Black & Blue Steakhouse

Well I am sorry to say the service has not improved since Lee Whitelocks review in August. Having been met by a rather blank looking waitress we sat at the bar for a couple of drinks before our meal, two glasses of wine £19, not cheap but very nice none the less - the waitress was still fairly unfriendly on delivery. We later sat down for a meal. We didn't even have time to warm the seats before we were asked what we were ordering. You could say this is efficient but it felt rather like we were on a conveyer belt and the quicker we were off it the better!

The steaks we ordered I have to admit were very good, it even makes my mouth water thinking about them - its just a shame front of house consistantly let the kitchen down. There was no query to see if our food was ok and having asked for a wine menu it never turned up. We were asked. however, if we would like desserts, the waitress seemed rather put out when we said "no thankyou."

Finally my sister motioned for the bill. Initially it was ignored and then a rather grumpy looking waitress turned up asking us what we wanted - no smile, just attitude. The bill came to around £47 for two steaks including £5 of service. Since we really couldn't figure out what service we had received we agreed we didn't want to pay it and explained this to another waitress. (I don't know how many waitresses we had spoken to that evening but I do wonder if this is part of the problem!) The last waitress did try to make amends by wishing us a good evening but too little too late unfortunately. I would like to go back there as the food was excellent and its a very classy venue. My only problem would be management clearly do not read or take any notice of restaurant reviews and the only way to make a point would be to avoid the place for the forseeable future and hope other diners do the same - shame...
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Hannah Worters
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 5
Thursday, September 25, 2008

We had a fillet steak, and T bone steak, both medium rare with side order of spinach. To drink a £24 Hackett Shiraz 2005. Date: 8 Sep 08

Both steaks were very good, the fillet shading it in terms of flavour and succulence, but my T bone unusually un-gristly.

They were served with thick cut chips, excellent bearnaise sauce, and a "we didn't notice that on the menu" free salad.

If you like steak and chips you could go further and fare worse.
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Bill
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Great looking restaurant in a great location but that is where the greatness stops!

It takes a lot for me to be so annoyed by a restaurants service level to turn my laptop on and spend time writing a review like this, but I feel I have to let people know my awful experience here.

I could write a lengthy review here but basically the service was just terrible, really really terrible.We waited on average 30 minutes for anything! That's including the initial wait for just getting any waiters attention. No 'hello, how are you?' just straight into the ordering. Food was good (not great!) but at no point during the meal were we asked how are food was. After an agonising 3 hours from when we first entered the restaurant we finally managed to have our bill delivered with a 12.5% service charge added.

This is where it gets really bad! We had no service so requested the service charge be taken off. This was met by visible anger from the waitress and then the manager came across. We explained why we didnt want to pay the service charge and it was accepted and the charge was removed. At this point I would have expected the manager to apologise and make some excuses like they were really busy, but no nothing. Just eyes down looking at the floor and when our debit card had cleared it was just placed on the table and the manager walked off!

Absolutely shocking behaviour for a nice looking restaurant with good food. If I was the owner i'd be making some changes! Date attended 8th August 2008
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Lee Whitelock
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 4
Friday, August 08, 2008

Have been here a couple of times recently and I think it's over-rated.

The atmosphere's lovely and the menu looks appetising but unfortunately they fall down on a few critical areas. The burgers are really average in my opinion (much better at GBK for instance) and the steak I had yesterday (£20 for a rib eye) was really uninspiring. I asked for no chips and extra salad and whilst the bowl of salad was huge, it was frankly the most miserable watery little affair I've had in a long time. Grotty artificial dressing, plastic cheese and no real flavour.

I was on expenses but felt guilty for spending so much (£50 inc 'optional service' on two inferior steaks, a coke, a bottle of water and two coffees). I'll be voting with my feet!
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Farnook - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 1
Friday, June 06, 2008

Went here last week and the food is good all round and will make another trip soon. The desserts were the best I have seen anywhere for a long time. Not a cheap restaurant and you will also be counting the calories as well. Only nit pick is that perhaps they could hand cut the chips, rather than use frozen chunky chips.
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Duro
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Monday, March 10, 2008

I visited this restaurant with my best friend, as it was his 30th Birthday and I took him to celebrate.

We arrived at around 8pm on a Thursday and on arrival two large plastic cows greet you at the entrance. The restaurant is very pleasing on the eye from the outside and is split into two areas a bar area and a dining area.

This place was packed out and luckily we got the last table

We ordered

Starter

Olives

Tortillas with guacamole, sour cream and salsa

Main Course

Two sirloin steaks (280g) with Chunky Chips and posh side bowl of salad

Total price with two soft drinks £26 a head with service charge.

I must say the quality of the food was excellent. I really enjoyed the steak it was very juicy and full of flavour.

I was also very happy with the service

I will definitely come back to this establishment again
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Imran Majid
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Friday, September 28, 2007

Wondering around Borough looking for somewhere to eat, we strolled upon Black & Blue. We hadn't booked but the friendly staff found us a table in what looked an very busy restaurant. But that's where the praise ends. For starters we ordered a couple of portions of tortillas with dips at £6 each. These turned out to be of a quality that your local 7/11 would be embarrassed to put on its shelves. We thought we'd splash out on the wine to go with our steaks and chose a £55 grand cru Bordeaux. The wine was great, however, the restaurant could only provide small standard pub-issue wine glasses to drink it from, which rendered the purchase a bit pointless. Finally, the steaks arrived - a small sirloin and a couple of t-bones costing between £13 and £23. We had no complaints about the way they were cooked, only that they were distributed incorrectly and I started eating one of my companion's blue steak as he tucked into my medium rare. However, worse than this was that the steaks were served on cold plates which we thought terrible, especially for a steak served absolutely rare. Further, the chips that accompanied the steaks were pale and no doubt purchased from the same 7/11 from whence came the tortillas. To round things off, the accompanying sauces (pots of mustard, ketchup etc.) came topped with thick discoloured skins and the poorly thrown together salads were again incorrectly distributed by the waitress. I can only recommend that this restaurant be avoided.
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Jack
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 2
Saturday, June 23, 2007

Doesn't take bookings for less than six people so not ideal for business customers. Strange policy for a restaurant charging these prices.
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Mark
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 2
Thursday, April 26, 2007