Rik's reviews
Review of Klute Disco
16 Jan 08, 17:28
Don't bother! 
I met my girlfriend of now-4-years at Klute. Usually when couples tell you how they met, they might say how it was in a beautiful bar or a homely pub, but no, I had to meet her, of all places, at Klute.
Klute is well known around Durham as being the worst place to go to on a night out. Unless you were reasonably pissed and your mates were going, you would literally have to be forced to enter, and you would usually regret it.
Like Fifi said in the previous review, the dance floor is tiny and full of posh toffs who seem to love the place. It stinks of sweat and the place looks like a barn.
FHM voted it second worst nightclub in Europe. The winning club apparently burnt down after the results were announced...
Don't bother!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Review of Tommy Guns
13 Dec 07, 11:39
Terrible Admin
This is the first of a (hopefully) two part review. Why it is in the two parts will be apparent.
I booked my appointment here yesterday for today. So today, I went along and they'd messed up the booking, and that I was actually booked in for Friday instead. I don't know how you can Thursday and Friday mixed up, but they did and it's definitely not good enough.
Anyway, I'll be posting the second part of my review tomorrow. Maybe I'll actually get a hair cut...
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Whole Foods
25 Jun 07, 14:08
Expensive and bad tasting
After getting slightly stuck in Kensington yesterday and not being able to get home in time to do the weekly shop, I decided to check out Whole Foods, the brand new organic supermarket that's got tree-huggers and eco-warriors into a tizzy.
The first thing you notice when you walk in is how American the store seems. Most supermarkets manage to retain some Britishness about them, despite being foreignly-operated, but Whole Food seems like it's been transported directly from the middle of America. You'd be excused for thinking that the prices were in dollars too, but unfortunately they're in good old pounds sterling, which makes Whole Food verging on the ridiculously expensive.
An example of this is a loaf of organic bread for £1.99, or a pack of sausages for over 3 quid. Now, you'd be let off buying this if it was of the highest quality, but eating the bread was like eating cardboard. It wouldn't toast either, and tasted horrible. I seriously have had Tesco's cheapest value bread that's been better. The sausages were also foul too and had all the texture of thick rice pudding. These products were Whole Foods branded too, so you think that they'd want to be representative of the company.
I did however buy some vegetables to go with my sausages which were actually delicious. There were as good as any veg box scheme you can get, although at an heavily inflated price.
I know people might say that this place has better food, but I think that if you want tastier food, you would be far better off (in the monetary sense as well) going for a normal supermarkets organic range. Whole Foods will be popular over here as it has been in America, but it really needs to look at it's quality control and try not to sell food that just doesn't taste nice.
6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Review of Foxtons
12 Jun 07, 14:04
Go to a friendly estate agents instead
Foxtons have something of a reputation in London - and it's not a good one. Their suited-up estate agents can be seen driving round in the green Mini's with punk style graffiti on the side. Slightly odd for an estate agent to have punk designs on a Mini but I guess it makes them want to attract a younger market.
Their agents tend to be overly aggressive and argumentative, even for estate agents. They will find properties for you that they know you can't afford in the hope that they get a bigger commission from you. No, Foxtons, I don't want to get a flat that's more than £125p/m over my absolute maximum. I'm not stupid.
Strangely though, when showing you a flat, they will be very laissez-faire about it, despite being 40 minutes late for your appointment, even though they could have walked there in 20 minutes. They don't exactly win you over with their sales technique.
The only good things about Foxtons is their selection of houses and flats. Check their website. Most of the places are expensive but the range is pretty impressive. All the years of ripping down other estate agents signs must have helped.
If you do find a place at Foxtons, make sure you only see the one flat and don't look at anything else, otherwise they'll be phoning you up and emailing you all the time, giving you rubbish flats that no one else wants.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Miso Islington
03 Jun 07, 21:48
Top of the flops
If I'm reviewing bad restaurants, I use a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being slightly bad and 10 being Miso. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this place at all.
