Went here on the weekend for a birthday as they've started doing Karaoke in conjunction with 'Brazen Monkey'. There's a karaoke room upstairs above the restaurant, and the current offer is that you can eat (any two courses) for £25 and then have 2 hours karaoke. Sounds to good to be true, right?
Yeah, it is.
First up, the food. The two stars are for this alone. I ordered mussels followed by tagliatelle amatriciana. Mussels were in a tomato / garlic type broth, which was nice. No real complaints. The tagliatelle was ok too. Cooked very well, and nicely seasoned, but the bacon lardons were full of gristle which I ended up spitting out into the (never cleared away) starter bowl. This may have been a fluke, but it didn't fill me with confidence.
Someone else ordered the duck and mashed potato. The mash was INSTANT. Seriously?
But all in all for the price, I had no major qualms with the food. It was OK. The big problems came in two areas: service and karaoke.
The service. Oh, where to begin. They were understaffed for a venue of such size, but they also didn't seem busy. Throughout our meal, the waiter gave the impression he felt he was doing us a favour by being there. Everything we asked got a flustered "Yes, yes, I'm doing it now..." and none of the staff seemed to know how to clear a table. My starter plate was still there while others in my party were eating their dessert. I've been a waitress, I know it's dull and badly paid and customers are annoying but I've never experienced such grumpy, begrudging service before. No smile at any point.
When we asked when we could go up to the karaoke (which was booked from 10) his gave us incredulous look, gestured upstairs and said "Yes but they have to LEAVE first!" We knew that, but wasn't it his job to chivvy them along? This was at five past ten. We eventually got up there at twenty past after loads of messing around over what part of the bill we should pay at that time. All this time it still felt like he was serving us incredibly begrudgingly.
Now onto the karaoke. This is hosted is in a 'room' upstairs above the second floor of the restaurant. There's a good sound system, two microphones and a HUGE song list, and once we got singing, it was really good fun. But I use the word 'room' tentatively - it's more of a walk-through between the kitchen and the restaurant, partitioned by a constantly open door and a curtain. As a result we had staff members walking through every five minutes the whole time.
The room's also not soundproofed in the slightest, so everyone in the restaurant below can hear you singing. This didn't bother me, but I bet it bothered anyone below us! The room also has wooden flooring. We ate downstairs before moving up, and when you have fifteen drunken blokes jumping up and down to Bon Jovi while you're eating, it basically sounds like a herd of elephants are trampling above your heads.
As far as I know this karaoke thing is new and I just don't think they've quite got it sorted yet. Perhaps it will improve in time. Right now it all feels disorganised and badly planned and the restaurant staff don't see to want to get involved in it all. It wouldn't surprise me if the staff were so crappy with us because they don't LIKE the idea of a restaurant turning into a cheap karaoke joint, so they're deliberately treating the karaoke clientelle badly because they resent them.
Whatever, I wouldn't recommend this place at all and left feeling really bad because it was a friend's birthday and it should have been fun all night, but ended up being a bit stressful in places. Thank heavens for a bit of comedy Savage Garden karaoke for getting things back on track! read more
