The County Arms, Wandsworth

It was a weekend of scuppered plans.  We had fancied a trip to one of local favourites, Ditto, to round off a relaxing Sunday but despite checking the website, which says they shut at 10pm, upon arrival discovered that they now shut at 5 on a Sunday evening.

I was disappointed.  I had been looking forward to it all day.  Nevertheless, it was a balmy evening and a pleasant walk across Wandsworth Common brought us to The County Arms.

It is a large pub with a big garden which we intended to sit in but discovered that a private party being held in the conservatory was spilling outside, with Cher blaring from a music system.  Inside it was then.

You can eat in the bar or in the restaurant.  The bar tables were all taken at 8.30pm except for three at the back, in an area that feels distinctly like a hotel lobby.  We decided to eat in the restaurant and were the only ones, which surprised me as the menu was appealing and decor really lovely - a hotch potch of wooden chairs and tables and a huge open fire (obviously not lit at the end of June but a great centrepiece) with two squashy leather sofas next to it.  It was homely but not shabby.

The waitress came over, offered drinks and asked if we would like the air conditioning turning off, which we did as it was really quite chilly.  She told us it was extremely quiet for a Sunday, I think by way of apology for the large empty restaurant.  The menus were printed on cream paper, a little worse for wear by now - type fading and edges battered but we happily perused over a nice glass of rioja.

To begin, we shared a platter of rustic breads with olive oil, balsamic, roasted garlic and pesto.  It was a very generous portion for £4.50: about sixteen slices of bread, in four varieties (one focaccia was a little stale but the others delicious) with large pots of dips.  We were careful to only share about half, as we would have been absolutely stuffed if we'd eaten the lot.  There were still roasts on the menu but the particularly tempting pork was sold out and so my boyfriend went for fish and chips 'County style' and I selected the Ploughman's.

I was glad we had kept some bread back as the three slices of white loaf that came with mine were a little uninspiring.  The brie and cheddar were gorgeous though and served in two huge chunks.  A fresh salad provided a nice contrast, there was a decent sweet chutney and crunchy red apple but the celery was a sad, spindly little offering.  Two big pickled onions topped it off.

James's fish looked lovely atop a bed of what were more like wedges than chips with the skins still on.  A side of mushy peas was a nice surprise, pureed with, I think, mint added.

Despite appearances, the fish was apparently quite tasteless.

There were a couple more tables occupied by the time we left which provided a little more atmosphere than the streams of people trailing through from the conservatory to the toilets and back.

Reading this back it sounds like we didn't have a nice night, which we did, but I think if we eat there again we'll go on a different night when there will be more atmosphere, perhaps in the winter, and give a couple of different meals a go.

Two courses and a glass of wine: £22 per head

Value: 7/10

Service: 8/10

Atmosphere: 6/10

Food: 7/10

SCORE: 28/40

The County Arms, 345 Trinity Road, London, SW18 3SH.  Tel: 020 88748532.

The Alma, Wandsworth Town

For a lazy Saturday lunch with a friend staying for the weekend we had planned to try The Waterfront by Wandsworth Bridge. However, when we arrived there were signs announcing a private function and no food was being served. This ended up with us eating in The Alma's beautiful garden.

My boyfriend and friend both chose the burger with brie and bacon, whilst I had the feta salad with avocado, new potatoes, roasted peppers and olives. I was really looking forward to it but was disappointed - the lettuce was bitter and the dressing very bland. There was quite a generous amount of cheese but not many potatoes and the green olives were pitted but the black ones still had stones in. l had a terrible case of food envy seeing the creamy brie melting on the thick, juicy burgers (cooked exactly to order). Luckily I was able to finish Al's gorgeous skinny fries.

In contrast to the mixed success with food, the service was brilliant. From the moment we arrived our waitress was friendly, professional and helpful. She happily provided bread with my salad, which we weren't charged for, which was incidentally a selection - some with rosemary, some with nuts and all very good. I would certainly give it another go and I know my boyfriend can't wait to go back.

