word of mouth too, mate. Ever heard of a blog?

It’s probably a tad injudicious of me to keep reviewing places in Orpington, and being a Jennifer Lawrence-in-American Hustle-esque cow in my appraisals, given I can see myself slowly talking myself into being a persona non grata in most restaurants in this suburban town.

But I’m not the type of customer who takes being mistreated lying down. And when I can pop to Tesco’s and buy myself a tub of Neapolitan ice cream and dust some sprinkles on top, why would I want to visit Vibe again? My own makeshift dessert would be infinitely more delicious and substantially cheaper than the crap they offer at Vibe, and graciously not come with a side order of ‘bad attitude’.

#ByeFelicia

Grade: U

Restaurant review: CREAMS CAFE (Orpington)

As part of Orpington's attempt to make itself more attractive to property buyers, the town is undergoing something of a revamp. It now has a bright, shiny new Odeon (super-handy for me as I have an Odeon Unlimited card!) as well as a whole array of recently-constructed restaurants and cafés. I decided to give the Creams Café my patronage one Saturday evening, pre-Bad Moms.

I've been to one Creams Café before, in Wembley, and in terms of quality of the dessert, I'd say the north-west and south-east London venues are comparable. You get plenty of bang for your buck at Creams Café - the bubblegum sundae pictured above was only £4.95, and in addition to being delectable, was more than even I could hope for; I wasn't able to finish it all. 

And it's not just bubblegum sundaes they do, there's a wide range of dishes offered on the menu, from waffles to sundaes, with every ice cream flavour you could possibly want. Multiple kinds of chocolate flavours, some with chips in, some without, fruit sorbets, etc. When trying to decide on a dish, I felt, quite literally, like a kid in a candy store.

So purely from a food and monetary point of view, Creams Café certainly suffices. Why anything less than an A-grade rating, then? Well, I'm sorry to report that the quality of the service was just not up to scratch. My friend ordered both mine and her choices, and for her dessert, they brought the wrong order to our table. 

What had happened was that when ordering, she had pointed to her choice on the menu, and the inattentive sales assistant had keyed in another choice. After taking the wrong order away, they insisted on seeing her receipt, which made us very anxious, because they were treating us like criminals for their mistake. They finally made the dessert she had originally ordered, which was 20p more than the dish they charged her for. My friend offered to foot the difference, but the manager said 'don't worry, it's on the house'. 

It's not really 'on the house' when she paid for 97% of it, and had been delayed in receiving it due to the sheer incompetence of the sales staff who couldn't be arsed to listen in the first place, is it? So stop pretending you're doing us a massive favour pal.

Creams Café do a bomb sweet treat. This I'm not refuting. But if you go to the one in Orpington, I'd just warn you keep your eyes open and check that what you ordered is what the teenagers who work there keyed in. They don't seem to have much in the way of Quality Control at this place; you'll have to do it instead.

Grade: B

Restaurant review: AMPHITHEATRE RESTAURANT AND TERRACE AT THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE (Covent Garden)

Last April, I went to see Madame Butterfly at the Royal Opera House. It was an exquisite performance that moved me to tears. Before the show and during the intervals, I drank and dined at the Amphitheatre Restaurant and Terrace, which I will now give a review of.

I'm generally wary of dining at restaurants that are part of the institution where the opera/ballet/concert is, because I worry that they'll be an afterthought to the building; a way for the owners to make a quick buck, rather than put any real thought into feeding their punters. Having visited this place, I think my reservations were correct.

Unsurprisingly, given the rather eye-watering price tags, the food was presented well enough, if not quite the same level in terms of taste. The steak pictured above wasn't the most delicious I've had the pleasure of tasting in London (that would have to be the transcendent Hawksmoor), but it wasn't the worst either. But, for the price paid, you'd hope for a little better than 'not the worst steak in London'. It was the chewiness that I really could not get on board with; as much as I like rare steaks, this tasted rubbery. Ew.

One aspect of Amphitheatre Restaurant and Terrace that was excellent was the service we received. The waiters were obliging and charming throughout, and I was very impressed with the organisation of the staff working at the restaurant, for, the second we returned to the restaurant at the interval, our dessert was waiting for us.

I had three flavours of ice cream; a tad overpriced at around £10 for what it was. It tasted fine, but the £1.99 ice cream tubs you get in Tesco taste exactly the same, minus the chocolate shavings ornamented on them. So I wasn't too impressed with the mains or the dessert.

