Phi is a small cafe bar / restaurant attached to the Hotel Indigo on London Street, 5 minutes walk away from Paddington station.
We attended this brasserie in the evening, and were offered an a la carte menu and also a fixed price menu which was a simple menu where 2 courses were £9.95 and 3 courses were £12.95. We thought this very reasonable for London.
I was looking forward to our meal, as it was in celebration of our anniversary, and the chicken liver and brandy pate served with melba toast with a port and red wine sauce sounded delicious. The food arrived, no sign of any port and red wine sauce on my plate, it was very brown; brown toasted bread and brownish pate. And indeed, the pate and toast really needed a kick of something extra. The pate itself had an interesting texture, not like any pate I have had before and in all honestly lacked flavour. The toast was very dry. The warm pea and mint pancake sounds disgusting, but it tasted lovely as I tried some of my husband's.
Now for main course, the chicken, leek and ham hock pie was off the menu, replaced with game pie - which my husband ordered. I went for the Phi burger. The burger was delicious, could have done with a bit more lettuce and maybe a relish of some description. The potato wedges were a bit on the salty side.
Finally for dessert, there were only two options on the menu; a chocolate fondant and ice cream. The chocolate fondant which both of us wanted was off replaced with bread and butter pudding which neither of us fancied so we asked for the "selection" of ice cream - of which it turned out they only had chocolate, for which we waited quite a long time for.
All I can say is they must have been waiting for a delivery, because they didn't appear to have many of the 8 menu items available!!!
The venue itself is nice, the decor is very modern and fresh. Although perhaps at dinner time it could do with toning the lights down as it wasn't very relaxing. I would recommend people to come here for coffee but its food didn't impress. Well what did I expect for £12.95??? read more