One course and a cocktail: £17 per head

Value: 6/10

Service: 9/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Food: 6/10

SCORE: 29/40

The Alma, 499 Old York Road, London, SW18 1TF. Tel: 020 88702537.

Pizza Express, Notting Hill

I have said it before and I'll say it again: Notting Hill Gate and Westbourne Grove are a restaurant black hole.  There is nothing decent, affordable and tasty, bar a couple of ok-ish options.  This is why, despite every fibre in me wanting to go somewhere individual and exciting, four of us went to Pizza Express last night.  And, hey, we had a nice time.

We didn't book and had no trouble getting a table, although it was almost full in there.  Our dough balls were fresh and hot and came with plenty of garlic butter.  The house white was good, tap water not an issue.  Our pizzas were prompt and tasty.  The only complaint would be that I requested a margherita with chicken and green peppers and what arrived was a margherita with chicken, red peppers and two black olives.  As she put my meal down the waitress said, "We didn't have green peppers so did red ok?".  To be honest, it wouldn't have taken two seconds to check before they made the pizza and the olives were a mystery.  

Despite this, we were full and satisfied, and our wallets didn't leave too light either.

Two courses and half a bottle of wine: £20 per head

Value: 8/10

Service: 7/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Food: 7/10

SCORE: 29/40

Pizza Express, 137 Notting Hill Gate, London, W11 3QG.  Tel: 020 72296000.

All Star Lanes, Bayswater

I seem to have been eating in American style restaurants an awful lot over the last couple of weeks.  Whilst this can be boring from a culinary point of view it does allow me to compare dishes whilst they are fresh in my mind.

All Star Lanes in Bayswater is the most stylish of the three I have visited (the others being The Diner and Dollar Grills and Martinis).  It is high end luxury bowling for grown ups, with a sideline in cocktails.  It also has a very cool, sleek diner overlooking the lanes, which is where our party of 16 ate last night.  Our booking had to be made a month in advance, which wasn't so much down to the eating, but due to the bowling (we wanted three lanes together at prime post-work time of 6.30pm).  We then made our way through to our table at 7.30.  The staff were wonderful.  They constantly passed by our bowling lanes offering drinks and removing empties, and then when our games finished earlier than expected we were able to take our table without any fuss.

I was very happy to note that big jugs of tap water with ice and lemon were placed on the table before we were seated and regularly refreshed without request - big brownie points for that.

To start I had the shrimp cocktail which consisted of about six huge, juicy shrimp which were sadly drowned in a ketchup salsa combo which managed to be spicy and tasteless all at the same time.  All this was sitting atop a sad pile of shredded, limp lettuce.  A bad start - but not for my colleague who had a big bowl of gorgeous salt and pepper squid.  Not greasy, exactly the right amount of batter, just fab.

It only seemed right to have the burger for main course, which needed sides ordered separately.  I went for shoestring fries and coleslaw.  We weren't asked how we would like our meat cooked, which was surprising (two diners specially requested rare, which was lucky as the rest were very well done).  They came in a sesame seed bap with some fresh lettuce and tomato and delicious relish.  The fries were great, served in a metal beaker with greaseproof paper: it was all very stylish and the attention to detail was very good.  The steaks ordered were fabulous and tender,  a vegetarian option of grilled vegetables with goat's cheese was a tad boring but apparently tasty.  It wasn't ground breaking or amazing but I enjoyed my food and we were regularly offered drinks.

Puddings were hard to choose between - New York cheesecake and brownie with hot chocolate sauce both sounded good but I went for a chocoholic sundae.  This came in a large round glass bowl with a stem and long spoon, three big scoops of icecream, topped with cream and decorated with chocolate sauce.  It was rich and indulgent, but could have been a bit more adventurous.  It was really more like plain icecream than an actual sundae.

