The food court at Westfield Shopping Centre is a crazy place. A few times we’ve gone to have lunch there but have always been discouraged by the large queues that seemed to go on and on and on. Finally we decided to head there for dinner and finally managed to check out the Mexican offering: Nineteen ten. It was actually recommended to Pat by a friend who’s friend or brother, I forgot which, owns it.
Even two weeks before Christmas the food court was surprisingly quiet compared with when we tried to come here for lunch on a weekend so thankfully finding a seat was relatively easy and there wasn’t a huge queue at Nineteen ten.
Choosing your meal at Nineteen ten is fairly straight forward – choose your style (for example, burrito or fajita), choose your meat, choose your stuffing (cheese, beans, rice, guac etc.) and choose your heat (sauce) and presto you have your dinner.
I totally enjoyed my burrito at Nineteen ten. It was delicious, ingredients were clearly fresh and fairly filling. Nice to have this option for fast food rather that just the usual burger, chips and pizza.
I haven’t seen the first Madagascar movie so I have nothing to really base my opinion on but I really liked this sequel! It probably helped that I was in a mood for a nice laugh. Madgascar 2 is sweet, endearing and hilarious. It also had some tear-jearker moments though with me that doesn’t really take all that much to make me shed a tear.
At about 70-75 minutes (not including the credits) the movie is not very long at all. Probably just the right length to tell the story though if you’re looking for bang for your buck in terms of time in the cinema this probably hits lower on the scale!
We take the main quartet to Africa where they are stranded when the plane that was taking them …. crashes. Alex, the lion, is reunited with his family from whom he was separated as a young cub when he was first taken to the Manhattan zoo, a place where he has never learnt to be a lion but has learned to dance to perform to entertain. The reunion is sweet and touching though over too soon when Alex is challenged to a fight. His father is leader of the pride and the return of Alex prompts his evil nemesis to challenge young lion to a battle for leadership. Alex thinking it’s a dance-off rather than a fight-off loses horribly and as a result loses his father leadership of the pride. Of course the timing coincides with loss of water to the pride and Alex sees this as the chance to restore his dad to the top by solving the problem.
It’s a story of acceptance, forgiveness and redemption. Being a kiddie movie of course it ends happily and with some good laughs along the way. Totally enjoyed it.
Most of my trips overseas are generally planned fairly way in advance so I was surprised when I decided at the last minute to accept Rita’s invite to do a quick weekend away to Belgium to visit the Christmas Markets. I figured that since I wasn’t really doing much else anyway so might as well spend the weekend away! We decided on a tour package that would include travel/accommodation/tour guide so the weekend started at before the crack of dawn on Saturday morning and would involve a more than seven hour bus/ferry/bus ride via Dover to Brussels, where we would spend a few hours, before getting on the bus for nearly another couple of hours to get to Bruges, where we would spend the evening and most of Sunday before departing Bruges late afternoon for another seven hour plus bus/ferry/bus ride back to Victoria! Fair to say we spent more time traveling than actually in Belgium but hey ho!
Chocolates (of course!), mussels and frites, beautiful architecture, Christmas Markets
Weather
Wet on Saturday, fine and beautiful on Sunday
The Experience
Brussels
I’ve actually been to Brussels before, way back in 2003, for an afternoon and in all honesty it was more than enough time to spend n the city though having said back then that we didn’t explore much more than the Grand-Place and hunting down the Manneken-Pis statue and his little sister. It wasn’t much different to this visit except we also had the Christmas Markets to explore and Rita had her purse stolen so we also got a tour of the police station! To be fair to Brussels I think it is entitled to at least a weekend to allow you to visit all the museums that you like but also to travel a bit further afar than the area around the Grand-Place and visit such attractions as the Atomium and Mini-Europe. For next time maybe.
So the main purpose of this trip was to visit the Christmas Markets. Our tour guide basically gave us a 10 minute introduction and then left us to our own devices. There were a couple of Christmas markets dotted around the Grant-Place but they were nothing compared to German and Austrian Christmas markets I’ve been to before. The Grand-Place is a beautiful square with many of the buildings plated in gold paint. It felt very Christmasy however with the lovely Christmas decorations dotted around and the Grand-Place even having a special light/visual/sound show:
The Grand-Place and surrounding areas were absolutely chockers with people and with the rain it made moving around pretty difficult. Its no wonder that Rita somehow got her purse snatched! We spent probably half the time in Brussels backtracking to see if she’d dropped or left her purse somewhere and then looking and waiting at the police station (even though we got nowhere because we ran out of time.) I felt so bad for her! We had to run from the police station to catch our bus to Bruges so it was a very brief visit indeed to Brussels!