If you enjoy eating duck noodles where the duck is actually 99% unchewable fat and the noodles taste, and look, more like worms, then this is the place for you. However, if you're even slightly sane, you'd go to Wagamama just down the road. Now, I'm definitely not a fan of Wagamamas, what with their terrible service, but at least they have consumable food.
Talking about Wagamama's terrible service, Miso also does suffer from exactly the same problem - not enough competent staff. It's not exactly service with a smile either, with waiters literally slamming your food on to the table without saying anything. They certainly know how to stop any repeat custom.
I would say the food is cheap, which it is for an Asian restaurant in Angel, but you would have to pay me to eat at this place again. In fact, I'd pay not to.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Ping Pong Dim Sum
14 May 07, 22:33
Very disappointing
I went to Ping Pong based on a friend saying his friend said it was okay. Maybe I should have asked someone who'd actually visited... Don't get me wrong, the place looks good, the furniture is very posh and fancy-club-esque. However, the table we were sat on was a round one. Normally, rounded tables aren't much of a problem for me... except for when other people are sat on the same table. Struggling to eat with chopsticks when you have strangers directly facing you is definitely not the most comfortable experience. I'm sure the food and drink is high quality - it better had have been at the price - but tasted merely average and plain. On the plus side, the staff were friendly enough, and as I said, the place looked nice. But combine below average food and an uncomfortable experience and you get a very disappointing night out.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Pitcher and Piano
13 May 07, 16:59
Don't bother
Where do I start with this? Okay, I was on a quick Friday dinner out there with work, and we ordered nothing too fancy. Fish and chips, sausage and chips, that sort of thing. There was a few of us, but we thought that it should come in about 20 minutes. When the food had turned up, they only brought half the food. So half of us didn't have any food at all. When we asked about this, the staff told us that it's coming. 5 minutes later, the staff told us just another 10 minutes. So after 20 minutes of only half of us having food, we asked again and were told there's a computer error and the food hadn't been ordered. By then, it was time to get back to work, so half of us hadn't had dinner.
Okay, this could have been a one-off incident, but the food wasn't of the highest quality or taste. The drinks were overpriced and the pub itself was horribly generic and dull. The staff were pretty rude and unhelpful too. I want to give a redeeming feature to the pub, but I can't think of one. Says it all really...
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Subway
10 May 07, 12:38
Avoid!
It's rare to go into a Subway and expect a really nice sandwich. You tend to go in and want an okay sandwich, rather than some total mess of a meal that looks closer to modern art. I didn't know whether to send it to the Tate or eat it. I've never seen a sandwich made so messily. No wonder they call them sandwich artists. Not only that, but I had to shout my order across the queue because the 'artist' couldn't be bothered to wait for the people in front to move down. Service with a smile, this definitely isn't. I then sat at a dirty table. Not by choice but because all the tables were dirty, and I went for the cleanest one. So that's dirty tables, rude staff and a sandwich that looks closer to a salad. Don't bother!
0 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Wagamama
01 May 07, 16:39
Terrible!
Wagamama's service never seems to be their strong point. All the London restaurants seem to suffer from bad service and the only time I've had good service at a Wagamama was in Manchester. Usually the reason that I go to Wagamama's is the high quality, tasty food - I'm kind of expecting bad service now. Not a good business strategy for them I'm sure, but the staff never always let them down completely. Anyway, I went to the Soho Wagamama during a mid-week lunchtime, a particularly quiet time of the week, so I was slightly hoping for better service. But I was totally wrong. Admittedly, we were in a large party of about 8, but still, the food shouldn't take an hour to arrive. We shouldn't expect forgotten drinks, forgotten meals, meals arriving at completely different times (half hour between them), unhelpful staff, etc.
Okay, so service isn't their strong point, but the food will be good I thought. Again, I was wrong. I was served a lukewarm katsu curry, with a thick layer, similar to the ones you get on custard, that you get from microwaving meals. Not nice. I strongly believe that my meal was microwaved and not to a correct temperature. Why they need to microwave my meal when I'm expecting freshly cooked food, I will never know? I thought my opinion of the Wagamama brand couldn't be damaged much more. The visit to this branch certainly proved me wrong.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.