Friday, 16 August 2013

Jamie's diner: Piccadilly, London

Jamie's diner

Date of Visit: 12th August 2013

Ambience
This restaurant is coined a “pop up” restaurant so somehow I wasn’t expecting a great deal in décor but we walked in to find a dinosaur themed American diner interior with a massive furry dinosaur in the middle of the top floor.

It may have the Jamie Oliver name but don’t expect anything posh as he’s chosen to go for simple and old-school style with paper placemat type menus and cosy booths.  There were six of us but I’m sure we got put in a booth suited for 4 diners.

Food
Firstly, the drinks were a disappointment.  We all thought we would try something different given the extended option of drinks available compared to most restaurants.  The cream soda was weird tasting to say the least – it was sour & foamy and was edging on the taste of yakult! The pink colas were nothing like the coke that we all know… on the contrary, it was very sour.  I stuck to the American diner theme and ordered milkshake even though they only had vanilla (despite the menu stating we should ask for the special flavour of the day).  I was expecting it to arrive in a large steel shaker but oh no, it arrived in a stubby short glass – rip off at the cost of £4.  The two alcoholic beverages appeared to be fine though.

Next, moving onto the food…. Given that they are known for the extensive hotdog options (at least they are downstairs in the take-away section), three hotdogs were tried (both 100% beef and 100% pork) and not only did they look aesthetically poor but they did not taste much better.  The brioche bread wasn’t soft and the meat did not taste of a good quality.  The rainbow slaw had a fancy name but it's not much to shout about!


Porky Dog

The chicken in the basket was disappointingly small (considering it was meant to be a whole chicken) – luckily we decided against “sharing”.  The meat was dry as well as the chips underneath the chicken (I only mention this because the description on the menu describes the juice from the chicken seeping into the chips.  


Chicken in a basket


The pitt waffle was sorrowful as the presentation wasn’t great and it tasted awful too.  The waffle was soggy and the pulled pork was drenched and far from tasteful.


Pitt Waffle

We shared a few sides, such as avocado fries which most did not enjoy, crinkle cut fries, shoestring fries and sweet potato mash – all of which were pretty standard.

We all agreed that the food was awful and the best part of the meal was the gherkins served on the side of the hotdogs!

Service
Service was acceptable but they were not attentive enough.  At no point during the meal did they ask how things were or how the food was (we were waiting to give negative feedback) and we waited ages to get somebody’s attention when we wanted to pay for the meal, despite several servers whizzing by.

Summary
Hugely disappointed with Jamie… so much so that we refused to have desserts there, despite feeling hungry and dissatisfied; instead we headed elsewhere for dessert.

General prices weren’t extortionate but definitely not worth the money.  Whilst the price of food was reasonable, I found the prices of drinks over-priced.


It has been a while since I’ve had such a bad experience at a restaurant.  Sometimes, one thing ordered might not be to taste but when everybody’s meal is bad, that talks a lot for the standard of food here.  There are many many many other tasty restaurants in close vicinity so I’d say avoid going here.

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