Dim T Restaurant – Victoria. London

The exterior of the restaurant

Last Monday, few friends and I were trying to break up what I call the “strict Monday code”. The “strict Monday code” means you do not go out on Monday evening as it is the first day of the week and usually the busiest. This outing was completely unplanned and I really need de some convincing to join the group for dinner.

Inside the restaurant

The girls wanted to go to Nandos… Who goes OUT TO NANDOS?… I can cook chicken at home thank you! If I am going to enjoy an evening out it has to be in a place where I cannot cook any of the meals thank you…

As we walked towards Victoria in search of something different, we stumbled across Dim T. I had seen this place before, it didn’t look very inspiring. Funny how some places look good in the sun.

THE taepot, sticks & basket

We decided to go in. The inside looked very Japanese inspired… all darkish and wooden…

I almost expected to be served by Japanese or at least Oriental waiters. Nope, it didn’t happen. Our waitress and the other staff seemed to be of Eastern European descent. I asked our waitress what the influences of the restaurant were, she wasn’t too sure… and I wasn’t impressed.



Steamed dumpling & soy sauce



‘I was able to order white wine here as there was nothing original on the drinks list. Check it out at http://www.dimt.co.uk/

For starters we all had some kind of steamed dumpling with fried pork… very stodgy and dry. I didn’t like it and will not order it again. One thing I did like was the fact that the dumplings came in some kind of wicker covered basket.  My friend’s Jasmine tea was presented it one of the cutest heavy duty teapots I have seen so far… I was slightly disappointed that the eating sticks came out of the paper wrappers as you would at a common Chinese restaurant… not that I visit them often.  



Salmon Salad



For my main meal, I ordered a wasabi and salmon salad… which I rally enjoyed. The portion was really generous and I was given extra greens at no cost at all. The salad was very filling and generous in fried salmon. I really enjoyed it. If I was to visit this restaurant again, I will definitely order the same salad, which at £9 is a good value for money.

My friends ordered some coconut noodles with green beans and chicken and Nasigoreng (what’s that!) chicken prawn with chilly.

Can you see the prawns?

Since we all ordered very different dishes we did as you do, taste each other’s, meals.  The coconut noodle really tasted coconutty…  if I liked noodles, I would definitely order this dish. As for the prawn dish, there was a LOT of prawns in it. What I‘d say for this restaurant is that the portions are very generous. I am not sure whether I should appreciate their generosity or be suspecting of the source of their ingredients.

The restaurant seem busy enough for a Monday night, this tells me that they might be consistent in the quality of their meals and service. So, I should give it another try before letting my suspicious mind run riot.

The service was great and we didn’t wait too long for the main meals to be delivered at our table.

By the time we finished our mains, there was no REAL space for dessert. Besides, the desserts list wasn’t inspiring nor original. Otherwise, I am sure that I would have found some space in my stomach for some.

For now, I will give Dim T 3 stars minus 1 for the non-authentic staff. I didn’t have time to check out the loos as we spent way too much time yapping. Well, the loos visit will be for another time.

Dim T is situated at 56 - 62 Wilton Road, London Victoria; Opposite Nando’s and the big Sainsbury’s and next to patisserie Valery.

Do post your thoughts after your visit would you?!

C ya!

The Reviewer

The SunCoast – Eastbourne

I was recently asked to organise a digital training event in Eastbourne I found this small venue away from the beach , but not too far from the train station.

From the outside, it is impossible to work out how this venue is inside… (Do not judge a book by its cover).  

The main room

Upon entering the venue, I was agreeably surprised by how welcoming it was… it felt like a hotel venue. There is like an anti-chambre between the outside and the main room. The anti-chambre is large enough to be used as a registration space for delegates. Once registered the delegates can be asked to walk through the main event room and use the Lounge where the coffee is served and where the toilets can be found off of.

Walking through the main room, delegates can already pick their seats and get rid of their stuff before heading to the Lounge or loos to refresh themselves and network before the main event.

View of the big screens

The main room is a large rectangular room that is almost a blank canvas that can be turned into anything and used for any kind of events. It is equipped with 2 x 12ftsq screens and has the latest toys in term of PA and presentation technologies. This room can easily seat 200 theatre style and 120 cabaret style.

In terms of catering, it would be best to use and external catering company if food is needed for your event; contact the Events Manager of the venue who might have recommendations. There is a small kitchen, but it cannot be used for cooking. All foods must be brought in ready to serve.

1 part of the lounge

The Lounge is great for coffees and teas, but can also be used for small meetings or breakout sessions. There are 3 other rooms in the venue that can be used in this way.

The ladies loos is one of the best decorated and relaxing I have seen in such venue so far. That is always a ++ in my books.