Overall, I enjoyed myself and the food very much.  I wouldn't rave about anything individually but as an experience it was brilliant.  Give it a go.

Three courses and half a bottle of wine: £35 per head

Value: 7/10

Service: 9/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Food: 6/10

SCORE: 29/40

All Star Lanes, Whiteleys, 6 Porchester Gardens, London, W2 4DB.  Tel: 020 73138363.

Al Duomo, Brighton

A friend of ours booked this restaurant and I have to admit that I wasn't overly excited about it before our day trip to Brighton. We arrived for our 8.30pm table on a Saturday night and it wasn't terribly busy - never a good sign. Despite this we were seated on a very small table that would have been much better suited for two diners.

The menu is very long: three sections of starters (hot, cold and antipasti) and sixty main courses (pizza, pasta, salad, meat and fish). It was hard work to trawl through but eventually we had all selected: two Bresaola with mozzarella, one pate al brandy and one bruschetta to start and, for main courses, a seafood pizza 'Al Duomo', one Diana (tomato, mozzarella, sausage and mushrooms), one American hot and one cannelloni ripieni (ricotta, spinach and goat's cheese in a tomato and cream sauce). We also ordered a bottle of prosecco and a jug of tap water. The service was attentive and friendly.

The starters were good: the beef was apparently delicious with a generous serving of mozzarella. The only complaint was the generous and unnecessary lettuce and fairly tasteless tomato on the side. The bruschetta were a good, safe option which didn't disappoint Daisy and my pate was gorgeous but the way it is so often served in restaurants flummoxes me: why so little bread? Surely this is the cheapest part? Indeed in this case there were three flattened triangles of white toast (where was the other quarter of the slice of bread?!) and two sachets of butter with a huge mound of pate and another huge mound of fridge cold salad. Only the details of the starters let them down - generous bread, more exciting greenery (grated carrot-ugh) and butter removed from its wrapper would have taken the whole experience up a level.

Unfortunately, this is where the meal went wrong. There is a huge pizza oven in the open air kitchen and I was excited to see the chef making them. They should have been so good. Mine tasted of absolutely nothing at all. I know this is hard to comprehend but from the tiny prawns, no doubt recently defrosted from a bag, small flabby mussels and the odd bit of squid to the smearing of tomato paste over the boring base, the whole thing was a massive letdown with no promised 'hint of garlic and chilli'. The boys seemed to enjoy theirs in fairness, although the basic elements must have been the same. Daisy's pasta dish was huge, served in a boiling hot ceramic dish with absolutely no salad or accompaniments at all. The overfacing size of the portion meant that she barely finished half. I tried her leftovers and they were good but again, not enough seasoning, herbs or, frankly, love had gone into the cooking.

We requested the bill that came without fuss and then everyone seemed to disappear. A boy of around twelve, perhaps the owner's son, wandered around the kitchen and so we asked him if he could find someone we could pay. He immediately brought us our bill again.
No, we said, we would like someone to bring over the card machine and so he picked up the cash we had on the table and started carrying it away. One of us got up and followed him, eventually locating a member of staff proper and tried to explain that we wanted to split the bill and needed change from the cash. He didn't understand and it ended up being the easiest thing to pay how they wanted us to and sort it out between us later. This service spoilt what had been the best part of the Al Duomo experience: competent and efficient staff.

Two courses and a glass of prosecco: £17.50 per head

Value: 5/10

Service: 7/10

Atmosphere: 6/10

Food: 4/10

SCORE: 22/40

Al Duomo, 7 Pavilion Buildings, Brighton, BN1 1EE. Tel: 07710 161562.

Dollar Grills and Martinis, Farringdon

I am getting a bit bored of writing about poor service, but it is so very integral to a good restaurant experience or, should I say, a poor one.

