More birthday week feasting - I visited Ristorante Semplice this evening, with a friend whose birthday was only a few days apart from mine. We'd bought a Groupon voucher earlier this year for a 3-course dinner with apéritif and coffee at half price, and decided to use it for this doubly joyous occasion.
The restaurant was quite full and quite a few tables seemed to be made up of regular customers. Surely a good sign, I thought. Unfortunately, we were both late for our reservation due to work commitments (I arrived first and my friend about 15 minutes later - we'd called to inform the restaurant), and the reception we both received from the restaurant manager and other servers was rather frosty; the service then continued to be rather indifferent throughout the evening, with no apparent attempt to engage us as first-time diners. Whether it was because we were 'budget' Groupon customers, or because my friend was rather casually dressed, we'll never know for sure - but for a half-price dinner I was prepared to let all this pass. I didn't bother informing the waiters that we were celebrating two birthdays, lest they think I was trying to get more bang for the buck than I deserved.
I thought we'd at least get to choose from the à la carte menu since the dinner was supposedly worth much more than we'd prepaid for, but instead we got an obviously 'budget' menu that was completely different from the à la carte options that I'd checked out on their website prior to our visit. Based on my experiences in fine-dining, the menu in front of us certainly looked like a cheaper set lunch menu, which would have cost whatever we'd paid, even without a Groupon. Not an encouraging start to the evening, I have to admit - but I kept my mind open about the food and drink, and of course having good company helped.
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| Interesting long biscuit strips - pretty moreish. |
This was our apéritif of a peach Bellini. It was very well done - a good balance of sweetness from the peach juice, and crisp acidity from the champagne.
Starter 1: gem lettuce seasoned 'panzanella style', baby monkfish milanese, soft boiled quail eggs.
I found out after the dinner that 'panzanella style' refers to the Florentine traditional dish of bread salad, soaked in water then drained again to produce a somewhat lumpy and mushy texture, and finally dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar - admittedly not the most appealing idea, but surprisingly acceptable to my uninitiated tastebuds when taken with the fresh crunchy lettuce. The breaded monkfish balls were good - crispy on the outside, and tender and succulent within. On the whole, a reasonably good, if basic, dish.
Starter 2: foie gras and chicken liver parfait, Sarawak red pepper, mixed berry compote, field salad garnish.
The parfait was excellent - very smooth and creamy, and its deep flavours were further intensified by an unusual surrounding layer of cheese. The salad garnish and sprinkling of pepper gave this rich dish a subtle, refreshing kick, while the sweet berry compote was utterly delightful when paired with the savoury parfait.
Main 1: cod with mussels and samphire, celeriac purée.
Positives first: it was a very generous portion of fish on the plate, and the surrounding accompaniments were effective choices in enhancing in fresh and natural flavours of the fish. The negatives: sloppy presentation - the accompaniments were strewn randomly round the plate; no apparent precision in the execution - the fillet had already flaked and fallen apart (a sure sign of careless handling), and was then hastily re-gathered under the skin before being served (just hope the bits hadn't fallen off on an unclean surface! No tummy aches after the dinner, fortunately). Does one really need to go to a restaurant for something that could have been pulled off by an average home cook?
Main 2: roasted lamb, sautéed fennel with dried tomatoes and roasted new potatoes.
As with the fish course, there was very little sophistication or care involved in the execution and plating of this dish. It looked somewhat like a Sunday roast dish out of my hostel canteen. This portion was also much smaller compared to the fish. To be fair to the kitchen, all components were reasonably well cooked, but in a posh (and not inexpensive, even on a Groupon offer) restaurant like this, would it be unreasonable to expect more than just a solid meal of home kitchen standards?
Dessert 1: Giovanni Erbisti coffee tiramisu, coffee ice cream.
After a series of mostly solid but lacklustre dishes, this dessert packed a most delightful punch with intense coffee flavours permeating the plate. The first word I could think of to describe this dish was 'heady'; indeed, the caffeine rush that ensued with each bite was intoxicating, and yet at no point did the dessert taste overly bitter or 'burnt', as with more inferior beans. Everything from the rich ice-cream, to the velvety tiramisu and the coffee sauce studded with roughly ground beans, was testimony to the smoothness and well-balanced flavours of this famous Italian blend.
Dessert 2: yoghurt mousse, mixed berry purée with lemon thyme.
This was a pleasant and clean-tasting contrast to the coffee dessert. The dish was quite nicely plated and solidly conceived in taste; the addition of lemon thyme imparted a refreshing and aromatic kick to an otherwise predictable combination of yoghurt and berries.
Petit fours: barely mentionable; two measly pieces of almond biscotti and dark chocolate buttons, plus coffee - you could find this in any reasonably good high-street Italian coffee chain.
Overall, it had been a reasonably pleasant evening, if only for the good company and desserts; service was pretty non-existent, and compared to other tables ordering fancy (and presumably more expensive) dishes, the staff showed largely no interest in us as 'budget' diners, and nobody greeted us at the door as we left. That said, we still had to pay the 12.5% 'discretionary' service charge, calculated upon the 'original' price of the meal; I would have refused to pay if eating on my own, but I was reluctant to spoil the occasion.
Was this dinner worth the price we paid on Groupon? Maybe. (But in fact, for the same price, one could get much better food on a 3-course lunch menu at Michelin TWO-starred restaurants such The Square and The Ledbury.)
Would I have paid 'full price' for it? Certainly not!! I was hardly convinced that this was even a deal to begin with - suffice it to say that I won't be returning; there are so many Michelin competitors in London where I can spend my money and feel appreciated for it.
[Postscript 23/03: after this Groupon 'deal' I was quite skeptical of what I would be getting at another Groupon reservation with Rasoi, also a Michelin 1-starred restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of their tasting menu (see Rasoi review); now that was a real steal for which I wouldn't have minded paying full price plus service charge!]
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