There is plenty of parking spaces available for delegates but the car park must be cleared by 5pm.

The ladies

The managers of this venue are highly accommodating and very helpful. Do contact them if you are looking to book a venue in Eastbourne with a human touch.

The SunCoast venue is situated at 3 Coutlands Road, Eastbourne BN22 8TR

The managers are Julie & Rob Smillie Contactable on 01323 732 425.

Don’t forget to feedback after using the venue.

Ciao!

The Reviewer

The Big Sleep Hotel. Eastbourne

I went to  Eastbourne last week end. There, I had organised a small event for 100 people.

Altered reception area

Having failed to confirm on time the great hotel I had picked for my team to stay at on time, we were reduced to stay at the first hotel that would have us at such short notice. So we stayed at the Big Sleep Hotel on Eastbourne Parade. I had never come across it before (Big Sleep is a chain). The website should have been a warning enough but…

So I got to the hotel on the Friday afternoon. I couldn’t find the door… what I could see looked like a service door,  I pushed it, got in the reception area … (The service door was in fact the main entrance) … looked very clean and the staff was pleasant enough. To the left, a picture of the reception area altered to hide and actual guest and staff with the photo of John Malkovich.

I asked and was shown the lift… ahahah… I walked passed it, came back to the reception asking “Where is the lift?”,  “it is just there.” The receptionist replied … the door to the lift looked  like a bedroom door. I got in with my luggage. … no more than 2 people can get in that lift with their luggage.  Door of the lift shuts, then, starts a cricking noise… it sounded like a kitchen elevator… This gets better. I got to my floor looked around… It all looks and smells like a teenagers dormitory. The colours are … well looked at the picture on the side: Grey stained carpets, white clinical walls, bad lighting.

Malkovich & the curtain

I got in my room and a nutter looking John Malkovich was staring back at me from the wall. The bedroom looks like a 10 year old boy’s display room in a IKEA shop…. Baby blue with a baby blue shaggy rug… I mean curtain… who in their right mind let a child decorate this place?...  guess what? The coat hanger is just above the TV… I had to double check that I wasn’t in guest house where I had to stay in the little boy’s room. Two good things about the room though. The view of the sea and the new bath towels… Nope! I will not come back event for that.



Tv in my room

After checking my room, I when downstairs to further explore the reception areas and came across an oddly decorated room which turn out to be the bar and breakfast area… with those quirky colours, I don’t think a chandelier has a place here… I DON’T GET THE DECO HERE (puzzled look)...  

The reception and bar areas are worlds apart; any one would hardly believe that the accommodations and this are even in the same building…. Needless to say, my colleagues hated the hotel and tried to stay out of it as much as possible… my boss got a lovely a pink room! Imagine the set up of my room in baby pink… I’d love to meet the designer of this Hotel; it must have been a dare to decorate it this way me thinks.

Bar & Breakfast area

Lesson learnt; in Eastbourne, do not book anything under £100 if you want to enjoy your stray. Do not always trust what you read on Trip Advisor... Some hotels post their own review on the site.

I don’t think I will be visiting the town any time soon anyways… a day trip should do it for now.These are my views. Do not take them as they are, try and form your own opinion. Info on the Big Sleep Hotel here.
The Reviewer.

The Crown & Sceptre. South London

I went to lunch last Saturday with some volunteers from our local homeless charity. We met in a pub in Central Croydon, South London.

This costs £5.50 in London

 The Crown & Sceptre is a very old pub located on High street Croydon opposite Leon House. The location is very well served by the public transports and not too far from the shopping centre.

Pubs are not my usual hang outs because of the smell of beer that embraces you every time you push the door into one.

I was pleasantly surprised when I entered this one as I didn't get the beers smell. It might be perhaps due to the time it was in the day.

Looking around at the clientele, it was a great mix of whites, Indians and blacks. Most of them, families or groups of friends meeting for lunch. I dread to think of what this place must be like on matches day; there are TV screens everywhere.  Just on the side of the wall where our group sat, there are 3 TV screens in a 5 metres portion of pub.

There is a little lounge like area toward the back of the pub. Maybe I’ll seat there the next time.

The drinks seem to be really cheap here; I ordered a Sauvignon Blanc and had a full glass at £3.50. In central London that would have cost me £5.50 for this not-best-quality-but-drinkable wine…

For food,  I ordered fish & chip and that cost £4.75. At 1.30pm, this was my third function of the day and I didn’t want to spend much so this was pretty great and unthreatening. If it didn’t taste good,  I could leave it without a second thought.

Fish & Chips no peas £ 4.75

The fish & chips actually tasted nice, the fish piece wasn’t the usual giant slobby soaked batter that I usually see in others’ plates. As I looked at my 7 other friends’ food orders, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of food that was coming out of the kitchens.

