Janets Bar - Janet can keep it

So, I get what this place is and isn’t trying to be. It’s definitely unpretentious, and the free popcorn and live music was a nice touch. However, it’s really not to my taste. It’s a long, thin place absolutely full to brimming with people, with a real international vibe. In fact, it really reminded me of my Erasmus year abroad. The walls were covered in print-out posters and photographs, the clientele very dressed down, and the bar very well stocked. It looks kinda cheap, but kinda fun. Remembering that there are loads of foreign students based around South Ken I eagerly attacked the bar thinking I’d get myself a cocktail in central London at a decent price. And this was what totally ruined it for me. I don’t mind if something is unpretentious and low key. In fact I commend such a place for existing just round the corner from somewhere like Boujis which prides itself on extorting money from the banker crowd.

What I do object to, is NINE BLOODY POUNDS FIFTY for a really standard drink, in a pretty tiny glass. I could get myself a beautifully presented, well mixed and brilliantly thought out cocktail for that amount in a many other neighbouring bars. I was really looking forward to my Appletini – and it did taste fairly good – but I was disappointed that it was served in a tiny little tumbler, and that the tumbler was barely half full.

The rest of my party did kind of enjoy themselves – the place is laid back, open late, and probably perfect if you’ve already had a few too many, as most of us had – but the common consensus was that the drinks really weren’t worth the prices paid. It’s almost all we could talk about in the brief time we were there.

I will not be going back. Especially as just the briefest bit of Googling shows the Janet bar-staff up for a pretty nasty bunch. I would urge any of you considering going to ponder the response of the bar to these reviews posted to independent website ViewLondon http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/pubsandbars/janets-bar-userreview-14416.html

If you can’t take criticism – sort your act out or ignore it. But don’t start laying into your paying customers. Especially when your customers are paying through the nose.

All in all, not too bad, but not as polished as I would personally have liked. Horrendously over-priced. I won’t be going back.

Janets Bar

Nearest tube: South Kensington

30 Old Brompton Road

Pictures from Thursday Club and RBKC council website

Decent Dim Sum and Dodgy Music on Wandsworth Bridge

I am dining again with the ex, one of our biggest mutual appreciations in life is food and restaurants. After some basic internet research of restaurants near SW6 that accept taste London cards (world’s best invention) he proposed China Boulevard. Upon entering this establishment you may be a little surprised to see a tuk tuk and various lanterns leading to a mysterious staircase. This was a Monday night and I had the beginnings of a cold so was starting to wonder what I had let myself in for.

The restaurant itself is pretty vast, with what can only be described as an elaborate Chinese wedding reception perfectly set on the downstairs section. I asked the waitress what this was for and she said it was for Wednesday night’s party! There are several tables upstairs overlooking the wedding reception and also pleasantly, the river Thames. After a large glass of white wine (I have heard alcohol anesthetises the throat) we ordered off an extensive menu of Chinese dishes. I was disturbingly tempted to order the shark fin soup having watching Gordon Ramsey’s documentary but instead went for dim sum/ pork gyoza to start and garlic, soy sauce Dover sole for a main with spicy aubergine on the side. The ex had chicken in a fruity sauce with chow mein noodles. The food was good, I thought my fish was slightly overcooked, but the sauce it was cooked in was very flavoursome.

However, there were a couple of crucial clangers throughout the evening that meant the experience was slightly tainted. Firstly the ex had quite an old taste London card which evidently has a different format to the newer cards- the waitress who refused to crack a single smile throughout the entire duration of the evening basically accused him of trying to scam her and went back and forth photocopying/scanning the sodding card, which became quite tiresome. Secondly, the steel clarinet recorded soundtrack that was prevalent from start to finish only boasted a repertoire of about 6 songs, the fifth time I heard ‘memory’ from the cats soundtrack I was ready to cry (the combination of excess food, wine and my cold medication had left me feeling a bit peaky and sorry for myself).