Bruges
Bruge is known as the “Venice of the North” for its large number of lovely canals, pedestrianised cobbled streets, and marvel at the magnificently preserved medieval buildings.
We arrived in Bruges fairly late in the evening and after checking in to the hostel it was almost 10pm by the time we made it into Bruges city centre. It was kind of strange but other than having some Burger King at Dover at about 9.30 am in the morning through all the excitement with losing Rita’s purse etc. I hadn’t been hungry all day. Quite unusual for me! But I was interesting in looking for something to snack on at least but we had a few things to do first before eating!
Our hostel was about a 15-20 minute walk from the city centre so our tour guide took us in whilst giving us a bit of a spiel on various buildings/cathedrals etc. that we walked by. Interestingly the map at our hostel pointed out various “Places to Kiss” … not that it was particularly relevant for us on this trip!
As we didn’t get around to filing a police report in Brussels we still needed to do one for insurance purposes so Rita and I needed to find the police station in Bruges to do so. Our tour guide was nice enough to bring us to the police station and even sit with us whilst we waited to be seen. Strangely it must have been quite a busy crime night in Bruges because even though we got to the police station at nearly 11pm there was still apparently at least an hour’s wait to be seen! After waiting about 45 minutes we gave up and decided to come back the next day.
By then it was nearing midnight! I wouldn’t say the night life of Bruges is particularly huge but there were a few bars to go into. But our first stop was to the little frites stalls at the base of the Bell Tower in the main square. Apparently leases for the stalls are auctioned off every few years and competition is fierce. The frites there were totally awesome, especially when smothered in special sauce.
Bellies fairly full we then headed to one of the bars which had music pumping so loud we could hear it outside. Walking in I felt like I’d walked into a club for teenagers. I swear the average age of everyone inside was something like 16 and it was crowded. No room to even stand around and drink our cherry beer (delicious by the way …) I got a bit bored of the place afterwards so we left and just ended up walking around the city centre for a while before heading back to the hostel for an appreciated sleep.
Waking up Sunday morning was difficult but we had to get up early to go to the police station (yet again!) This time we weren’t leaving until Rita had filed her police report. The day dawned bright and beautiful and we took a nice leisurely stroll the police station. An hour and a half later we were finally free to explore the sights of Bruge. We started off with a mid-morning snack of waffles and ice-cream from Haagen-Dazs which overlooked the square and the Christmas markets.
It was quite a rich snack so our next stop was the Bell Tower to climb 366 (one for every day of the year 🙂 ) steps to reach the top for sweeping views across Bruges. A nice work out though I don’t imagine we worked off to many of our the calories from our waffles. Heh heh.
After exploring the Christmas markets, snacking on some snails (gee they looked oh so appetising – not!) for me and prawns for Rita, seeing a LOT of chocolate in store and out, sampling chocolate liqueuers, and doing more walking around Bruges it was time for lunch – there was no way I was leaving Belgium without sampling some mussels!
It was clear that I was still decidedly full from our snacking in the morning as even though Rita and I shared a pot of mussels and some stew I must have gone into some sort of food coma trying to finish it all – I was more than ready for bed at that stage! LOL.
But we still had some sight-seeing to do before hoping on the bus back to Calais and this included stops to see Michelangelo’s marble Madonna and Child lies within the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady) and to see the curious blood of Christ in the Basilica of the Holy Blood. The Madonna and Child were okay but I was more interested in the beautiful Church of Our Lady and we didn’t get to see the blood of Christ which was apparently hidden in some back panel.
Finally, I did some last minute shopping for chocolate before Rita and I had to make a run for the bus!
It was a very long journey back to London but it was a nice weekend away. Good food, good company, something a bit different (visits to two police stations for one!), great chocolate – what’s not to love.
Sandra told me about Plateau a couple of years ago. Actually, she told me about the cheeseman with the big moustache and all his cheeses so I was intrigued enough to put it on my list. Unfortunately tonight we ended up eating in the Grill rather than the Restaurant proper so we didn’t get to see the cheeseman but we still had some rather nice food anyway.