The menu card had Indian and Chinese dishes available to order and I am told that, the pub has an Indian and a Chinese chef. This is great and guaranties that you would get what you order. It also means that you will not find Indian spices in your Chinese meal. I am also told that the guys in the kitchen are also the owners of the pub which is event better as I am sure that food is the heart of this family pub… they will make sure that you get what you order.

I also used the ladies there and must say, it was clean enough a part from the stained sink. There was no smell and it seems to be cleaned many times during the day. The colours are warm and there is a full length mirror… always a plus for the ladies. Yeah, I am obsessed with loos.

Everyone from my group seems to enjoy the food they were eating and the drinks were flowing as they were cheap.

I had a good time here and will be coming back during the summer for a glass of rosé in the back garden which I didn't have the time to try.

I’d recommend this pub for a family lunch and ladies (not chavs) meeting for an afternoon drink before dinner.

I’d give it two stars plus 1 star for the lovely waitresses; they are the picture of patience… and will visit again.

Crown & Sceptre is located 282 High Street; London; CR0 1NG; 020 8726 0080

Banana Leaf - South Croydon

Last week I was invited to a curry house or dinner with a bunch of friends... at The Banana Leaf curry house.

Photo from the restaurant's website

 I have never been to a curry house before and frankly I can’t really stand the smell of curry. Curry is a very British thing and it is funny the reaction you get when you tell people that you do not like it.

When you go in a curry house it seems, EVERY thing has THE CURRY spice in it by default and if you do not like it, you will be reduced to have the naan bread on its own…

View from my table

The Banana Leaf is located on Addiscombe Road in Croydon, Surrey. I was told that it was a shop with a green sign. It seems on that side of Croydon everything is GREEN! I walked up and down and struggled to find the restaurant… The entrance was un-impressive and I am told that the restaurant has won many restaurateurs prizes?! Isn’t that supposed to include the location and presentation of a restaurant… anyway... I digress. So I found the entrance, got in. It was really dark at the entrance and the only source of light seemed to be coming from a massive fish tank near the till.

The poori  with Mushrooms

 I was taken to the basement where some of my friends were already seating. After all that walk, I was blooming thirsty and just wanted a glass of tap water to cool me down. So I asked for it. The waiter didn’t bring me my glass of tap water before 15 people had placed their drink orders including me and after he had given everyone their drink. Only then, he brought me my tap water… now that put my nose out of joint for the evening!

We proceeded to order the food. It was quite tasty, but often mushy. They didn’t take too long to serve from oder to delivery. I ordered Poori and mushrooms or starters and an aubergine curry with a coconut naan… (I had never heard or tasted any of that before).  Have I told you they were both curries? Yes they were! I skipped dessert… it could have been another sort of curry.



Aubergine curry with naan bread

While we were waiting for our food, I sneaked into the ladies… I always find that if the toilets are clean somewhere it is the sign of how clean the place might be; Restaurant, hotel, a friend house etc…

In this place, the toilet wasn’t the most clean. The taps were surrounded with a accumulation of dirt and the ladies toilet seat was broken. Light in there was very dim too. As for the hand dryer… well I didn’t use it as I thought that if the dryer recycles the air in the room in which it operates, all the possible gremlins will wind up being spitted on the hands I have just washed… yes I am a bit deranged like that… I went back to join the group still wiping my wet hands on my derriere as I suspected my clothes must have been much cleaner than the air from the dryer.

Overall, I will give 2 out of five stars for the food at Banana Leaf.  The venue will have 1 out of five stars. I don’t think I will ever set foot there unless blackmailed.

Highly recommended for High Street fast-food consumers, not for those who want to enjoy the environment as well as the food.

That is what I think, but Don’t take my word for it. Try it and form your own opinion.

Ciao!

The Reviewer.

Ristorante Gustoso - London

The full name of the restaurant is Gustoso Ristorante & Enoteca - London

Inside of the restaurant - Restaurant's own photo

To welcome a new colleague this week, we decided to go check out a new restaurant that opened in Wilton Place between Pimlico and Vitoria.

I saw this place being renovated throughout last year and was really looking forward to eating there. Wilton place is full of offices and private residences; it is also a very quiet street not far from the Queen Victoria Sports centre. It is almost a surprise to stumble on a restaurant here. Only people who use this street as a short cut towards Victoria Street will know there is an Italian restaurant here.

Ladies that lunch

4 of us went to launch and I had booked the table prior to leaving the office. An Italian lady’s voice took my booking making me even more curious than I was already. When we got there, we were welcomed by the smell of a big and very beautiful bouquet of flowers placed in the anti-chambre of the restaurant. We were attended to fairly quickly by a very smiley Italian waitress.