I liked the setting, the food and the concept. I didn’t like the service, music and thought it was on the pricy side. Without the Taste London card I would have paying off that Dover Sole for the next three months.

1 The Boulevard, Smugglers Way Wandsworth London SW18 1DE UK

Buona Sera at the Jam - tree house dining at its finest

Being a total sucker for anything themed, or even just a bit kooky, I’d always been really intrigued by Buona Sera (at the Jam) on the King’s Road. Crammed into one of the KR’s typical tiny shop-spaces, is a restaurant of almost 20 tables for four, and a fully functional Italian kitchen – and the experience is anything but unpleasant! That’s because dining is split over two levels. Each table is its own wooden booth, and they are stacked, with the top booths reached via ladder – like your own personal tree house! So when the boy and I met up with two of his friends for dinner on the King’s Road over the weekend, and one friend requested a ‘fun Italian’, Buona Sera immediately sprang to mind. A word of warning however, this restaurant gets booked up, especially as everybody wants to dine in one the upper booths, and we had to wait until 9:30 to be able to eat. That said, we did ring up to book around Saturday lunchtime, and if you don’t mind soaking up the atmosphere from one of the lower booths, tables are fairly easy to come by.

What I did really like about this place, was the friendly customer service. Arriving bang on at 9:30, and starving, unfortunately our table wasn’t ready. The staff couldn’t have been more apologetic, explaining that a previous table had arrived very late for their booking and we were settled on a lower booth to make our order, and promised a free aperitif at the end of the meal. As soon as our table cleared, we were whisked up a level (TIP: do not attempt this in heels if you have spent the previous few hours at the pub, I was practically deposited via fireman’s lift, much to my party’s amusement!) and settled in our own little tree house. A great deal of thought has obviously been put into the design – despite all the furniture being made from wood, the booths were really comfortable, each has its own little set of dials to control lighting levels and the music volume, and they have decked the canopy with plants.

So what did we order?

I started with the garlic bread AND a delicious squid and tomato stew (Piggy I know, but as I mentioned, we’d been at the pub and I was ravenous!), followed by the miale pork (a kind of pork steak stroganoff). The garlic bread was a bit too garlicky, but I was impressed that the waitress immediately offered me a half-portion, seeing as I was ordering another starter, as a lot of restaurants are unwilling to halve their takings in this manner, let alone unprompted. The squid stew was also really tasty, but the piece de resistence was the miale. Another of our party ate this too and I think we were annoying the others in our raptures over the taste. It’s hearty, delicious and the sauce and balance of ingredients was just of the right consistency. At £14.90 for a very decent sized main course, it was really very impressive.

Amongst them, the other three ordered chicken wings (not very Italian, and actually whilst perfectly decent not especially amazing), and beef carpaccio (delicious, and as this arrived a few minutes after the others – I didn’t even notice the difference was so slight! – we were offered yet more Amaretto!) for starters. For mains, between us all we ordered two of the delicious miale, one traditional lasagne (pronounced “beautiful” by a very appreciative diner – it really is great when an Italian puts as much effort into getting the basics right as offering a broad and exciting range) and some spinach and ricotta cannelloni – also a real success.

Food and wine were flowing, and the final bill for two courses and drinks for four came to £90, including service, which I thought was incredibly reasonable. There were a few little glitches with timing the courses and getting us to our table in time, but they by no means ruined our evening, and the staff seemed more than eager to compensate for them, and were proactive about this too – we didn’t have to ask. Those free Amaretto’s to finish the meal were a perfect end, but as you can imagine, my exit from the restaurant was almost twice as graceless as my entrance. This place is unpretentious and great fun, perfect for enjoying hearty portions of great traditional Italian fare. Although, I have also been here on a date, and because you can adjust the lighting and have quite a lot of privacy, I wouldn’t rule it out for simple and quirky romance, either.

Buona Sera at the Jam

289A Kings Road, Chelsea

Photos my own