Quick dinner here before catching a train. Short, appealing menu. Food was good but some service issues which irritated me more than slightly. Server very friendly but circled back to check our order which she had inputted wrong into her little handheld electronic device. Our order was then correctly inputted as piri piri prawns and rice for me and piri piri chicken and rice for my husband. The prawns were off the small plates section but I felt it had been made clear it was what I’d be eating with my rice. Clearly not - the prawns were plonked down in a few minutes and no rice to be seen. After several minutes we flagged down the server and said we had intended to have the prawns with rice. She went to check, came back and cheerfully informed us the rice would be another 10 minutes or so. I said then can you take the prawns back as I don’t want them to get cold. She looked surprised but did so. My husband rolled his eyes and said - she’ll just bring the same prawns back and they’ll be cold anyway. Then a minute later everything arrived all at once. The prawns were still warm. They were cooked well and flavorful but small.
The rice was excellent: Portuguese Carolino rice studded with pieces of chorizo, shards of crispy chicken skin, peas and diced plantain. But each serving was enough for 2 people (something the server could have told us) so we ended up with way too much rice. The chicken was not dry and came with a really spicy hot sauce.
As we ate, another service problem emerged - the server kept trying to remove dishes we were still eating from! We had to stop her 3 times. Which was super annoying. Then when we asked her for the bill, she pointed to a QR code on the table which was going to direct us to the Sunday app. I said, no we don’t want to use that. She seemed a bit put out, but got us the bill and then very pointedly asked if she could remove the plates (we had finished eating a while back by now with pretty much empty plates and the extra rice packed in a takeaway box). I had a look at the bill, which included a 12.5% service charge. I was half minded to tell her that I didn’t think the service charge should be paid. But I didn’t want to get into an argument on a Friday evening after a long day of work. I would recommend this place for the food but beware of oblivious service.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
2
I’d have done the same as you, but my guy not so much. He’s adamant about not paying for service when it’s not to standard. The meal sounds interesting and, like John, I’d love to try the rice. If you were making it at home, what’s your best guess for ingredients?
The rice is a Portuguese variant called Carolino - looks easy to get hold of online. I would fry the plantain separately first and cut into small dice. The chicken skin was well seasoned with just salt it seemed - apparently you can make crispy chicken skin ‘crackling’ in the oven or to make it flat shards like in this dish, I might fry in a pan and press down with a spatula? The chorizo can be fried and then set aside. I would then fry the uncooked rice in the rendered chorizo fat/chicken fat/both fats(!) for a few minutes, then add the requisite amount of chicken stock to cook the rice until tender. Then fold through the chorizo and plantain and some peas (fresh or frozen) while stirring on medium high heat. Garnish with chicken skin crisps! At least that’s how I envision it coming together.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
7
The use of plantain is perhaps interesting. I’m not sure they grow it in Portugal so maybe it’s an influence from colonial times in South America. Or is it a crop in the Azores or Madeira?
Re: the service, I have sometimes become so irritated by service that I will refuse to pay the service charge or tip. I usually don’t like making a fuss but sometimes the server needs to be taught a lesson if they are completely out of line. I once took my sister, her husband and kids out to dinner at an upscale restaurant in Switzerland for her birthday. We had been there before in the past with the kids (who were 5 and 7 years old) and enjoyed it and had great service. However, for this special birthday meal we got a waitress who could have soured milk with her facial expression. For some reason, it seemed she was determined to punish us for bringing young children. She actually ‘forgot’ the kids’ orders. By the end of the meal I was completely enraged with her behaviour. I don’t speak French fluently enough to have given her a piece of my mind. I asked my brother-in-law to tell her I wouldn’t be tipping her as she was so rude and inconsiderate of the children. My sister was appalled at my decision not to tip and was going to tip the waitress herself and we actually got into a good old sister fight - I said if you dare tip that monster I will start yelling in English in this restaurant. Anyway - my sister and I ended up arguing all the way back home while my brother-in-law bought the kids some ice cream!
When I order an appetizer as my main, I have to remember to specify that it should come out with the rest of the mains so it’s not fired first, else I’ve ended up with my food first on many occasions (then exacerbated at some nicer places by the rest not coming out until the first course has been cleared away ). Clearing away of dishes while one is obviously still eating is very disruptive (and annoying).
Someone else tried to reverse engineer the rice, sounds good! (The chicken skin method is different than what I do — I’ve never boiled the skin first, I just put it on a parchment sheet in the oven, or flat between paper towels and plates in the microwave.)
). Clearing away of dishes while one is obviously still eating is very disruptive (and annoying).