Once seated, another waiter, equally agreeable and Italian too presented (not given, but presented) us with menu boards. I was impressed! The menu and drinks list was beautifully presented on a brown varnished wooden slate… (can you tell? I love artisty and beautiful things). I am easily excited about original things… While we considered what to order, he brought and served us water with ice…Nice touch.

Taking a look around us, the restaurant was beautifully laid, with red light shadings, beigy-brown wooden tables with very darker patterned lines running through, a little pot of flower on every table. The walls had these beautiful Italian drawings and caricatures. Another wall behind me had a big black board with the menu du jour handwritten with chalk. The clients during this lunchtime seem to all be professionals from the area... no lost fans of liquid lunches.

my food order order

Since it was my first time here, I wanted to taste a lot of small dishes so I can make my mind up. I ordered Bruchetta & wild boar pâté, green olives, prawns with Chilli mayonnaise dip .My colleagues tried the fried sardines, spinach, lasagne and other things. The food presentation was really good and would have all tasted really really good had it not been for the amount of salt in the food. WOW!

The most beautiful olives

My wild boar pâté was so salty that I had to scrape the pate and eat the bread on its own. Tut tut. I was really impressed with how it all looked though. Even the green olives really looked like straight-from-the-tree green and glistening with olive oil. We all made the effort to finish our food… It would have been a sin not to.

I hope the salt was just a blip and will return to the restaurant again. If the food is less salty then, I think we may have found a new lunch time hangout.

the rolled towers are in the middle

Two of us did check out the ladies and liked them too; clean, modern with some character given to it by the mirror on the wall. To dry hands there is a choice between a dryer and some actual small real (not paper) hand towel, which I suspect are steamed and cleaned daily…

On my way up from the ladies, I spotted a small private room in the basement… I think I may have my next birthday lunch there.

Over all, I will give the place 4 stars out of 5. They lose 2 points because of the salt, but gained one on the authenticity and the accent of the waiters. The food is very fordable and there is something to eat from £1.50 on the menu. Just pop n to feel the atmosphere.

See you there!

Gustoso Ristorante & Enoteca is situated 35, Wilton Place, London, SW1P 1JH

The Reviewer

The Royal Station Hotel

Our first stop is Newcastle, North East England!

Main entrance - Hotel's own photo



When I was younger, many times in movies you will see a rich family going on holiday and descent in a very posh hotel. As soon as their taxi arrived in front of the hotel, the valet will rush to carry their bags… then, the TV screen will be filled with the reception area of the hotel… luxurious decors, rich carpets in the William Morris style, oil paintings and gold signage everywhere.

The corridor with carved wood

Well, checking-in in this hotel last Friday, I felt as if I was in one of those films. I felt a bit underdressed when I walked in. The receptionists were great. Wore bit too much make up and fake tan, but very welcoming. I got my room number, took the lift… slightly disappointing as it was modern and didn’t fit in with the rest of the reception area. Once on my floor, the corridor decors reflected the reception area, the stairs, the carvings in the wood… Just beautiful.

Not sure that my room fitted in, but, I liked it. It came with a flat screen TV, freeview and a desk. Despite having been given a room near an emergency exit, I was really happy with it; a small double room that I booked for £53 the night. What a bargain!

My bathroom

The wardrobe had a really good ironing board and iron, bath robe and slippers.The bathroom was clean, and also had a tub.

The restaurant didn’t let me down and the decors carried on from the main entrance with the same old feel. You will just have to visit it to see those beatiful booth-like seats as the photo below isn't really clear. For dinner, I  enjoyed some lamb on a bed of fried cabbage with baby carrots. Dessert was a chocolate and truffles with praline and dark chocolate sauce.

The restaurant booth

It feels like I should rate this place 4 stars out of five. But, the hotel is so centrally located that even the drunks seat on the steps and clients have to navigate to get pass them. It didn’t appear as if the staff from the hotel cared or could move them on. Then, there was way too much noise during the night (this is a Thursday night. It must be worst at week end). My colleague who had a room few doors from mine felt as if someone was trying to get in her room. As for me, I heard the emergency door slammed few times during the night.

Newcastle Daffodils

I am not sure how secure this hotel is for its clients, but I really liked it and feel I should give it another try.

This hotel gets 3 stars from me.  The Royal Station Hotel is part of the Cairn Group of hotels, exits since 1858 and has over 100 rooms.

For further info visit http://www.royalstationhotel.com/

For bargain bookings check special offers and book via the website directly.

Better photos of the hotel are on the hotel's website. Do feast your eyes on them!

Happy travelings!

The Reviewer.