THE PALM: CROSSING OVER FOR A LOT OF SILVER

DH recently had an impromptu tasting of Steaks at Goodman, the Russian owned Steakhouse just off Regent Street. Manager David Strauss has not been idle since our last visit and now the restaurant is a popular destination for the Hedgies and the (former) BSDs of the City who are contenting themselves these days with 1K Steaks and 1K bottles of wine in lieu of new Ferraris and Chalets in Verbier.

During our mini-vertical tasting we had a USDA Rib Eye, a dry-aged bone-in Sirloin and a Grain-finished Rib (the latter two from Jack O’Shea’s). In our humble opinion the USDA meat came well behind the other two. Still, I can accept that those four-letters will be enough of a draw for Americans meat-eaters in London, even if the product itself pales in comparison to our homegrown product.

Another draw for our friends from across the pond might be the latest Steakhouse to hit London, The Palm, which is in the vanguard of an expected influx of other US-based Steakhouses. So don’t be surprised to see a Smith and Wollensky, a Ruth’s Chris or a Morton’s in London over the next few years.

It seems The Palm has already got plenty of fans – on my visit on the official opening day (they’d already had a soft opening) the joint was fully booked. Even better for them, the restaurant seems to have attracted the sort of clientele that don’t find the prices at all off-putting, and some of the prices are very off-putting. Mind you, the restaurant is located in the heart of Belgravia where a year ago I commented upon the rich dickheads that seem to infect the place. Let’s hope bad luck hasn’t befallen them over the past year, eh ?

I’d had a little daydream before I visited. A sort of visualisation of me visiting the perfect Steakhouse: the clubby interior, the crisp white tablecloths. Sipping an icy Dry Martini while my Porterhouse was seared at a ferociously high temperature. Interspersing bites of my bloody steak, dipped in béarnaise, with mouthfuls of crisp frites and gulps of a nice Rioja. Of course the reality was much more prosaic.

There appears to be a definite hierarchy to the seating at The Palm. VIPs are herded into a dimly lit, clubby looking area with banquettes, Siberia is definitely at the front near the bar. I was in the ‘undecided’ zone, lit by daylight so I could see what I was eating but which made the place look a little tacky and chain-like (funny, that).

You can sometimes deduce a restaurant’s intent by the way they handle the small things. The Palm is not so great at the small things. The butter for the bread had come straight from the fridge so that even the bowl it was in was ice-cold. It was colder though than my Dry Martini which seemed to have been made by someone who knew how to make one, theoretically, but had never actually made one before. It lacked the visceral thwack that a good DM should deliver.

There was further disappointment with the menu which was missing all the signature Shrimp and Clam dishes although the reason given – the chef couldn’t get any shellfish of the appropriate quality – seemed reasonable enough. Less reasonable was the explanation for such a poor range of Steaks (no Porterhouse, nothing on the bone) compared to the US branches, which was something along the lines of we’ve just opened. Er, okay and the problem is what exactly ?

A starter plate of Calamari Fritti was surprisingly good – well the main ingredient was, being nicely cooked and tender. There was a rather desultory, under-dressed salad of Iceberg Lettuce underneath and a Cocktail sauce on the side that needed a good kick up the backside but it was a harmless enough way to begin a meal. All the starters are available in half-portions as are the sides so the prices for those dishes are less scary than they look.

The price of my wet-aged Sirloin Steak was very scary. Scary in that there wasn’t one. Price On Application usually means if you have to ask, Work’us, you can’t afford it. It was the only Steak available which was of a reasonable size so I went for it anyway. It was £69 before service – hence I shall be living off mushy peas for the foreseeable future.

So what does £69 get you in Steak Terms ? Well, not a properly cooked Steak for starters. It was 510g of what looked like a New York Strip, rather than a Sirloin, which been cooked Medium-Rare to Medium rather than Black and Blue as requested. As I examined my steak from all angles the waiter noticed it wasn’t right and immediately offered get another one cooked.

The next attempt was worse than the first one as this time the steak had hardly any char at all. They offered to cook yet another steak but given that they’d had two shots I told them not to bother. In the end they took it off the bill but I put nearly all of it back as a tip for the very good service. And what about the steak itself ? Well, it was soft and dull and didn’t taste very aged at all. Even in its previous version I think I would have been underwhelmed.

Given the main event was so disappointing I won’t go on about the soft skin-on chips or the creamed spinach that should have at least spoken of those two ingredients. I will, however, mention the service again which was, in the US way, friendly, courteous and helpful. Everyone including the GM seemed genuinely perturbed that I hadn’t had a good steak but in the end if they can’t deliver on their raison d'être then they’re not much use to me. The bigwigs of the surrounding Embassies will love it. Established places, like Hawksmoor and Goodman shouldn’t be quaking in their boots just yet.