Plateau is situated on the upper floor of the Canary Wharf Shopping
Centre. I don’t often come to this part of London so I’m always surprised by the modern building and high rises. I think I actually find myself quite attracted to it because it seems so clean – and I don’t mean from a rubbish perspective – I mean lots of clean straight lines on the buildings etc. If only I could get rid of the people in suits that run around during the day and the “city” attitude I would probably move here in a second…
Emerging out of the lift to Plateau you are greeted by a buzzing bar with the Grill located to the rear and right next to some awesome floor to ceiling windows with views over the square, and for this time of year, the ice skating rink. We were quickly seated very nicely next to the windows. Bread was brought to us as well as individually wrapped butter which was so delicious I couldn’t help myself finishing off the whole bar.
We were dining off a set menu meal and the options, though not vast, were adequate enough. Sandra and I have very similar tastes, except in dessert, so we quite often end up with the same sort of meal. It was no different tonight with the both of us starting with mussels and going for veal for our mains. Both dishes were very tasty although the veal was slightly over salty for my taste. In all fairness by the time we got to our dessert I could have satisfactorily signed off the night but for an extra £3 who is going to say no to dessert! Sandra ended up with an extremely rich chocolate creme brulee and I went for the pecan pie. Mmmm ….
Service was pretty good tonight – friendly, efficient and thankfully not in a rush to get us out of the place. I had a lovely time and even got to watch some semi-professional ice-skaters:
We had a personal introduction from the Director at tonight’s performance of Billy Elliot The Musical as he was introducing a few new members of cast including a new Billy Elliot played by twelve year old Brad Wilson from Doncaster. Apparently he is the thirtieth boy to play the role worldwide! I’ve just done a google on Brad and apparently he has only been dancing since he was 9 years old. It was very impressive therefore to see him deliver quite a mature and polished performance in the title role tonight.
The musical brings the hit movie and more to the stage. You have a young boy who is a miner’s son aching to find his inner person amidst the conflict of the 1984 miners’ strike in Durham. There are tears, there is anger, implied violence, love – it has it all. The whole musical really works together from the score, to the band, to the sets, to the performances – a great show.
There were two pieces in tonight’s performance that were the highlghts for me – the first being the last “solo” by Billy at the end of the (very long) first half where he is expressing his anger at being denied a chance to audition for the Royal Ballet School and the second being the first “solo” at the start of the second half where Billy is this time expressing his sorrow at a future which is apparently devoid of dance. The first was loud, it was angry, it was agressive. In contrast the second, part of it in tandem with a “future” older Billy, was gentle, passionate, touching and breathtakingly beautiful. Both performances were veyr physically demanding and I was impressed that the new Billy had the stamina to maintain his high level throughout the whole show.
I was also impressed by the boy who played Billy’s friend Michael. He had great comic timing and his dancing skills weren’t half bad either. This is not the say that the cast were just background to these two boys – everyone had their role to play and they played it to perfection.
The musical is very long with the first half going for more than 90 minutes and the whole show, including a short interval, lasting about three hours and 15 minutes. The encore was kind of cute with a dancing Billy weavng in and out of the performers for a final piece. Two standing ovations were given – that’s how impressed we all were with the show.
I’m not sure why the Hard Rock Cafe is linked with the Victoria Palace Theatre in Victoria because, unless you take the bus or tube, it is a decent 15+ minute walk from the theatre and therefore unless you get to Hard Rock quite early for a meal (say 5.30) chances are you will be rushing your meal and to your show that no doubt starts at 7.30. But anyway, I wanted to see Billy Elliot and this currently seems to be the best offer around. For £60 we got excellent seats in the Dress Circle and a 2 course meal plus softdrink (from a limited set menu) at Hard Rock.
We arrived at Hard Rock Cafe at around 5.45 and it was absolutely heaving. There was one guy handling the seating arrangements and my first, of two gripes, with the Hard Rock Cafe was that this guy was not great at handling pressure and totally unhelpful. The conditions of our deal was that we had to make a reservation, which we did. Obviously there were a lot of walk-ins to Hard Rock Cafe and not enough tables so fair enough the walk-in lot got sent to the bar to wait for a table (the wait at the time was given as between 45 mins to an hour!) When I informed this guy that we’d made a reservation his reply was to add us to the waiting list, to give us a buzzer and to assure us that we would get the first free table. My issue with this was that he didn’t even bother checking our reservation which, if he’d done his job properly, he should have seen that one of the few empty tables was allocated to us and seated us straight away. Normally I wouldn’t have minded but as we had to be out of there by 7.15 at the latest to make our show we were a bit concerned we would be late. Further, its not like this is a new offer so staff should have been aware of the time constraints for diners on this deal. When I asked for a menu so we could at least choose our meal and have it ready for when we were seated he couldn’t even do that and just ushered us to the bar. He quickly scooted away so I tracked down another more helpful member of staff. This is my second gripe – the person who had taken our reservation had failed to make note we were on the Billy Elliot offer so the staff didn’t know which menu to give us. Although the girl was very helpful and in fact arranged that we be seated straight away she had no clue which menu to give us and as a result there was confusion as to what we could order. Finally after about 15 mins we received the right menu and placed our orders.