As with The Savoy, extravagances like this where we unleash our inner Iggy Azalea and inwardly holler I'M SO FANCY are only one-in-a-year-type things. In terms of food quality, The Savoy far surpasses Amphitheatre and Terrace. In fact, it's fortunate for the Royal Opera House that their production of Madame Butterfly was so on point, or I'd be even more scathing in my critique of the restaurant; clearly a get-rich-scheme for the owners. They're laughing all the way to the bank. We're still struggling to cut up that rubbery steak with our incisors.

Grade: D

Review: AMORINO (Islington, Camden Town)

Over the past few months, I've visited Amorino ice cream parlour twice, so thought I'd share some photos, and my thoughts on the experiences.

Trip 1: Islington

£3.50 for three scoops, including mango sorbet, raspberry sorbet and the dulce de leche. All delicious, albeit a bit too fruity for my tasting. Hence, I learnt my lesson and stockpiled my cup with sweeter tastes on...

Trip 2: Camden Town

Four £4.50, you get four scoops! This was much more sweet in flavour, with only lime sorbet acting as the fruit component, and every scoop was absolutely wonderful. If you're going to go here, what I recommend that you know in advance whether you want sweet or fruity, then make sure one scoop in your cup is something else, just to counterbalance the rest of the sweetness, for example.

There were many other enticing flavours which I look forward to trying out. The place was clean and the staff polite. My only foible, and it's a small one, is that for £3.50 and £4.50, respectively, I expected a fraction more, for example, what you get for that amount at Cream's.

Grade: A-

Restaurant review: INAMO (Soho)

I had a completely new dining experience on Monday evening in Inamo, a fusion Asian restaurant where the tables have a touchpad on the side, and the table itself serves as a giant screen. From this, you can order food using technology rather than hailing a waiter and omit that awkward small talk. 

In addition to this, you can choose the “ambience” to be projected onto the table, whether it be photos of palm trees or a pattern, as well as play games whilst waiting for your order, be it alone, or with others.

So far, so innovative. Credit to the creators behind this idea, the novelty of it definitely didn’t wear off on me throughout my stay at Inamo, and I would have happily spent even more time exploring all the functions of the interactive table. But my chief reason for attending restaurants has and always will be for the food, and the prices and quantities at this place were nothing short of exorbitant.

For starters, we had three dumplings, which cost £5.75, but they were so small, that you could easily have chomped all three in one bite. Don’t get me wrong, it was wonderfully presented, the sauce was fantastic and the dumpling itself didn’t taste bad either, but nearly six pounds for what was essentially the ingredients of ONE decent sized dumpling, spread out over three, was taking liberties.

The mains weren’t much better. The nigri set was £13.75, and as you can see from the photo, it wasn’t anything more than just eight pieces of sushi. From a supermarket, you could have gotten that for about £4, and even in Wasabi, this would have clocked in less than £7 and tasted just as good. So that was disappointing. 

The Berkshire Pork Neck - the highlight of my dining experience at Inamo -  fulfilled expectations better. Again, quantities weren’t great (the cooks craftily disguised the meat under layers of sauce, giving the appearance of there being more than was actually there), but from the rich taste, you sensed that some thought had actually gone into the inception and preparation of the meal. I don’t usually like pork, but in the blend of spicy chocolate sauce, red wine reduction & crushed wasabi peas sauce that came with it, it tasted wonderful.

The dessert was a strange one. Three different flavours of homemade ice cream was served, to varying degrees of success. They tasted more organic, and thus healthy than that you might get elsewhere, but one of them was far too tangy for my palate, and as such, I couldn’t eat too much of it. The spongy texture also gave me an ill-feeling that it was soap, and not something edible, that I was tucking into.

All this left me unsure of where I stood on Inamo. I did have a great time there, but that was mainly down to the child-like glee the interactrive table bought out in me. The food, however, left a lot to be desired. Only the pork neck actually satiated my appetite; the others, whilst intricately displayed, left me thoroughly disenchanted, not least because there was just so goddamn little of it there. 

Perhaps if they’d spent less time fussing on the tech and took a bit more time thinking about the dishes being offered, I’d actually want to go back there to eat.

Grade: C

For more of my restaurant reviews, click here. If you would like me to review your restaurant, drop me an email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com

Dessert review: SCOOP (South Kensington)

Before the Chelsea game on Wednesday, I had an amble around neighbouring Tube stations whilst waiting to meet a friend. I was feeling a bit peckish, but not hungry enough for a full meal, so when I saw Scoop, a luxury ice cream place, my curiosity was piqued and I helped myself to three scoops.

