Beach Blanket Babylon

This was one of the most ridiculous dining experiences I've ever had in London.

The waiter arrived wearing sunglasses at 9pm and we tried to order food. We ordered a mixed salad that wasn't on the menu and were told that was not possible. We then asked for a tomato salad, which we were told was not possible. Finally we just ordered "any salad but no rocket" and 15 minutes later a tiny plate of rocket arrived. After coplaining, another salad including other leaves and - God behold - some tomatos (!) arrived. Question remains: Why couldn't they bring us a tomato salad in the first place!?! The service was borderline rude and completely unprofessional (our bottle of water was cleared off the table with about a quarter of the bottle left) and the food was hideous and overprices. Nice place - just refrain from eating there and stick to drinks!
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Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Food was very good but that was the only good thing we came across. Our reservations hadn't been placed after numerous attempts at emailing them. I don't understand what kind of restaurant doesn't accept phone reservations but what can you do? Service was a disaster. We ordered starters that never came. Two meals weren't placed and one of them was my friends and it was his birthday. She brought the wrong drinks. We talked to a manager about compensation and he said he would take care of it. Then the bill came and he had done nothing. The funniest part was he wouldn't even come back to talk with us. He literally looked at us and walked away. I guess I wish I looked a little more trendy. Maybe then we would have had decent service. They wouldn't even make eye contact with me... And we tried our best to be nice about the situation. Overall, our experience was terrible. I will not go back to bed, bath and beyond or whatever this ridiculous place is called...
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Drew
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 0
Saturday, March 28, 2009

I visited the place on recomendation and while the decor is impressive the food was ordinary. The worst part was when the waiter asked for a tip despite a service charge already on the bill - he said that was a tax!
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Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I have lived in London all my life and I go to expensive restaurants all the time so I am not going to complain about price etc... thats just what restaraunts in London are like. But have to say this is was by far the WORST dining experience I have ever had. I am very easy going and never complain about my food and service but after being served a horribly cold burger with crusted mustard on the side I had to send it back. Never ever going back. I wasn't impressed with the new decor either.
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Unimpressed Visitor - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, March 15, 2009

If you live in London then you've got to expect a couple of overpriced nights out once in a while right? At BBB, the food was simply dull, it would have been really hard to put any less effort into the cooking. It was the bare minimum to be able to call it a restaurant, steak came cooked either medium-rare or medium-well which is the trades way of saying, we can't cook how you want it so we'll only even try cooking it a little or a little more. The lamb was litterally put in the oven, cooked for the required ammount of time and served. "Balsamic" vinegar was just average red wine vinegar, wine was supermarket bottom shelf, and the salads were just lettuce, tomato and onion, no dressing - i can make that myself thanks! In fact it was so incompetent that they even left half our order off the final bill - it almost made up for the disappointing experience.

Really yet another proof that these sorts of fad places are great if you have money and no taste. For anyone with a bit of class, they certainly wouldn't go twice..
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Tom T
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 4
Saturday, February 07, 2009

Ignored poor reviews, hoping maybe it would be good.

Uncooked food, appalling food presentation, food tasted like ash. Toilets are the worst in london. I've been to some of the top and best restaurants in London. And this certainly isn't one of them.
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Ross
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Friday, February 06, 2009

The previous author was very lucky.

Last year, I arranged a surprise dinner for a great friend and a dozen of her closest; including her sister and brother in law. I booked the table, sent the e-mails with directions and attached the website of BBB. I naively also praised the venue, having had a fantastic dinner there the year before with 20 or so colleagues from my office.

It was therefore an utter catastrophe and entirely my fault that no-one enjoyed the food, were totally unimpressed by the careless staff and were consequently outraged by the bill of £100 per person for a three course set meal (and not a lot of wine).

We were all very disappointed with the choice on the set menu. I made my selection from the miserable little list and had the smallest Tuna “Carpaccio” I have ever seen. It was in such a state it had clearly been sliced thinly with a chain saw operated by a kitchen porter with Parkinson’s disease. I followed this with a bland Pork Chop on a scattering of Rocket and a plate of Cheese that looked like it had been scraped off Father Christmas’s plate a few weeks before (but at least it was decorated with seven loose grapes and a few burnt Walnuts)...I honestly think that my epileptic 7 year old blind Labrador could have matched this standard and we wouldn’t have had to wait so long.

What I must say is that the building is fabulous. We were in the vaulted basement (ignore the fact that the bricks were made out of plastic – you can only tell if you tap them with your head whilst trying to sit down) reached via a little chain-hung bridge. We had an open fire and the atmosphere was lively, the kind of atmosphere one would expect in this part of Town. What a pity I cannot praise any other element of this establishment. It has all the ingredients of a winner but only the appeal of Michael Winner.

Don’t go unless you are a Bulimic who wants to look trendy and are totally unaffected by the credit crunch.

I complained twice and again by e-mail. I got no response.
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Charlie Howard
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 0
Thursday, January 08, 2009

read some of the reviews before we went, and was expecting a tragic night. Normally i dont write or read reviews but as i have read some bad ones about this place, i thought it was only fair to leave one, as usually, you never see a good review.

I went there on 21st dec with 9 friends and had a great time. the food was good, and although we waited between courses, it was christmas, and they were packed on all floors.

We all had a great time, after dinner we went downstairs which was a wholly different experience. The bar down stairs was really busy, but as we had table service it wasnt a problem. When we left i spoke with the english Manager who said they had cleaned out the staff and he had recently taken over and was improving everything, from what we saw, and the reviews previously, we think its working. Hope you read this my friend, we were impressed, and to top it off we got a discounted taxi home afer the manager arranged it. nice touch
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mikey
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Please see our spoilt WEDDING ANNIVERSARY list below:

- Paper table linen and toilets smelly.

- watch out for the 12.5% service charge added to the bill.

- whilst eating a grocery supplier proceeded to pass our table on at least 5 occasions with produce directly above us and they were drilling walls while we eat.

- The pear and stilton salad did not have any stilton on it and by the time it had been rectified the other members of my party had finished their food.

- The waiter bombarded our table and did not allow us to finish.

- The female manager didnt care - no offer of a discount even though I never pursued this avenue

-Customer service skills extremely poor.
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Ian Gorringe
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Friday, January 02, 2009

Most of the reviews of this place are fairly stout in their condemnation of its service and decor.

I can say that at times it has taken some time for the food to come out, but it hasn't been much of an issue when there is a rather extensive selection of wines and gins available.

For any serious eater' - looking for answers or at the very least elaborations to those comments before mine I would ask you to read on.

In terms of the quality of food and the so called rude service. This is easily attributed to a simple issue. You see most of those comments are often made by individuals who see the layout and look of the restaurant and decide to make a booking and venture along without having considered the menu or drinks selection. This is NOT the cheapest place to eat - and it is certainly not a bar to come to in a drove of drunken yahoo'ness. On one occasion I was present, an elderly couple where having a lovely meal upstairs in the chapel but were unfortunate to be seated opposite a large group of city individuals out for a christmas party. Although paying customers, they were rude obnoxious and drunk, throwing breadsticks at each other is probably not acceptable anywhere. When the staff decided to ask them to settle down, one individual took it rather personally. I wonder if anyone from that group wrote a few comments previous to mine.

I would suggest anyone looking for a good quite evening meal, with some nice wine and lovely surroundings to try, at least once. Please note this is not a fast food or quick curry restaurant and so is priced accordingly, but not above and beyond.

Overall a lovely experience, but the venue is frequented by people drawn in by its beauty and uniqueness who have little care or understanding of food and context.
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Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 7
Monday, December 29, 2008