So, I finally made it in to Bloc+ for a cheap burger meal, that ended up not being very cheap. I get the whole concept of a cheap burger and chips for £3, but the quality of the food just wasn't as great as everyone makes it out to be. Not even for £3.
To start, nothing to even do with the food, but when ordering drinks, everyone ordered booze or canned soda, so I went with a diet coke. Seeing they had cans on offer, I was excited because usually at a pub, you're given flat soda in a pint glass but here they offer you crisp, unopened cans of soda. To my dismay, however, I was given a pint of diet coke, not flat, I'll give them that, but well over a quid more than what my friends paid for their cans. I wasn't asked what size I wanted, but to be fair, neither was anyone else. I was kinda bummed out.
Anyway, not a huge deal. The food was just meh in my eyes. I'm never one to order just a plain burger, so I knew I wasn't going to get off just paying £3 for a burger and chips and I was ok with this. So, I ordered a £3 with blue cheese and bacon for an extra £2.50. The blue cheese was a small wedge partially melted on to the burger, yums! The bacon, however, we were told when ordering, was 'of course always crispy' but when we got our burgers, we noticed, that it was just normal bacon you'd find on a fry up. Not crispy and resembling ham. Boo! Such high expectations and excitement after being told our bacon would be crispy.
Sophie K. and I went back to Bloc the following friday after the burger night for £4 hot dog night. Not over the moon excited based on our burger night, we reserved a table, ordered some drinks (this time ciders) and decided on just a plain hot dog and some 'scheme' poutine. Dare I say that IKEA hot dogs are so much better than these hot dogs and they only cost a quid?! It's true though. The hot dogs at Bloc were weird. Brown skin, and florescent pink insides. The buns were actually better quality than I expected and toasted to boot! The chips were a little warmer than they were on burger night, and the poutine was not my favourite at all. The onion gravy and shredded cheddar cheese sounded like it could be good, but there were huge gelatinous gobs of gravy all in the poutine- it was obvious the gravy had either been sitting a while, or the mix wasn't properly mixed in. Either way, it was pretty gross having to pick them out of the poutine.
I'd say a huge plus to Bloc is the music they play. I had some crazy flashbacks listening to some of the albums they played (Offspring, Green Day, Tenacious D, Lily Allen). Such a random selection of music that they play in full album blocks. The wait staff is hit of miss. It's always super busy, so service can be a bit slow. The signs at the bar to not order at the bar because you won't get served is a bit off putting, but didn't stop me from taking the bill up to pay after waiting longer than I felt I needed to.
I'm not saying I won't be back, but I'll have to think twice about ordering food. I'd rather come back for drinks and the coolio atmosphere. read more