Med Kitchen (Covent Garden)

I went to Med Kitchen last night. It was okay. It's a shame as only a little more care would make all the difference. I asked for a beef burger cooked medium. The waiter said it back as medium rare and he was gone before I had a chance to say hang on a minute. The burger was fine but the uninspired salad alongside and absence of dressing made it pretty dry. The buns however were very well done indeed and the charcoal flavour permeated so much that I gave up on a lot of the bun. It's got one of those annoyongly poncey florid menus where most of the adjectives are things liked pan-fried blah blah and other meaningless guff. Fresh cut fries made us laugh, but the fact that some had discoloured probably meant they weren't as fresh as they said. Service was fine. A lot of my latte ended up in the saucer before it got to me making the sugar packets soggy, although the latte was nice. And there you have it, a few quibbles which could have been easily avoided with just that little more care. The price is fine, but better without the mistakes.
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Sally Carter
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 6
Wednesday, April 08, 2009

I walk past Med Kitchen every day and it's always looked so appealing to me, so one day my mum and I decided to finally go in there. What a mistake we made! Although service was efficient throughout, that didn't make up for the ordeal we were about to go through.

We both ordered the penne in lemon and olive oil with chicken, broccoli and pine nuts. Sounds lovely, but when it was handed to us barely 10 minutes later, I was beyond disappointed. It looked as bland as it tasted. It was literally a bit of cooked pasta, about 4 hard, barely microwaved florets of broccoli, 4 or so pieces of un-seasoned, cheap, squidgy chicken swimming in a mildly lemon flavoured puddle of water. Oh, with a sprinkling of pine nuts drowning in the bottom. Absolutely not a trace of salt in any of it, and no flavour AT ALL. It was officially THE worst dinner I've ever eaten in my life! And what's worse is that they were going to charge us £9.50 each for it! No way. Never. We sent it back and ordered another 2 dishes, which, amazingly were actually quite tasty. Still nowhere near worth the money though. But then they had the cheek to add a 12.5% service charge to the bill! Service was okay and the waiter was very apologetic, but the chefs, to even think of calling that tasteless pasta-water-broccoli-dish-thing food, must be of equal intelligence to some kind of prehistoric bacterium. Never again.
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Kayleigh K
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 0
Monday, February 23, 2009

Heaven knows what possessed us to grab a quick lunch in this ghastly establishment.

Actually - I do know. It was the enticing smell of skewered, marinaded meats being slow cooked over an open flame. A rich scent that brings to mind the cafes of the Edgware road, Harringay Green Lanes - or the fabulous Tas chain. How wrong we were - because the smell certainly did not emanate from this dour location.

My first doubts appeared as a waiter with a hangdog expression showed us to a table - a bad sign. After a quick perusal of a rather odd menu (read it and I challenge you not to wear a puzzled frown) we decided to go for the two courses for £13 deal. Sounded good.

Here's a quick rundown. Her starter: "Fresh" butternut squash soup. Actually the best thing we ordered but so bland she could have been slurping rice soup. A dreary, doleful gruel.

My starter: Moroccan sausages with "fresh" Tzadziki. Sinister and greasy with a garlic sauce that packed more punch than a flailing drunken spousal abuser. A flaccid salad was included that had seemingly been evolving in the bottom of a waterlogged fridge.

Her main course: Salmon Fishcakes. An error of manufacture or a gesture of withering contempt? Who knows! It was a veggie burger that has accidentally had two small fragments of fish included in it's otherwise insipid contents. A laughingly huge bowl of cooling french fries arrived along with a bottle of ketchup. ("...?")

My main course: Chicken in a Dijon sauce with olive mash. Actually quite frightening. The chicken had been burned slightly but this was the only thing that gave it flavour. The "sauce" had separated and looked curdled. The "olive" mash had never seen an olive never mind a potato. I can hear those martians from the instant "Smash" adverts of the eighties laughing.

All this served by gormless, slack-jawed staff that display such lifeless vacuity that they easily could have been lobotomised. Perhaps they were actually other customers that had suffered apoplexy during their meal and were bereft of their senses.

And the cost of this insult? £38.14 including two lagers.

A truly, sadly, memorable experience.
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SleekyLeek&LittleBeast
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, February 02, 2009

overall: a very disappointing experience

myself and 5 friends sat down for our meal. we were placed at the back end of the restaurant with no atmosphere and poor service. having pre booked days in advance a nd arriving on time for our booking my expectations were fairly high but i would conclude that had we booked or not we still would have left witht the same views on our disappointing meal.

luckily for the staff, we alsways make the best of a bad situation and tried to enjoy our meal but this was beyond a joke when the starters arrived. we went for the BELLINI menu [ a glass of Prosecco with peach, and 3 below average courses]

the bruschetta was just a slice of bread with onions, the brocoli soup was ok and was served without any bread [after 3 requests we were handed 3 slices of a semi sweet bread]

main course: the chicken was bland and poorly presented, the pasta with meat was ok, the fish cake was ... fishy as i couldnt taste much fish in there.

dessert: tiramisu [my all time favorite] had no alcohol in it and was the worse i had ever tasted. the baileys chocolate pot was nothing to do with baileys. the banofee pie was ok but you cant really go wrong with toffee and cream.

service was very poor, we had to keep calling someone over to take our orders even for drinks despite telling them we had to get to a show.
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jonathan
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Very very disappointing service!

