Earlier this evening a friend and I found ourselves hungrily wandering the street of Soho, mouths watering. Both being indecisive beasts, we were struggling to agree on somewhere to eat. Our two 1st choices were closed for Sunday evening and we fancied a change from the ubiquitous (yet reliably excellent) small, no-bookings, italian/spanish/BBQ things we have been drawn to all too often recently. Walking down Brewer Street, we came across Randall and Aubin. I remembered having a decent meal there a couple of years ago and we were in the mood for fish - so in we went. This, sadly, would turn out to be a mistake.
Most of the seating at R&A is on high stools at ledges around the edge or bar-tables in the middle of the restaurant. The seats were a little difficult to get comfortable in, but we didn't think much about this as we tucked into delicious olives and bread and studied the menu in the frame on the wall in front of us. My companion is a relative newcomer to eating fish and other things from the sea and was excited by the varied selection of seafood on offer. I too was impressed by the menu, until I noticed the small notice in the corner about the 'cover charge' - £1.50 pp. to cover bread and olives. These stealth taxes have always irritated me; if you are going to charge for your bread and olives, put them on the bloody menu and make them optional. Sliding them in front of you with no mention of cost until the bill arrives (unless you have spotted the 'fine print' on the menu) is rather unsporting. Looking back through the hindsightoscope, perhaps this should have given me a clue about the value for money, or lack thereof, that we should expect from the restaurant in general.
My starter of 'half a pint of native pink prawns' was spot on. To my mind, prawns always taste better when you have peeled them yourself, plus you get the unrivalled pleasure of sucking the flavoursome goo out of the heads and drawing alarmed looks from the more squeamish patrons.
The salad of queen scallops with crispy pancetta and capers was reportedly quite tasty. The scallops looked pretty tiny and there had evidently been a salad-spinner malfunction in the kitchen as the leaves were a bit wet but the flavours were good on the whole.
From then on, things deteriorated. I chose the main course of king scallops for £19.50. The tender broccoli and delicious fennel pureé that formed a bed for the molluscs were faultless. My problem with the dish was not one of execution - the scallops were very nicely done - caramelised on the outside, sweet and just-raw in the centre, but there were only three of them. THREE! They were not especially large and for the best part of twenty pounds, I felt very hard done by. For this price they could, at least, have served the roes as well, but these had been wastefully stripped away. 3 scallops for a starter: fine, but for a main course that's just mean. What's more, the garnish of frizzled spring onion strips on top was tough, dry, chewy and unpleasant - if it wasn't for the faintest allium whiff I would have thought they had sprinkled my plate with hay. This had all the makings of a great dish - but the lovely seafood and veg were let down by redundant and revolting garnish and the sheer parsimoniousness of the portion.
My friend decided to have the grilled sea bass. The chive, spring onion and rosemary salsa sounded tasty but, due to an allergy, he asked for the 'curry dusted potatoes' to be replaced with fries. We were quite shocked to be told that this would not be possible. ''The fries on the menu are a larger portion than the potatoes that come with this dish, so I cannot swap them, I'm sorry.'' What nonsense! Chips are about as divisible as any food item I can think of - surely the amount put on the plate is up to the chef; the idea that they can only be served in a portion of a pre-determined size is absurd! Our waiter did not seem to understand this line of reasoning, so we asked to have the potatoes simply without the curry dusting. This also was impossible as they were pre-prepared. Short of ordering another dish altogether, the only option was to have the potatoes removed and to buy a side order of fries. When the dish arrived we were surprised to find that the bass was a single fillet rather then a whole fish - this was not made clear on the menu. It was slightly over-done but not to the point of being ruined. The fish was accompanied by a small bunch of undressed watercress and the 'salsa' which turned out to be a collection of cold, chewy, greasy and vinegary slices of grilled scallion with some raw rosemary twigs thrown in as an afterthought - not nice. The fries never arrived and by this time it seemed silly to ask for them as they would appear long after the fish was finished.
At this point we were hungry, annoyed and uncomfortable - our bill of £71 (with one soft drink and a glass of fino) only served to make us feel hungrier and more annoyed. We decided not to hang around for pudding and hurried off elsewhere to find sweet things to fill our unsatisfied bellies and cheer us up (incidentally this took the form of exquisite desserts and cocktails at Yauatcha).
Based on tonight's experience I find it impossible to understand why this restaurant is so often packed, with queues sometimes stretching out of the door and down the street. The music is just that little bit too loud to have a comfortable conversation, the seats are arse-numbing and the service, while friendly, is rather blasé. This would all be forgivable if R&A served decent food at reasonable prices but seeing as the only well executed and good value dish we had consisted of a glass full of cold prawns and a dish of lemon mayo (hardly requiring great skill to prepare), it appears those two boxes must go un-ticked as well.
14-16 Brewer Street,
Soho.
W1F 0SG
Always been sceptical of this place - now I have reasons not to go. To think I almost took the boyfriend here for our anniversary!
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