PS The last picture is my interpretation of a properly cooked steak

THE PANTECHNICON ROOMS

Now all the angles have been played in three's
There isn't much that I can say

Apropos of nothing in particular (although I have just come back from Spain) Spanish TV chefs are hopeless. They really are. Every time I watch them – although there only seem to be three in total – they’re always making the same thing, usually gazpacho, sometimes empanada, occasionally pork fillets fried with green peppers. The Spanish do however eat very well in restaurants at just about every level: from the humble comedor to the Michelin starred.

We, in Britain have a lot of TV chefs. We have shedloads of them. Some of them are even good. You see their faces on the merchandise they’re pushing. Unlike Spain though we eat well in very few places in the UK. A meal here is going to be expensive and average or (most likely) shit. Our fascination with celebrity and novelty blinds us to how awful some of our food is. In Spain you can go into any asador and experience cooking as craft and be pretty sure of a decently cooked and tasty steak every time. I couldn’t get that in the much hyped and lauded Maze Grill at over forty quid. Just for the poor cow.

Similarly, professional critics have been wetting their pants over Hix Oyster and Chop House where I found the ingredients to be average and the execution amateurish. I can only assume the praise for this joint is down to Mark Hix having a lot of friends. That, or it takes a lot of brown-nosing to get membership of the soon-come Ivy private members club (it’s probably safe to say that Hix and AAGill already have theirs).

The point is (I think) why am I getting so many duff meals and paying through the nose for them.

Ok rant over,

I’d visited Thomas Cubitt a year or so ago and had a decent meal. If you avoid the downstairs which is full of young, annoying, braying toffs and eat in the upstairs restaurant where the slightly-less annoying parents hang then you’d have a reasonable time. From memory the meat cooking was pretty good but generally it all tended to heavy-handedness: over-reduced sauces and the like. The owners have obviously done well enough though to open up a sibling venue a bit deeper into Belgravia.

This is consulate country: big flags, big limos, big men in suits. Using the word gastropub to describe The Pantechnicon Rooms is as inappropriate as the sounds emanating from HS when he’s asleep. There’s a downstairs bar and a plush dining room which although oddly bereft of tablecloths (Thomas Cubitt has them) had thick brass-edged tables and big chairs with enough cowhide to accommodate my big butt.

Looking around a full dining room I got the impression that most of those eating here didn’t lose any sleep over keeping up with their mortgage repayments. This was especially true of the American at the next table who seemed very keen to let his dining companion, and the rest of the room, know that him and his “buddies” all had very large wine cellars. I later looked up the definition of knobhead and whaddya know there was a picture of his fat stupid face gurning back at me.

If the food at Thomas Cubitt was more meaty in bias then The Pantechnicon Rooms was of the fishy persuasion. Most of the first half of the menu and a chunk of the second is given over to seafood in one form or another but the separate section for Caviar probably gives the game away re who their intended audience really is. The prices for Shellfish are no less scary - twelve quid for a prawn cocktail anyone ?

Deciding on the cheaper option of Oysters I was disappointed with the flavour six Fin de Clair Rocks. They looked the business but lacked the brininess and length of taste of good natives. Not even close and there wasn’t even the compensating factor of plenty of flesh that you usually get with rocks.

Barbequed Quail with Baked Ricotta and Date Chutney sounded a lot more interesting than it actually looked. You’d have thought that at £8.50 for a Quail they could have spatchcocked the whole thing but instead and with breathtaking parsimony they’d jointed and skewered two small joints. The Barbeque must have been still heating up (I told you to start it earlier) given the lack of colour on the skin. The accompanying cheese was a small dried out, chalky tasting lump, topped off with half a grapefruit segment for reasons that only the chef would know. There was a soft wafer of bacon and some unnecessary leaves. The only thing not screwed up on this dish was the date chutney but then I’m guessing it wasn’t made ici.

The mysterious Rose Veal was in fact a poor attempt at a Wiener Schnitzel. Any qualities the meat possessed were more or less totalled by the oily breadcrumb coating. It came with some unbilled and dull pommes puree. The chips were prosaic and not worthy of further comment.

Going to new restaurants is a lot like going out on a first date. You get the initial thrill of making contact with the target of your amorous endeavours and arrange a date and time. Then there’s the excitement of the build up to the actual event and the counting down of the days. On the day itself, you reconfirm that it’s all going ahead. You spruce yourself up a bit. Maybe there’s a little, shall we say, stiffener, beforehand. You meet up and there’s the first impressions and all that getting to know one another stuff.

Then it all starts going downhill. It’s not what you expected at all. You’re disappointed, upset even. And it’s expensive. Finally, you decide to bail out before pudding and mutter something about everything being “ok” when prompted (or if you’ve overdone the stiffener throw a right wobbler and put the world to rights in a frighteningly coherent and yet nutzoid manner). There isn’t a second time.

Sound familiar ? I don’t have much luck with restaurants either.