Carthage

The food was shocking, all tasteless. We shared a meal for 2 for at £17 each. The starters were all cold and the main course was very bland. Definately not one of the places to eat in London. A complete waste of money. The seating resembled something of a primary school, with small tight tables and chairs that wouldn't look out of place in an Elf's home. 12.5 % Was shocking.
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Ian Wells
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Tuesday, March 11, 2008

We ate at this restaurant in June 2007, encouraged by the wonderful smell of North African spices emanating from the front door.

The atmosphere of Carthage is wonderful with lots of authentic North African paraphernalia, eg birdcages, mirrored hands of Fatima and tented ceilings.

We had the £12.95 2 course special meal, starting with meze-style mixture of dips with bread. The dips consisted of tzatziki, houmous, cous cous, dolma (just like Greek dolmades - rice in vine leaves), a pepper dip and also the most wonderful concoction of carrot with harissa oil. All of this was delicious and certainly tasted homemade. The bread came in the same pretty china dishes as the rest of the "meze". Both my husband and I would rate the starter with 8/10.

The main course consisted of a tuna brik, lamb patty, deep-fried calimari, a stew style thing and a green salad plus basmati rice. The rice is served dry as is traditional in Cypriot/North African cuisine - it's down to the diner to add his or her own flavours if required. We had held back some of the meze from the starter course as there was more than enough and ate it with our main course. I personally don't like calimari very much but my husband said that it was fine. The brik was a slight let down as it was unlike the many briks I've eaten before in Tunisia - we received a soggier and less eggy version. The rest of the meal was delicious though.

Regarding the service: our Moroccan waiter was friendly, polite and attentive without being intrusive. On entering Carthage we explained that we only had an hour to eat before an appointment elsewhere - we were assured that 2 courses could be delivered and eaten within the time slot and indeed it was, very comfortably.

The bill included at 12.5% service charge which I believe is normal practice in West End restaurants.

Overall a good experience and we would go back.
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Julielou2
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Friday, June 01, 2007

I would rather of gone Mc Donalds. I have had better NHS hospital food than what was served in the Carthage.

Everything came from a packet and we got our money back.

We received no apology, and no arguement when we refused to pay.

Dont waste your time and money going to this place because it will not be in business for long. Im sure the restaurant is a disguise for something dodgy happening in the back...

NEVER AGAIN!

xx
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Jamie
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, March 22, 2007

Me & my partner went to this restaurant for dinner on saturday, it is without doubt the worst meal i have ever had, we had a mixed meze starter, the bread came in a polystyrene container, the houmous tasted like cold mash potato, no flavour whatsoever. For the main we had mixed grill which comprised of a few pieces of small very tough mixed meats, one of which looked like and tasted like a beefburger! it had a salad (undressed) and plain boiled rice. when i told the waiter it was dry, he brought over a bottle of olive oil and squirted it on the salad, the rest of the dish was still so dry, i asked if we could have some sort of chilli sauce, they said they had ketchup! As desert we had cheesecake, it was extremely rubbery, if we'd thrown it at the wall it would have bounced back at us, it had obviously been in the fridge a long time! and baklava, which was fine (obviously bought in) all this with a bottle of wine for £50, with reggae background music,an insult. The waiter's knew we were unhappy but didnt knock anything off the bill or take any of the food back.
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M Whitaker
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, February 19, 2007