From that point on the service was perfect though I did have difficulty understanding our Eastern European waitress. However, she was excellent, extremely efficient and super-friendly even allowing us to upgrade one of our desserts for nothing! She also gave us tickets to enter the museum (which unfortunately we didn’t really have time for.) Food was delivered quite promptly and it was very delicious.
I would like to give Hard Rock Cafe another go because the food (selection includes burgers, grills, barbecue, salads etc) we received was quite good and the meals that other diners around us received looked equally appetising. The restaurant itself also had a nice vibe (if a bit loud) and most staff, barring the first hopeless guy we encountered, were generally fantastic. But I really was a bit turned off by my two gripes above.
The weather was absolutely horrible today as it was cold, wet and miserable. The perfect kind of day to spend under your doonah at home having a lazy one. Instead I braved the weather and ventured out to the “country-side” to visit with Jules and Sandra. But it was not without a target in mind – Apple Tree in Gerrards Cross.
Probably over a year ago Jules and Sandra had talked about how fantastic a place Apple Tree was from the generous sized portions of delicious Sunday Roast to the equally generous and delicious desserts so me, being the greedly little eater that I am, was excited to go try it out.
Arriving at Apple Tree you can tell that the clientele are generally the more, shall we say, well-to-do with the car park littered with expensive cars. Jules says that the locals are considered one of the wealthier around with the largest disparity between earnings and household values in the country I think or was it Greater London. Although a generalisation, based on that statement, its probably fair to assume that most of the families around Gerrards Cross were born into the money.
Normally you should probably book if you want to guarantee a spot at Apple Tree on a Sunday (or probably any day) though today it wasn’t overly crowded with just about the right type of busy-ness. Not too crowded that you felt rushed to finish your meal but busy enough to have a nice atmosphere. It’s a beautiful pub – all nicely done up in warm tan colours, plenty of wood on display, and lots of colourful paintings (look out for the nude drawings in the ladies’ toilets!) There is even a fireplace splitting the dining room though today, despite the cold, it was not lit.
The staff at Apple Tree were very friendly and took all requests to change options in our dishes in stride such as adding an extra thing here, swapping a thing or two there, without even having to blink and consult with the kitchen, which is a nice change. I’m afraid I didn’t really do Apple Tree justice as I hardly even glanced at the normal a la carte menu or their specials instead just going straight for their Sunday Roast options. They had roast beef, roast pork, roast chicken and roast lamb from what I recall. All ranged in value from about £11-£12 which, for what we got in terms of size and quality, seemed reasonable. I went for the roast pork with an additional yorkshire pudding (which came as an extra.) You can see from the picture that the pudding is absolutely massive and worth paying that extra pound to get it. It was nearly half the size of my head! The roast pork came with some delicious roasties, parsnip, and sides of greens (mange tout, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot etc.) The roast was perfect and the crackling – melt in your mouth. Down side – could have done with more. ;P
Despite being quite satisfied with our Sunday Roasts we all still opted to get desserts. Averaging £4.50-£5.00 the desserts at Apple Tree are pretty good. Sandra consoled me by saying that my raspberry crumble, at least, was mainly mostly fruit so I could justify having it on that basis. Heh heh.
So, was it worth traveling that far to get out to the Apple Tree (its about a 25-30 min train ride from Marylebone so all up about an hour of travel from me door to door)? I thought so. Being out there made a nice change to the hustle and bustle of central London and of course it was nice to catch up with Jules and Sandra in a non-work setting since its been a while since I’ve seen the two of them together!
