Thu 9 - Cafe Rouge

The obligatory lime & kiwi smoothie, banana on the side for breakfast.

I wasn't very hungry so followed this with a sausage roll for lunch, from Konditor & Cook.  It tasted a bit odd, there was a mystery ingredient that shamefully I couldn't identify.  I tweeted this and received a response from K&C (great to see a chain that cares about what people think of them), listing the ingredients as follows; Moen's free-range pork sausage meat, onion, carrot (to make it lighter), mustard, breadcrumbs, fresh herbs, seasoning.  The mystery ingredient that I disliked was none of the above . . . maybe it was in the pastry . . . I will enquire.  Hats off for K&C's use of free-range pork.

I found myself awash with expiring vouchers (courtesy of Tesco Clubcard) for Cafe Rouge, so we headed to their outlet on Wellington Street in Covent Garden for a spot of dinner.  They've got a tapas-style small sharing plate menu (where doesn't?), so we chose four items from this (£10) as a starter.  Our selections included artichoke dip, smoked chicken & duck rillettes, saucisson & ham, and olives.  I doubt that any of this was made in Cafe Rouge, but it was all up-to-scratch, with the rillettes being our favourite.

 Things went downhill from there.  I ordered ribeye steak cooked medium rare, which after a considerable wait came out with only the slightest tone of pink.  The French would likely call this overcooked, though I suppose in the UK this counts as medium-well.  The overworked restaurant manager immediately offered to bring me a fresh steak, cooked as originally requested.  It arrived within ten minutes, but this time was undercooked!  Or at least half of it was . . . the outside was had black (burnt) lines running across it, whilst the centre was totally raw.  Quite an achievement, but not in a good way!  With our movie viewing time fast approaching there was no time to ask them for a third attempt, so we left twenty minutes later, me with a faint taste of liver (yes, really) in my mouth and strings of un-rendered fat stuck between my teeth.  Places like this really annoy me - a chain restaurant should have procedures in place to ensure consistency in their product, and there should be strong management making sure that these procedures are followed.  There's no excuse for a badly cooked steak, especially when it's one of their signature dishes, and charged at £16.95.