I ordered a roast chicken which was fine. But my girlfriend ordered a white wine,prawn and asparagus pasta which tasted so dull. Its like they havent even the basics of cooking a pasta which is to use a good stock. All you could taste was water and pasta. We sent it back and ordered the spinach and chicken pasta which was also incredibly dull and watery.

At this point we were very hungry though so ate it and then told the waitress at the end.

When the bill was presented i informed the waitress that i only wished to pay half price for the pasta as it was so ordinary.

The manager then came over and quickly became aggressive saying that we shouldnt have eaten the food and that we were the only people that had ever said that the pasta was not good.

All in all very unprofessional service and they definitely need a new manager who understands some of the basics of service and putting the customer first and the chef making the dishes last night needs to relearn some basics when it comes to making a halfway decent pasta dish.

To be a good restaurant they should be able to attract repeat patronage from their local customers. With service like that they have a long way to go.

Ps waiters were fine, its just the obnoxious manager who was on duty that night that needs some basic training.
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Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 3
Thursday, August 14, 2008

Haven't been too this restaurant since last summer. I was surprised to see that the menu is practically the same as last summer. We sat outside because it was a lovely evening. The meal started well with our order being taken quickly. We sat back to relax and enjoy our wine when the food arrived. This seemed to be too quick for me as my colleague ordered the fishcake it cannot have been cooked to order as it arrived to quickly. I ordered the penne arriabiata which was very plain, not enough chilli and the sauce was bitter and appeared to have been burnt. My colleagues chips were cold so we sent them back.
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- View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 3
Thursday, June 05, 2008

Unfortunatly they placed us in an alcove where the acoustics were challenging but were compounded by the music system being too loud (there was a speaker in the alcove). Polte requests to turn it down so we could hear were ignored- requests such as if you dont turn it down or move us to another table we will have to leave were eventually heard despite some scarasm

A real shame as the menu and food was of good quality, with variety for all ages. Likewise the price was most reasonable. I would definatly return if the music was lower
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- View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 8
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Happened to have dinner at the Med Kitchen on a Bank holiday by chance -- we were on our way back to our hotel after a long, lovely walk on the Thames' South Bank. Although I usually respect my self-imposed rule of not entering a semi-empty restaurant, I chose to make an exception after reading the menu posted outside, since several dishes on offer were mouth-watering. I was not disappointed. Service was average, but food was very good. The tab (20 pounds per head) was reasonable. The only thing I found puzzling was that the only beers being served are Peroni and San Miguel. I have nothing against those beers (I'm Italian after all), but when I am in England I prefer a real ale!
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FS - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Friday, May 09, 2008

Arrived at this restaurant after going to see "Hairspray The Musical".

In short, worst service ive ever experienced, decent food and not TOO bad price wise.

We waited 10 mins to be seated which was great because we hadn't even booked a table. While we waited we were reassured twice that we would be seated soon, we thought "we're in for a great service tonight"

We were then seated and given menus, when the waiter finally came over to us after 25 mins we were told that we could not order the food yet, only drinks! We ordered our drinks (non-alcoholic) and waited 20 mins, at which point I looked over and saw our waiter standing in the corner doing NOTHING!

Our meals consisted of Calamari (beautiful) and Soup for starters. For main we had a Sirloin Steak and the Seabass. Both meals were no short of fantastic. We also had a glass of wine each afterwards and the bill came to £57 with tip (althought they didnt deserve it).
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Chris
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

After a shopping trip to London my exhausted friend and I decided that a nice relaxing meal would be a lovely finish to a busy day. This was unfortunately not what we found here. We appeared to be among the first customers to arrive for dinner and the waiter met us from the door and seated us whilst chewing what appeared to be a mouthful of food. This was forgivable but what followed was not. The same waiter proceeded to frolic around the restaurant throughout with a waitress whilst we had to wait for long periods for service. Although the food was fine the service was most certainly not up to scratch. When I did not leave a tip I was asked by the arrogant waiter why I hadn’t tipped him which was unbelievably rude. He then took the money said he wanted us off the table in 5 minutes time despite my friend and I having half a bottle of wine left to drink. We were both horrified by his rudeness. We gathered our things and left but upon exiting the restaurant located the manager to inform him of the horrendous service we had received.

To our dismay he was even worse than the arrogant waiter. He dismissed our claims saying that his staff would never behave in this way and was not apologetic at all. I can honestly say I have received far superior customer service in my local asda.
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Leanne
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 2
Monday, January 14, 2008