INDIAN
The Cinnamon Club SW1 (St James) (nearest rail Westminster Tube Station)
Formerly the Old Westminster Library, Indian food and fusion at it's very best. Slick service well chosen wines yummy.... 10/10 Cost c£40 per head including wine.
Tiffin bites
This is one of a chain of Indian street food eateries and is in Canary Wharf's Jubilee shopping centre near Waggamammas. They do a wide variety of dishes and cater for the busy worker lunch on the hoof. The dishes are served in small bowls and its great to get a bunch of friends and order different bowls and then just pick and mix.
The prices are moderate and dishes start from as little as £2.
7/10
Maidstone
Monsoon 102 Union Street Maidstone Kent Tel. No. +44 (0) 1622 75 35 75
For a local Indian restaurant this is the best in Maidstone - real linen napkins, great service. Fresh dips and a broader range of fish dishes than the 'norm' King Prawn Curry - Monsoon do Fish Chat, and use salmon and trout in their dishes. It is never packed because it's tucked away a few yards from one of only two local brewery 'Goacher' beer pubs hallowed by the real beer drinkers. The outside looks like any other 'take-away' but look beyond this and you see the long corridor of the restaurant.
Good value and taste......6/10 Cost c£15.00 per person including drinks.
FRENCH
London
First Edition - Canary Wharf E14 - Cabot Place (just along from the South Colonnade) - nearest rail - DLR Canary Wharf or Canary Wharf Tube
If you like 'french' sea food, fish, wine and lots of chunks of real French bread then this is for you. It is really very good, but is also very expensive.... 8/10 Cost:£50 per head including wine.
Good steak and chips too....
ITALIAN
London
Carluccios - Canary Wharf London E14 - (nearest rail Canary Wharf Tube)
The Italian deli bit is great for Parma Ham, Pasta, Olive Oil, Italian bread - my favourite has to be the sultana and rosemary sticks oh and almond maccaroons!. The restaurant is OK, but not the best service in the world! The food is overpriced for what you get, but it's not bad if you are in a hurry after work for a drink and a bowl of olives and bread. OK....4/10 Cost c£15 per head including wine and a main course.
Essex
Caffe Unico - Epping Essex (Nearest rail Epping Tube - central line)
This Italian is an old converted department store very spacious, but also very noisy, not very easy to chat, and on top of the noise. Some nice classical Italian musical numbers would be my way of enhancing the place and some kind of audio muffler!! Food and drink was good, and the servings generous with a delicous pizza size garlic bread, lovely and thin and crispy as I like it with tomato puree. I tried their green peppercorn steak and it was delicious and the salad very fresh, My companion had the lasgne, and enjoyed it. They also have Gordon's and Schweppes (not the Britvic and scent some places serve!!).
Good 6/10 Cost c£14 per head.
JAPANESE
London
Itsu Itsu has replaced Moshi Moshi on the top floor of the old bit of Canary Wharf shopping centre, and is arguably better than Moshi Moshi, but Isu Isu has spawned throughout the shopping precinct - The old Moshi Moshi has been confined to Waitrose as part of it's in-house dining, Waitrose is a great place to shop, but, to eat, well.... let's say if you like everything greasy meat and grease it's the place for you!!! The wine bar there is good, but pricey, their spit roast on the rotisserie is good value for money at under £1 for a quarter of a chicken, and you get to choose whether or not you have a wing or a breast.
But for my money, if I am going Japanese now, I prefer the new Wagamama's opened in the new part of the Wharf where Marks and Spencer's dispense good quality take-away food, along with their knickers and bras.
Bar du Musee - 17 Nelson Road Greenwich SE10 Tel. No. +44 (0) 202260 4710
Changed recently from a nice 'surprise garden-style conservatory' tea/light snacks 'wine bar' to a 'wine beer sprawl bar' garden restaurant that's the best way of describing it - a 'mishmash'. Food is good but overpriced. The wine selection is good but the management's attitude poor. On arrival at 6.30pm we went to sit down on a 'pub style' garden table complete with bottle and wet marks, to be told it was 'reserved' there were many 'reserved' tables without 'reserved' on them. When asked what time the tables were booked for we were told '7pm, 8pm' . OK, "can we have the 8pm table we'll be gone by then' my date said. They refused and told us ' if we could find an occupied table with two spare seats, and the occupants didn't mind us sitting there we could and did'. The 8pm table and many more were left empty well after 8pm. But, the thing is, after a hard week's work going out to spend £60 on a meal should be a relaxing experience. I shan't be going back, and will remember it how it was before it was turned into something it's not. Another contender for the Wooden Spoon is a newly opened 'gimmicky' psuedo Brazillian eatery in Chelmsford called 'Tocarno's, don't be fooled by the ads, the ads serve their purpose, but once inside the former Italian restaurant, you suddenly realise, that the food is as enthusiastic as the waitresses, and the Goucho waiters although slightly more lively are really as miserable as the fatty meat and suasages they deposit at your tables. The salad bar was an assortment of limp/dead leaves and squashy tomatoes, totally unispirational, the Sangria at a hefty £12 a jug lacked fruit and had a slightly soapy taste, and tasted bland! It's true that you can eat as much as you want, but you'd really be wanting for this one!!
Tocarnos - Chelmsford Essex
Why? The food is overpriced and lousy, I've seen better help yourself buffets in a pig's trough. You can eat as much as you want though, and I guess if you aren't fussy what you eat , and are very very hungry, and the alternative would be that you had to kill and eat your pet then this is the place for you!! Oh, and the jug of Sangria is a rip off, they use the lousiest plonk, and fruit is down to half a thin sli e of lemon and you have to pay something c£14 for a jug.
Smollensky's Canary Wharf
Why? The sheer 'up your arse' attitude towards customers by staff. The food is great, but... the welcome cold, dictatorial and charmless. The heart of Smollensky's is as cold as their stainless steel. After waiting what must have been at least 15 minutes at their reception with my partner on Valentine's day 'albeit we weren't dressed up in business suits' finally a waitress came over and said 'Have you booked?' no welcome... 'No' we replied, 'do you want to eat now?' 'Yes' that was why we were there. 'Then you will have to have the Valentine's Day meal' which was three courses of what we didn't want and didn't include fillet steak which we came for. So sorry Smollensky's but you've blown it. You can stick your menu.