Social ice skating I guess is a typically girlie thing to do. Admittedly there are quite a few guys out there strutting their stuff but for some reason most of the guys I know are just not into it with most of them citing a fear of getting their fingers sliced off as their reason for not coming! So, tonight a bunch of us girls including Rita, Caz, Leah, a few of Rita’s girlfriends and one token male (Werner from Austria not Australia) ventured out to the Natural History Museum.
It’s a beautiful venue for skating with the twinkling fairy lights in the surround trees and the gorgeous building of the museum itself in the background. Quite magical.
For the most part getting our skates was relatively straight-forward though getting served was a bit haphazard with some staff handing out skates only and one member of staff doing the coat/bag checks which made queuing and orderly progression a bit haphazard. The good thing was that the coat/bag check guy was really good and we were able to check in at least four items for the price of one!
The vibrant blue skates for hire were a bit more painful than I’ve had in the past. As usual sizing was a bit of a quandary for me and I had to exchange my size 6 boots (normally I think I’m a UK size 5 in shoes) for a size 7 (fairly easy to do) to get something remotely resembling comfortable. I knew I was in for a world of pain though as soon as I stood up I could already feel an ache in my arches.
We got out on to the ice fairly quickly after the zambonie had done its task of re-melting and smoothing the ice out and it was darn slippery at first. After a very scary wobble when I thought I was going to go down I managed to recover and things after that were fairly smooth sailing. That is, if you don’t count Caz zooming around trying to take us all down! Ha ha. Rita proved to be the expert on the ice with Caz just behind her. Both could seriously motor around the rink whereas I resorted to mainly skating very close to the wall.
Showing once again that the world really is a small place one of Rita’s girlfriend’s girlfriend was a girl who’d gone to school with one of my brothers and who’d been a couple of grades behind me at school so it was good to see and catch up with her.
We all had a great time out on the ice and only one casualty really and that was Caz who took a dive early on. Unfortunately the photographic evidence of this fall was on her camera! LOL
After the ice skating we headed on to Strawberry Moons to dance off more of our energy. We didn’t think it would have a cover charge as we got there for just before 10pm but they were charging £8! It was pretty crowded on the dance floor with lots of Christmas parties and hen does. One group in particular was really getting into it with their very elaborate costumes – Strawberry Moons just seems to attract this type of clientele.
Rehana was finally able to come out and play with me in London so I thought it would be nice to get some dinner and catch a show. Fat Pig was a comedy that James had recommended to me so I thought why not.
The reference to Fat Pig could be a reference to Helen, the plus-sized woman that Tom cannot help falling for, to Carter, Tom’s “friend” at the office who is not backwards in being forward in his opinion on all things shallow, to Jeannie, Tom’s ex-girlfriend who becomes an angry, obsessed, bitter woman on finding out that Tom has kicked her to the curb for the more curve-friendly Helen, to Tom himself who cannot help but crumble under the current expectations, shallow surface-only value that society places on people where only looks matter. Whatever the case treading on this kind of ground can be uncomfortable for the audience but author Neil LaBute is for the most part able to tread this line carefully enough to allow the audience to enjoy a few laughs.
My favourite scene, and I think the strongest in the whole play, is the opening scene where Helen is at her most charming and sexy and Tom is at his most humble and generous. The witty banter and one-liners during this scene had Rehana and I laughing our heads off. Moving on to the second scene we are suddenly introduced to probably the most offensive character, Carter, who proceeds to spew forth a number of insults and digs at Tom, Helen and the world in general. Though you may hate this guy at least you know what you see is what you get and he doesn’t hide anything.
Jeannie, played by Kelly Brook, too is introduced and what we see is not particularly attractive under the surface even if what we see before our eyes is gorgeous. The character is terribly whiny and naggy and though in the end she seems to have come to some sort of peace with the whole Tom not being able to make up his mind situation her position might have been stronger had she stood up for herself at the beginning and written Tom off rather that constantly coming across as stalkerish and needy.
The comedy has its great moments and its low moments. For the most part I enjoyed it as too the audience around me. I really liked the ending too which, if not exactly Hollywood, was at least a reflection of real life and as a result you didn’t walk out feeling betrayed.
The night was still young when we came out of the theatre so Rehana and I continued to have our chit chat with a walk up Regent Street. I’d not realised it before but the strange Christmas lights on Regent Street actually formed very pretty stars when evening falls!
Both Leah and Pauline are finishing up at work this week so Pauline thought she’d organise a “leaving meal” of sorts. Unfortunately due to work commitments the meal ending up being the relatively small group of Leah, Pauline and I! But that didn’t stop us having a good time. The selected venue of choice was the attractive Pasha, not to be confused with Pacha the club, near South Kensington.