Of the three, two were roaring successes (the cherry and the fruit sorbet flavour), and the third, biscuit, whilst not exactly to my taste palate, was still specked with crushed biscuits, which gave them an interesting texture nonetheless. But, as said, the other two were wonderful, and they definitely tasted high-end. 

It's pretty hard to go wrong with ice cream as it as so I was going to be satisfied either way, but it was refreshing to be in a place in South Ken that didn't rest purely on its laurels of the upmarket location, but, rather, strove to make its food as classy as the postcode.

Grade: A

Dessert review: YOGLAND (Bayswater)

 

Situated on an extremely happening road leading from Queensway tube station to Bayswater tube station is Yogland, a well-packaged place, with appropriately clean furniture (to the point of appearing sterile) and some delicious flavours of yoghurt. 

However, this frozen yoghurt joint that was hard to love, despite having a fair amount going for it.

 

There are six self-service frozen yoghurt dispensers, and the idea is that you fill them up with however much you like, chose all the toppings you want, and at the end, you are priced by weight. Fair enough, if not for the fact that a lot of the toppings were truly poorly presented (the mango slices were bathed in dirty-looking water, berries looked unwashed, etc). 

Furthermore, the maintenance of the frozen yoghurt themselves was inconsistent. Strawberry cheesecake came out from the nozzle with no problem, suggesting it’s a popular flavour that they take good care of, but when I pulled the lever for apple sorbet, the first thing that came out were green droplets of water! Yuck! A total appetite-killer, and you could not miss the irony that they'd spent all that time making the chairs and tables looking good, and not the food itself.

There were a few extra flavours that you had to ask for instead of getting yourself, and being a bubble-gum nut, I went for that. But when the server scooped it up, I couldn’t help noticing she collected up all the scraggly, fallen-off pieces of ice cream, as opposed to the delicious, full, untouched food that you're supposed to serve. 

Suffice to say, a place with a lot of potential, but let itself down with bad maintenance and servers who were trying to fob customers off with cut-rate product.

 

Grade: C-

For more of my restaurant reviews, click here. If you would like me to review your restaurant, drop me an email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com

Restaurant review: SEATON RESTAURANT (Weston-super-Mare)

Just off the pier in a vibrant seaside town is Seaton Restaurant, an extremely hospitable and charming restaurant that I would recommend to all who visit Weston.

The menu is extremely varied, featuring famous Greek dishes, homemade burgers, as well as seaside must-haves such as fish and chips and knickerbocker glories. 

Las Iguanas Mexican night.

Delicious, brilliantly presented meals:

Some stuff wot I've eaten recently.

Two Amazing new Häagen-Dazs Creations.

There are two incredibly tasty new inventions from Häagen-Dazs that I just have to talk about!

The first is their Meringue & Raspberry Fondant Secret Sensations, which will be sold in packs of two mini-pots, each of which is the perfect size for a post-dinner dessert. Flecks of meringue are embedded throughout the ice cream (the colour of the meringue means that it is almost invisible amidst the vanilla, so when you initially taste it, it's a hugely pleasant surprise), and it really gives the dessert some volume. Even better is the raspberry fondant hidden at the centre of the ice cream, which goes incredibly with the vanilla to really make for a scintillating treat.

The raspberry fondant has a jam-like quality, and indeed, first discovering it in the ice cream is like finding the strawberry jam in a doughnut, except with ice cream, it goes even better.

Absolute delicious, Secret Sensations have played another blinder. The portion, texture and overall taste are fantastic. Go taste some!

Another festive treat being released by Häagen-Dazs are their Ice Moon Cakes:

As you can see, this is a hugely layered dessert is created to replicate the inside of a moon....

...with the outside also looking remarkably like a moon!

To get your hands on one of the Christmas desserts - which can feed 6-8 people - to visit the ice cream brand’s Facebook site buy one for £50, which will then be delivered to your door by a butler.

Seventh heaven.

Seven delicious dishes I've had of late.

Baby, instant soup doesn't really grab me.

Weekly round-up of a few noticeable meals I've had.

Japanese style chicken curry. £2.95, work canteen.

Creme brulee and chocolate ice cream, Haagen-Dazs.

Meal of the week: steam & ale pie with mash and gravy. £2.95, work canteen.

Delicious chocolate brownie explosion, Haagen-Dazs.