You can also read this here > http://www.getreading.co.uk/entertainment/food_and_drink/s/2119576_restaurant_review_barts_grill__restaurant
First rule of opening-up in the morning is - don't open until you're ready.
We've been to Colleys tho yet to step into Barts. Maurice's sister used to do the pastries there and before that she was doing pastries at the Waldorf up the "big smoke".
You see, the 'thing' is, if the food at this place was stunning, exquisite, or, seeing as it is on the Wokingham Road, even if it was merely good, the punters would come. So why might you be struggling?
Alan is helping Jamshed to make his excuses whereas in fact Alan ought to be reviewing the restaurant.
Alan does relent about halfway through and at least begins to let us know something of the food at this place - oh, no he doesn't he starts to go on about how the website and kitchen equipment has been adjusted ..... yeah right, oh and the paint is red ... so the food must be good?
David (the chef) is "the" driving force behind the "new" menu. So, we get tomato soup and then a flipping "lamb shank" and jenga chips - oh blimey - we could have got that from Lidl's freezer section and had it for Sunday lunch at Uncle Colins. Amazingly though the starters were "carefully and artistically presented" which as we all know is code for ... yes you guessed it - the ex-London chef had his hands all over it before it was slid onto the table infront of you.
Alan begins to gush towards the end though and tells us a simple ganache was "delightfully simple". Sadly our interest tailed-off.
And therein lies the task for the owner and chief cook - give us food we would want to hail a cab from the far side of town to taste. Forget the gimmicks and sodding lamb shanks and arrgghh jenga chips - we will never ever pay for a taxi to go anywhere to eat those. Come to the realisation that eating at a good restaurant is not just about hot (pre-touched) food and gimmicks - it is about the whole experience - make it so special we want to come and we will come Jamshed, we will.
You can also read this here > http://www.getreading.co.uk/entertainment/food_and_drink/s/2119576_restaurant_review_barts_grill__restaurant
