PLATFORM: DERAILED

Somebody asked me the other day why I’d stopped posting as they hadn’t seen much by me on the blog of late. I said that I’d been busy and well, there just isn’t anything worth going to these days. They politely demurred. Surely there was a feast of new and soon-come openings, they said, especially in the Casa DH nabe: Brasserie Blanc, The Anthologist, Platform etc. Why, we’d never had it so good. I wasn’t convinced.

After eating out for so many years DH have a acquired a bit of a sixth sense when it comes to restaurants. We can sniff out a wrong un a mile off, usually without even having to visit. This, let’s call it spooky, ability rarely lets us down.

The job is made even easier for us these days, thanks to the deluge of emails we now receive from restaurant PR’s. They always describe their exciting new concept, usually wrapped up in an important mission statement. They’re only doing their job I suppose, but sometimes it’s easy to forget it’s a restaurant they’re promoting and not some UN Green initiative.

Platform’s press release contained an interesting looking menu and talk of unusual cuts of meat supplied from a farm in Devon (not sure why this last bit is necessarily a good thing) intrigued me. They could certainly talk the talk. But could they walk the walk? Despite a little voice that said no, I decided to give them a try. After yet another disappointing pint in the Market Porter (why is this pub is so popular?) I toddled the short distance to Platform, located on Tooley Street.

It’s a big place is Platform, cavernous in fact. But somehow the owners have managed to make it feel very non-descript apart from an incongruous giant mirror ball dominating the space. I was told the venue was formerly a strip joint and I idly wondered if the mirror ball was a relic of its grubby past. The menu seemed a bit prosaic. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that if the dishes transcend their description, but a tad disappointing.

A starter of Brawn and Piccalilli seemed promising. The pickle was nicely made with just the right amount of acidic bite. The Brawn (pork head meat in jelly) looked the part and had a pleasingly chunky texture (just like me. Form a queue ladies). Crucially though, it lacked both seasoning and taste. Unfortunately, adjusting the first didn’t compensate for the second. It desperately needed something: a bit of nutmeg probably, better meat, definitely. Charging £7 for such a small amount of brawn didn’t give me a lovely warm feeling either..

As mentioned previously, much had been made of the fact the restaurant would be butchering whole animals to come up with a variety of cuts. The reality was considerably less exciting (wait for it): topside; mince; chicken leg; pie-filling and - be still my beating heart - pork belly. I went for the latter because, well, I like Pork and I love belly. Combine the two and I’m in piggy heaven. This little piggy had obviously gone to piggy hell.

Given the fatty nature of the cut it would take some doing to make it dry. The kitchen at Platform managed that and as a bonus it was stringy as well. The crackling, an integral part of any pork belly, was dry and unappetising. The meat seemed of poor quality too. It didn’t taste of pork, or indeed any identifiable meat.

I could only manage one small bite of a dark puck masquerading as bubble and squeak. Traditionally, this is made from the leftovers (specifically veg from the Sunday roast) but restaurants shouldn’t be taking this literally no matter how sustainable they want to be. Applesauce lacked tartness and limp chips tasted as if they had been cooked by dipping them in warm oil for thirty seconds. I left most of it.

To be fair the waiter did offer a replacement but if a kitchen can’t get some pretty simple things right what confidence could I have in the alternatives? Exit visas were imminent and I got the bill.

Yes, I know, I know, the place had just opened but I’ve been to enough restaurants to distinguish between teething troubles and fundamental flaws. Platform, on my one albeit brief visit exhibited signs of the latter. The sad thing about all this is that it wasn’t totally unexpected but sometimes, just sometimes, It’s nice to be surprised.

Like the man said, there just isn’t anything worth going to these days.

MORE: IS MORE

Two brand spanking new restaurants opening a day apart but separated by much longer in their approach to the food they serve. Yesterday I visited the Eastside Inn in Clerkenwell which I will post about, as we used to say in the Civil Service, in the fullness of time. Today I visited a place that I hadn’t read or heard anything about – a real restaurant bolt from the blue.

When I worked on the South Bank in the early Nineties there were three top notch places to go for a long, usually boozy, lunch (they all were in those days): the estimable Masters Super Fish; Trevor Gulliver’s Fire Station and probably the best of the lot in terms of cooking, Livebait. A few years later when I relocated to the borders of London’s trendy Hoxton, there was another superb restaurant that had just opened called The Real Greek. What all these places had in common were restaurateurs Theodore Kyriakou and Paloma Campbell.

They’ve now sold up and moved on and opened a small restaurant near London Bridge in an area being rebranded as More London. More is going to be open seven days a week for Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner and (phew) Takeaway. As Paloma told me they want to provide, well, more.

I was initially drawn in by the interior. After eating out in so many gastropubs which to be honest can be a bit gloomy, or in more upmarket places which are the epitome of good taste i.e. as boring as hell, it was nice to find somewhere with a bit more oomph in the décor. The fab furnishings seemed to have an effect on the efficient staff as well – there were plenty of smiles all round – and made for an agreeable atmosphere. Once they start getting bums on seats More will have a real buzz.

There was also a brightness to the cooking from a menu which drew from sunny regions around the Mediterranean and had echoes of food I’d eaten at The Real Greek.

A dish of braised Squid tasted a lot better than its rustic appearance. Chunks of the small cephalopod were al dente but not at all tough. They came in a deeply flavoured broth enriched with fennel and saffron with flecks of chili adding a welcome kick.

Two fat, pink Lamb cutlets, came with some seasonal vegetables that had been slowly cooked but retained a little bite and were anointed with some of the cooking juices. There was also a big blob of a tremendous smoked Auvergne puree. Roast potatoes needed a bit more crunch but I finished them all anyway.

For sweet my selection of Ice Creams, freshly made every day, were superb in taste and texture and worth the entrance fee alone. Monmouth coffee was, well I don’t need to tell you, do I ?

All apparently simple food, sure, but prepared with such a light hand and with decent ingredients that I felt virtuous just eating it all. And I don’t get to feel virtuous very often.

You might get the impression from the above that I liked More a lot. You’d be right. At the risk of coming over all Sunday Colour supp and sounding like a complete div, it was fresh, fun and funky and I left with a smile on my face. It will be a Month of Sundays before I’ll a) use those words again and b) have a smile on my face so make the most of it pop pickers.