Lowlander, Covent Garden

Awful food and service, questionable claims to "freshness".I went for lunch with 2 colleagues yesterday, one of whom cannot eat garlic. She asked is she could have moules with no garlic in the sauce. "Yes" was the answer followed by "no" 10 minutes later. The menu said that each dish was freshly prepared so we couldn't understand why the chef was unable to simply make a white wine and cream sauce without garlic. She admitted defeat and ordered lamb instead. 10 minutes later we thought we'd better check whether garlic was in the lamb. Waitress looked annoyed at having to go back into the kitchen once again, and there was no apology when she had to admit that yes, it also had garlic (how did she or the chef allow the order to go through?). OK how the steak? No that's got garlic. OK so please prepare one without garlic. No it comes like that. OK so get a piece of meat out of the fridge and don't put garlic on it. We can't do that for just one person. So how exactly is this dish freshly prepared? To cut a long story short, my colleague ended up with salad and chips. The salad went straight back as it had live insects crawling around. No apology from the waitress but lots of laughing with other waitresses - they didn't even wait to have their laugh in the kitchen. My other colleague said her Moules A La Biere sauce tasted tinned. To my amazement, nothing was taken off the bill apart from the salad.

13 Aug 2010 09:10