New year rarely lives up to expectation. Whichever house party, club party, boat party or cocktail party you've got lined up, the chances are it will be a swaying, over-full (or embarrassingly empty) shambles, with a few people getting hopelessly and ruinously drunk, fights breaking out or tears for no good reason. And the usual, tiresome scramble of everyone trying to get in the right position at midnight.
In London, you get the happy option of watching the big wheel burn as fireworks are streamed off in all directions, but the price you pay is standing at the riverside or on a bridge whilst the bitterly cold wind whips you silly. One advantage is the mass of people surrounding you act like penguins in keeping each other warm.
We eschewed the well-trodden path of new year disappointments in 2010 and gaily experienced a whole new world of pain with what was a grim way to end a fairly lovely year of eating. Mike, the other half and another friend of ours made a late booking at Boulevard Brasserie, a French restaurant in Covent Garden with the hope that, whilst this was clearly going to be an unspectacular meal, we would enjoy ourselves and ring in the new year both merry and satisfied.
Boulevard Brasserie is clearly one of those places that doesn't have much going for it apart from its location. Footfall may be the only thing attracting people to go in there because the image, brand and philosophy is as bleakly uninspiring as just about anything out there at the moment. It is marketed as a classic French brasserie, but the only classically French part of the evening was the poor service.
To get right down to it, the food was initially atrocious. Four of us dined and all four of us held the same view by the end of the evening. The deal was five courses for £50 with a kir royale to start. Given that two of us don't drink and one was on antibiotics, Mike drank four kir royales to himself. That was probably the highlight of the evening. For any of us.
Our first course was an appetiser of foie gras crostini. So they say. The bread which made up the crostini could've been made from wood and the paté was similar to puréed catfood in taste and cat waste in appearance. A shocker. Onion soup to follow looked like something close to effluvium from a medical facility (but tasted only below-par, surprisingly), while the ham hock terrine was similar to the earlier foie gras in terms of shocking taste and presentation. It wasn't finished.
The first of our second course of starters was a king scallop and spinach gratin. Christ almighty. This was like someone had blown their nose into a scallop shell and used it to make a base for the sauce. Runny, bland, dull and superbly poor. Secondly, a roulade of confit and smoked salmon made me wish I had been able to order the onion soup again. As with the ham hock, we didn't finish it.
Thankfully, mercifully, main courses were better. Mainly through the fact that they couldn't technically have been any worse. Pork belly was cooked fairly well; crispy on top and soft underneath. Some risotto with mushrooms, parmesan and truffle oil had enough hints of flavour in there to be worthwhile and was surprisingly not overcooked. The duck breast was probably the pick of the occasion, served with fondant potato (yeah, right) and some red cabbage. Bordering on enjoyable in the end. The fillet steak was most certainly not a good French fillet steak, merely a poor imitation of one.
We noticed with some irritation that midnight was nearing and it seemed they were doing their best to keep us in the restaurant as long as possible by flat out ignoring us or just taking far too long to do simple things like clearing our plates. The service throughout the evening was dreadful.
Desserts eventually came and with them, we hoped, the end of the evening. The small extras of pudding were just about worth hanging around for. Ice cream, crème bruleé and chocolate tart were acceptable, pleasant and okay in that order. Not as horrendous as some of the guff that had preceded it but by no means competitive.
They continued to do their best to rob us of our chance to catch some fireworks outside but I managed to get them to accept our money (I wish I weren't so damned honest) and we hastily left. The memory of a really bad meal lingers long in the memory but the night was saved as the other half and I tore down The Strand, fireworks booming in the sky above us, until we found a spot to watch the second half of the display. That's what new year should be about: a free, fun moment with someone you love. Boulevard Brasserie can't take that away from us.
Boulevard Brasserie
No comments:
Post a Comment