Pasha is situated over two floors with the upper floor dedicated it seemed for the more casual bar/lounge feel and the downstairs for the restaurant. I ran a bit late tonight but I was happy to see that the restaurant was more than happy to accommodate our needs – even, as it turns out, reserving a nice intimate table for us in a private alcove at the rear of the restaurant. We started off with some drinks upstairs. The drinks menu, for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, is rather extensive with a matching price to go with it. The girls were in an exuberant mood and ended up with three cocktails each for the night and though they were extremely delicious they didn’t seem to affected by the alcohol in the drink. I would hope that it was more the fact that the alcohol content wasn’t high rather than them being used to drinking that much. Ha ha. So the conclusion on the drinks is that they were very delicious, but expensive and not too strong.
The food contains the typical offerings for a Moroccan restaurant including a very large selection of cold and hot mezze (with options such as hommus, tabouleh, pastries, chicken wings, falafels, fritters etc.) and a fairly straight-forward mains menu which was dominated by dishes from the grill plus one tagine, one cous cous and a few other main type dishes. I guess the focus on this style of eating is on the sharing so you would expect that the focus is on the mezze. We opted to share three mezze and have a main each. In all honesty I was full before we even got to our mains. We opted for hommus, Lahambil Harissa Doloo (smoked beef ribs) and Garaa Bil Jibneh (Courgette & cheese fritters with mint yogurt dip.) All three dishes were delicious but a special shout out for the smoked ribs. Tender, smoky, tasty – it was perfect. Both Leigh and Pauline went for a mixed grill for their main and I went for something similar except mine was served on a bed of cous cous with some vegetable broth. I really liked my dish but it was so gigantic we three could have had it to share between the three of us.
The service tonight was very friendly and efficient and we must have been served by at least five different people. The head waiter or maybe manager for the evening even checked in with us a couple of times to make sure we were doing okay which was a nice touch. We were also entertained by the, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR belly dancers! When they came on (some time after 9pm) you couldn’t really miss it because the music was blaringly loud and they danced for what felt like at least half an hour. Most tables got their own individual dance from at least two of the girls. It felt even more personal for us because we were trapped … um, I mean, situated in the alcove. They were very good dancers and we were very impressed by their skills.
We totally enjoyed our night at Pasha which was obvious as we were surprised at how late it was when we finally left the restaurant. My only gripe, as I always gripe about these style of restaurant, is the £2.00 cover charge added to the bill for bread, olives and pickled vegetables. In addition to the 15% discretionary service charge these are the kind of small costs that add up to present you with a big bill at the end. Not that I’m saying the bread we received was not worth the £2.00 but I’d like to have the option to refuse it if we wanted to.
The food court at Westfield Shopping Centre is a crazy place. A few times we’ve gone to have lunch there but have always been discouraged by the large queues that seemed to go on and on and on. Finally we decided to head there for dinner and finally managed to check out the Mexican offering: Nineteen ten. It was actually recommended to Pat by a friend who’s friend or brother, I forgot which, owns it.
Even two weeks before Christmas the food court was surprisingly quiet compared with when we tried to come here for lunch on a weekend so thankfully finding a seat was relatively easy and there wasn’t a huge queue at Nineteen ten.
from the score, to the band, to the sets, to the performances – a great show. 
reservation his reply was to add us to the waiting list, to give us a buzzer and to assure us that we would get the first free table. My issue with this was that he didn’t even bother checking our reservation which, if he’d done his job properly, he should have seen that one of the few empty tables was allocated to us and seated us straight away. Normally I wouldn’t have minded but as we had to be out of there by 7.15 at the latest to make our show we were a bit concerned we would be late. Further, its not like this is a new offer so staff should have been aware of the time constraints for diners on this deal. When I asked for a menu so we could at least choose our meal and have it ready for when we were seated he couldn’t even do that and just ushered us to the bar. He quickly scooted away so I tracked down another more helpful member of staff. This is my second gripe – the person who had taken our reservation had failed to make note we were on the Billy Elliot offer so the staff didn’t know which menu to give us. Although the girl was very helpful and in fact arranged that we be seated straight away she had no clue which menu to give us and as a result there was confusion as to what we could order. Finally after about 15 mins we received the right menu and placed our orders.