That's not to say Dollar Grills and Martinis was a poor restaurant experience, it just wasn't a great one and it could be.  I booked a week in advance for a table for two at 7.30pm.  We arrived bang on time and were very glad we had reserved because it was heaving, full on packed to bursting with several large tables of, I think, office parties.  There were four people in front of us, queueing to speak to the guy on the front desk who was doing his best to accommodate people.  He was very good at his job, polite and apologetic about the wait and the confusion: there had been a table of 13 arrive that they had lost the booking for and he had had to rearrange lots of tables to fit them in.  Therefore, we now had two options - a truly terrible table for two which was actually a table from outside squashed in a corner at the top of the stairs that lead to the toilets or a large round table for four.  Neither were particularly ideal for a romantic meal but we chose the larger and sat next to each other, avoiding the side of the table next to the open view kitchen, where waiters frantically grabbed (and dropped) orders.  

As he hands us our menus he explains that as the very large party has just ordered there may be a wait for our food, for which he is very sorry in advance.  Ok, well we've been warned.  We choose from the menu straight away, but noone comes to take our order for ages... eventually we grab a waitress and begin with a cocktail.  They were good: a beautiful bling bling with a huge juicy blackberry perched on the side and a long , sweet lemon collins.  Our starters arrive at 8.15, 45 minutes after we arrive, but again they are very good.  My boyfriend's pan fried scallops are gorgeous: soft, fresh and beautifully complemented by a carrot and cardemon sauce.  Similarly my chicken liver and foie gras parfait is smooth and slightly sweet, served on a fairly small slice of brioche (was it a bit stale? perhaps...) with, for once, a leafy side salad and fig chutney that actually complement the dish.  I would have liked another drink at this point.  No, revise that - I would like to have been offered another drink at this point.  God knows there were staff around - waiters constantly moved my chair in, or worse, pushed behind it to serve the large table.  I spent the whole evening shuffling back and forth on my chair (which incidentally had once had arms but didn't any longer, just two ripped holes with sponge showing through) and breathing in.  I accosted a waiter for a glass of house white.

It's not too much longer before main dishes arrive - both of us have chosen burgers, mine with jack cheese and James's a 'million dollar burger' with bacon, cheese and cashew nut sauce.  He deliberately asked that the avocado and relish and be left off, oddly the larger burgers only come with a myriad of extras.  They are served on a wooden board with a steak knife speared through them.  Mine was so firmly wedged through the food and into the board that removing it was difficult and really quite dangerous.  But anyway, although one burger which was requested well done came thoroughly pink in the middle, they were tasty and fresh and filling.  I must confess though there wasn't a lot of cheese on mine and James couldn't taste the cashow nut sauce (which I suspect is a good thing).  The fries were good - nice and skinny, and it was all served with a smile and sauces without having to ask.  

The atmosphere in Dollar Grills is good - very friendly, buzzy and fun but the decor has seen better days.  It's shabby chic that has become just shabby in parts.  Although still looking very trendy, some elements (the toilets would be a good example) desperately need sprucing up.  My boyfriend's chair had one arm remaining, mine wobbled.  You get the picture, comforts could be improved.  I noticed all these things whilst waiting for someone to offer me a pudding.  Why does this seem so hard in so many restaurants?  We managed to stop another member of staff and request a menu and then miraculously, order a NY chocolate cheesecake to share.  It was divine, just a fantastic cheesecake.  I am glad we shared - it was rich but oh so good.

Needless to say there was another fifteen minute period in which we attempted to give someone our hard earned money.  Dollar Grills accepts Taste London and the discount (in this case 2 for 1) was applied without a fuss.  The value was good with the card but I think at full price I would expect a lot more.  I must point out though that all four staff that served us throughout the evening were very friendly.

Three courses, a glass of wine and a cocktail (without taste London discount): £42 per head

Value: 6/10

Service: 6/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Food: 7/10

SCORE: 26/40

Dollar Grills and Martinis, 2 Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4PX.  Tel: 020 72780077.

