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| Address |
197 Warstone Lane, Hockley Birmingham
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| Postcode |
B18 6JR Map |
| Tel |
0121 236 9047 |
| Email |
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| Price |
Up to £10 |
| Facilities |
BREAKFAST, SUNDAY LUNCH |
Full Restaurant Listing |
| An expansive 784 words from dr_gourmet on Friday, May 02, 2008
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| Food: |
Value |
Service: |
Decor: |
Rating: |
Cost/head: |
Suits: |
| 2/10 |
: 4/10 |
4/10 |
1/10 |
29 % |
£10 |
Get out of the house |
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The concept of a greasy spoon turning its hand to bistro style food is a new one on me. Still, whilst I haven't experienced it myself, the breakfast/brunch sounds good so maybe it has potential – certainly the fact that they are sourcing their meat locally and veg from the market is encouraging. Well the proof of the pudding (or starter and main in this case) is in the eating, so we duly sauntered up to Warstone lane last night to give it a go.
It has to be said that first impressions weren't great, I'm sure that this place is more than adequate at 8.00am for a quick bacon sandwich - but a nice relaxing evening meal....give me a break. As far as I could tell no adaptations had been made for the evening service - no candles, table cloths...nothing. The fluorescent lighting is so bright that I shouldn't need to consume any vitamin D for the next few months and the cheap furniture/cutlery/crockery etc etc doesn't do much to set the seen. More alarming is the smell of chip fat that lingers in the air - much in the same way that old pubs struggled to disguise the underlying smell when smoking was banned, the acrid stench of grease hangs heavy with the absence of cooking smells to hide it. I say absence of cooking smells because we were the only dinner guests in that night, and apparently their first ever…oh dear.
Still, at least the menu looked good. I went for the chicken livers with walnut, bacon and a cream sauce to start with, Emma went for the rarebit. My starter tasted better than it looked - some of the livers had started to disintegrate into the cream sauce and provided it with a grainy almost curdled appearance, and in terms of presentation it was a case of dollop of liver on one side of the plate, leaves on the other. The liver/bacon/walnut/cream combination is fairly tried and tested, and worked ok as it normally does. If you were served it at someone’s home it would just about be acceptable, but not in a restaurant. Emma’s welsh rarebit was really just a slight step up from cheese on toast - 4 slices of French bread with what tasted like cheddar and mustard mixed together, it was about as basic as cooking comes, and she never did find the onion and ale chutney that was promised.
My main was braised rabbit with a liver and mustard cream sauce, creamy mash and vegetables. It sounded good, it was in reality awful. The rabbit was served in two chunks; I think a leg and what appeared to be half the rib cage. The term braised suggests slow cooking producing meltingly tender meat, but in reality the little meat could be extracted from the bones was pretty tasteless. The sauce was like a liquidised version of my starter, and if the creamy mash had ever seen a drop of anything originating from a cow (be it butter, milk or cream) then I sure as heck couldn't detect it. In fact the last time I had mash as bad I was twelve years old at school, and subsequently pledged to bring packed lunches from there on in. The seasonal veg included spinach and beans with fresh mint - a truly bizarre combination that had no place with the dish.
Emma’s main of belly pork, roast potatoes, parsnips and apples was totally devoid of any sauce/gravy, the parsnips were noticeable only for their absence, and the pork itself was so over cooked it probably takes the prize of the driest piece of meat I have ever consumed – think of oversized pieces of pork scratchings and you are getting close.
Unsurprisingly we passed on puddings.
What was of more concern was the number of times we heard the microwave "ping" during the preparation of the food - apart from the veg I struggle to think of anything else that could be microwaved. The mind boggles.
All in all a truly awful meal. I'm sure this place serves great bacon sandwiches, and that the decor is adequate for this purpose, but as a place to enjoy dinner it is so far wide of the mark it's not true. The food, whilst sounding promising, showed a complete lack of understanding and ability. My wife did try to feedback that the pork was dry and badly needed a sauce, but the owner didn't seem to be interested. The food is certainly cheap at £11 for two courses, but this really is no excuse.
Apparently the official launch is next week; let’s just hope they are quick learners.
If you are the restaurant owner, we now offer the RIGHT TO REPLY
(see below):
RIGHT TO REPLY
Received from Jonathan Spector - Angels Cafe. Posted Friday, May 02, 2008
We are clearly not yet at all ready to serve dinners, and we apologise to Dr Gourmet for his experience.
A full refund has been made back to his credit card.
The dinner menu is suspended until further notice. |
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| DR_GOURMET |
| REVIEWS |
| No.of reviews: |
52 |
| Average Rating: |
67.73% |
| Highest Rating: |
92 % |
| Lowest Rating: |
29 % |
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