On one of the great snow days of woking, I could not be bothered to cook, so we popped out for…read moredinner. Zucchini (the new italian) was completely empty, so we thought we'd mosy on down to Enzo's, which came heartily recommended by a colleague.
I'll cut to the chase. The appetizer was vile, and the main (pasta for both of us) was semi-synthetic, and good insofar as it wasn't as bad as the appetizer.
The basket of bread they bought us is the worst bread I've had in ... well, the world actually. Even Florence's unsalted horrors were better than this paper-flavoured dusty thing. I'd rather have had cheap sliced bread, toasted, than what they served us as fresh bakery bread. I had a small piece to check if what my fingers told me was accurate (it was) and didn't touch the rest.
As an appetizer we had the fritto misto. The only thing that was borderline edible (and even then, I'll bet it came straight from Iceland freezers) were the calamari. They weren't good, but tasted nowhere near as bad as the shrimp and (oh. my. god.) whitebait. I had 3 of those little fishies, and stopped. If 3 random ones are awful, then it's not going to get any better. For the record. I'm greek, and we love seafood, and I gobble down whitebait like no tomorrow in the summers back home. This truly was awful.
The meatballs in the Penne siciliane were store-bought and tasted almost like the swedish meatballs IKEA serves. Not what you'd expect in a small town's small restaurant-pub-bar.
I had fettuccine.... I can't remember what. With broccoli, feta, tomatoes and cream sauce. They were actually very good, if slightly overcooked. Sadly, they weren't 100% fresh, as the plate had obviously spent some time in an oven being kept warm. Some were very dried up around the edges. Also, some broccoli pieces had an odd flavour. But that might've been my brain playing tricks on me. I did rather like the pasta. Just would never want to have them make it for me again. I'll make it myself at home, thanks, and I'll bet it'll be a hundred times better!
Service was lovely. Thankfully, I'd been warned. My colleague said that Enzo sold his business recently and an older vietnamese couple have taken it over. The ambiance and service were correspondingly subdued. We only went because he also said they'd kept the chef. I would not go again to test out my theory, but perhaps the chef, being italian, stayed home due to the snow that day? Maybe someone else will try it out and let us all know.
Overall, for £13 each (with tip) it's jiust not worth the trouble. It was £6.80 for most pasta dishes. Keep walking, head to the embers inn pub down the road, where you can feast like a king on traditional british fare for half the money.
