Hawksmoor and more

Su and I walked to the bus stop celebrating the joys of Supper Club. Not only is the company faultless (heck, it even provides extremely thoughtful and supportive child-care advice)but the fact that it exists provides a highpoint for each quarter - a pleasure to be looked forward to and savoured. Now, Hawksmoor. Hmnnn. Many, many positives - excellent cocktails, friendly service though perhaps a little slow. The dining concept works really well and I like the fact that it is obvious to all that you are there to eat steak - very simple. The startes were good altohugh I think the rule with Bone Marrow as with Oysters and Steak is you don't fuck with it. So, the onion while tasty was a step too far for me. The Porterhouse Steak cooked rare was simply the tatiest steak I've tasted and perfectly cooked. Wine also just right. I found the seating arrangement and the waiter and the other diners just gave the place a slightly corporate feeling but this is faily minor quiblle and I give it 8.75/10

Perfect Meating

A real treat this time out - spacious cocktail bar in this subterranean cellar location serves excellent mixed drinks by chatty and friendly staff. The decor is very pleasing - old parquet, reclaimed doors and tables, remnants of its previous history as a brewery showing in the brick and pitch walls, and it is nice to eat in a spacious room for a change.

Plumped for 900g of Porterhouse, shared with Su, which was probably the tastiest beef I've had for quite a while. Beef dripping chips provided the healthy accompaniment along with greens and spinach. The split marrow bone and onion starter was a joy.

I'll gladly return to sample more: 9/10

The Bill

Hawksmoor - Yes more !

OK, so I am a later blogger but my personal diary for 4th February 2011 reads as follows:-
" Shared a Porterhouse steak with Toby - meat and company both exemplary"
Need I say more ?
9.5/10

Trullo, madly, deeply let-down

Maybe the simple rule in London is go for top end restaurants with wonderful service and perfectly assembled dishes with stratospheric prices or go to a trusty local place where the food will be excellent and the prices fair. Everything in between seems to disappoint and Trullo was a perfect example of this. Slap-dash service lasted all evening and from the very start I felt like we were being rushed. Our waitress was ok but inept and three times asked me if we'd chosen our wine when it was perfectly clear we were still studying the list. Our quail antipasti was ok, my beef shin pasta was very good but not remarkable and was just chucked on the plate and my liver main course was pretty good but again was plonked onto the plate without any care.

The wines were very good and we have to say the price is very good considering three bottles of wine plus desert wine but the whole experience was rushed and amateurish

I say 5/10.

Fuming in the rain !

So there we were "Up the Junction" sipping our digestifs having been turfed out of Trullo's at 9.15 pm. Our measily 2 hour slot was over ! Are their overheads really so high or is it just plain greed ? Either way, it left an unpleasant after-taste. Anyway, to return to the beginning. We started with an excellent bottle of Prosecco DOC Treviso Spumante Bedin. What a joy to be reunited with our dear diners, Su and To for another gastronomical experience, or so we thought in the light of Trullo's many complimentary reviews! Sadly, we were to be very disappointed. What a mediocre meal ! My pile of deep fried squid with its sauce "rosso" was a very plain little dish. This was followed by a weary-looking grilled whole mackerel which shared a plate with a pile of beetroot quarters. Equally uninspired. The butter pastry on my pear tart was lovely but the rest of it was just too bland. Failure to care is unforgiveable and so is being made to feel that we needed to be out of there for much of the time that we were there ! 3.5/10

Overated

Oh how one yearns for the days of yore, when one could get together with friends in a restaurant and linger over a meal! Today's requirement for two sittings means that one feels rather hurried and anxious, a feeling exacerbated by waiting staff who "need that table by 9.30".

A lot has been written about Trullo's good value for money (small mark-ups on wine, ungreedy pricing) and it's exceptional 'River Cafe' style food. I'm afraid that we found it rather uninspiring.
A promising start to the evening when we shared an excellent bottle of prosecco in this unpretentious and pleasant room, served by a charming and attractive waitress, gave way to disappointment with both the food and service. We ordered a mixture of antipasti and starters, but the waitress got confused and brought us four dishes but not my pasta dish. When this finally came, it was the wrong dish and had to be changed. Our main courses all came together, but none of us were particularly smitten with them.

I had a fresh tagliatelle with chanterelles - the fungi flavour all but masked by the heavy butter and parmesan sauce. This was followed by a veal T-bone overcharred on the grill which meant it just tasted burnt, seved with a quite nice mixture of what I think was red cabbage and potatoes.
Su and I shared a cheese plate which was fine, but served unaccountedly with two quite horrible and inedible grissini - we had to ask for some bread!
The bottles of Gavi and Sicilian Donnafugata were lovely, as was the pudding wine.

I'm afraid the perennial affliction of so many restaurants sadly applies - namely poorly trained service staff (this despite the presence of a young man who was previously, and improbably, front of house at River Cafe). On our visit, the much-trumpeted 'fresh, good quality ingredients simply served' left us sincerely underwhelmed, and in one instance (the salmoriglio sauce with plaice) seriously faulty.

One gives a mark for the overall experience, and I'm sorry but it's a 4/10.