The Diner, Soho

The customer service industry in the UK is much undervalued.  From the woman in the bank who talked to other customers whilst checking something on my account to the man in the local shop who, despite receiving my custom every day, still talks on his phone whilst serving me.  I was similarly underwhelmed by the shoddy and disinterested service at The Diner.

I booked for Wednesday night on Monday for five of us at 7.30pm.  We arrived at 6.30 and had a cocktail at the bar from a very nice and helpful bartender (good mojitos, and I hear very good spring flings).  At our allotted time we proceeded to the restaurant section.  For some reason they had our booking down for 2 people but said it wasn't a problem (so far so good, although if they couldn't have seated us I would have been cross).  In fact, they gave us the best table in the house, a large four sided booth in the window with a view of the long queue for Cha Cha Moon's opposite, snaking down the road.

We looked at the menus, we chatted, we waited.  At 8 o'clock our waiter wanders over to see if we would like to order.  Not even a drink offered before this point.  We request a bottle of house white and a jug of tap water: "We can only do tap water by the glass." he says, slightly apologetically. Ok fine, so five glasses please.  Foodwise, we select two Californian burgers (with Monterey Jack and guacamole), a BBQ chicken burger, a chicken burrito and chicken fajitas plus fries, cheesy fries and wet fries (with gravy).

The wine arrives (no ice bucket, not poured) and shortly afterwards, so does the food.  A waitress who did not take our order brings the order and therefore has no idea who chose what.  When informed she holds the plates out for us to take off her.  I know these may be small quibbles but they were building up a poor picture by now.  The food is good to be fair, in a homemade sort of way, which of course is miles better than a manufactured, factory sort of way.  The burrito and fajitas came with plenty of chicken, the burgers were cooked as requested etc but it really did feel like something I could easily make without much effort.  The fries were good too, if unremarkable.  My friend enjoyed her wet fries but another's cheesy fries only had a small sprinkling of cheese on the top layer - go deeper and they were just fries.  We enjoyed it though - the food was not the problem.

The plates were cleared and we sat for a while.  One of us had been to The Diner's sister restaurant in Shoreditch and said the desserts were good.   Unfortunately we weren't given the option of dessert.  We waited a while longer and wanted some more wine.  Attempting to attract the waiter's attention failed and so one of us got up and ordered from him. There are only about 10 tables in the whole place and at least three serving staff.  The wine was duly dumped on the table but still no menus or offers of coffee.  In truth, none of us were very inclined to spend more money with them at this point.  Once the wine had been finished a good while we decided we'd try and pay.  Our waiter was actually dancing with another waitress, spinning around the restaurant floor, not even glimpsing up at his tables (of which there were only two at this point).  We resorted to waving our arms in the air to attract attention, which was eventually noticed by the barman who alerted the waiter.  I almost felt I was putting him out when he made his way over and we requested our bill.  He brought it, with the 12.5% service added.  We added cash and cards to the mix and waited.  By this point I was pretty angry and I wish we had disputed the service charge, I don't know why we didn't actually.  More arm waving and he came over - "May we pay please?!".  "I'll just get the card machine".  For the love of God bring the thing over when people want to pay, just on the offchance that they might pay by card.

Finally we left.  None of the staff said goodbye or thank you as we made our way out although we, the dutiful diners, did - absurdly.  It took three hours to eat one course and drink two glasses of wine.  Next time I'll try my luck in the Cha Cha Moon queue.

Update: I wrote an email of complaint to the manager about the service to which he responded five days later.  He said he had discussed the issue with the staff and thought the bad service arose from a communication problem.  As recompense he offered me two free cocktails.  Unfortunately, as there were five of us dining, this wouldn't cover everyone affected and neither would it cover the original service charge paid.

One course, half a bottle of wine and a cocktail: £24 per head

Value: 7/10

Service: 4/10

Atmosphere: 6/10

Food: 6/10

SCORE: 23/40

The Diner, 18 Ganton Street, London, W1F 7BU.  Tel: 020 72878962.