I was treated to a dinner here after an afternoon of lectures. The interior doesn't need much detailed explanation cause if you've seen one TBA you've pretty much seen them all. Typical gastro-pub style with dark furnitures and cluttered walls - all to reminiscent the typical British pub, just without the British present. We were a quite large gathering of people, a 12-top, so I'm well aware that that in itself provides a service challenge. The food was pre-ordered and for starters we were served a charcuterie- and cheese platter that both looked and tasted really good. We also got some platters of grilled garlic bread topped with mozzarella and side-serving of aioli. This was probably the best dish of the three. Good flavor, right amount of seasoning, crispy toast and good mix of hard and soft cheeses. Main dish was a 200 gram rib eye steak served with roasted root vegetables and morel sauce. The problem with this dish was that the meat was just too big and too much. It was off-putting. Also a lot of vegetables and the morel sauce, while good in taste, was just poured over the meat. The second issue was that the meat was over cooked, medium well with some parts more well done than anything else. A rib eye steak with even one degree over medium isn't pleasant at all. For dessert we were served a dark chocolate pannacotta with berries. At least it said so on the menu. Truthfully, it was more like a dense chocolate cake (forget about "the dance of the pannacotta") in a large glass with the top surface of this pannacotta holding three small raspberries and a half-bad attempt at a temperate dark chocolate disc (it actually fell apart). It was so much chocolate that I could only bare two small spoons of it, and I needed all three berries to balance out those two spoons, before I put it aside not to even look at it again.
So on the positive side is the starter dish(es), even though it was perhaps a bit too much even here. The negatives are however numerous, and even though our waitor was really nice, friendly and accomodating, I'm unable to overlook the mistakes regarding lack of portion control as well as the ratio. I left feeling underwhelmed, slightly queasy, and not like I had just experienced a pleasant dinner. I know they can do better than this, though I'm unsure they even have the ambition to do so. read more