Malmaison Brasserie

Their chef is no Jamie Oliver, as he doesn't seem to know how to produce a balanced meal....

The brasserie restaurant is in a hotel basement, no windows, airless, lighting so miserable that you almost need an usher with a torch to find your seat. Staff dressed in black T-shirts. Think funeral reception.

We chose their Prix Fixe menu at £12.95. Only 3 choices per course. Nice fresh bread with olives (the best part of our meal) then our starter of chicken parfait on red onions which was just that - no garnish of any kind. My wife's main course of salmon with French beans comprised arty squiggles of balsamic on her plate, then a pile of string

beans, on top of which was placed a dod of salmon. That's yer lot. No potatoes or any other carbohydrate. Fine for a teenage stick insect, though unfortunately not for a size 12 hungry wife. My main course of a chicken breast with mashed potatoes (not properly mashed but just roughed up - Glaswegian style perhaps?) was exactly that, some red

"jus" but no other vegetables. Neither of our meals were balanced meals, and they were just plain boring.

The bread and butter pudding was a generous portion, but deviod of sultanas, so again it was boring. Coffee was more interesting - it was good and strong and came in a large cup with an accompanying small glass of chocolate paste which the waiter said should be eaten after the coffee to kill the taste of the coffee! Pardon???

Staff were friendly and unlike your previous reviewer's experience they were efficient. However, they addressed my wife and I (both in our 50's) as "You Guys". Oh please! Such crass pretentious Americanised tosh. What's wrong with treating customers with respect and using the traditional terms "sir" and "ma'am" used by professional waiting

staff throughout the civilised world. And they got our bill wrong by about £12, which we had to get sorted. Although we were friendly to the waiting staff, and paid the "discretionary" 10% service charge added to our bill, we left without any acknowledgment.

Turgid background noise, i.e. music without the benefit of any tunes. All in all, deadly dull, drab, dingy and depressing dining. Can't recommend anything about this place.

Other than the Prix Fixe menu, their prices for food and wine are astronomical - typical corporate expense account hotel territory. Owners of German prickmobiles may approve, but most sane folk would want to eat in a more honest

and much less pretentious environment. Believe it or not, some items on the menu of this so-called French restaurant are measured in grams - can eating out really get any more depressing than this? I ask you - would any sane and lucid person really pay £10.95 of their own hard-earned for what is described as a 225 gram burger with fries? I don't think so. The restaurant name is in French, but this dump bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the food, value and enjoyment you get in France (where you don't buy the ingredients of a meal by their weight). For me, a basic test of any meal is this - if my friends came to visit, would I be happy to serve this food to them? Well, if I tried to serve Malmaison's idea of a meal to my friends, and in such a dingy and lifeless atmosphere, they'd think it was time I was put in residential care...
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JIm Mackie
Saturday, February 18, 2006

We were really looking forward to our meal at this restaurant - my birthday night out. Our meal order was taken while we sat at the bar having a drink - good start. As our reservation time came and went, we noticed that some food looking suspiciuously like our starters had been placed on a side table near the bar. 5 -10 minutes after our reservation time, we were then taken to our table and seated...and those dishes on the side table were given to us. So our food was sitting for all to see and pass by, but we were left unable to do anything about it.

We noticed diners at neighbouring tables appeared a bit disgruntled and soon discovered that onetable had waited almost an hour for their main course, while another table sent back a main course and had to re-order from the menu. The waiters chose to top-up wine & water at only selected tables, and ignored all others. It should be either all or none. When our main courses arrived, my partner's steak was bloody, rather than the 'well done' requested. It remained the same after being returned to be re-cooked, so she had to re-order from the menu as well. By this point, I had unfortunately almost finished my meal, and by the time my partners replacement meal had arrived, mine was finished. Not the best night out for a birthday. The duty manager was apologetic (and probably had to tell the same stories to the other diners who were obviously dissatisfied) stating that there were staffing problems, but a hotel and restaurant of this supposed stature should have sufficient contingency to cope, especially on a Saturday night when the restaurant was not full.

After writing to the manager to explain our dissatisfaction, they graciously offered us a free meal from the set menu and a free bottle of wine at a time convenient to us. We gladly took up this offer. The same duty manager was working that evening and stated how glad she was we had taken up their offer and come back to see that the initial evening was not the norm. We were asked if we would like some water, and accepted. This water arrived half an hour later after we had to ask for it again. I had asked the waiter to confirm which menu we had to use ("prix fixed") so we could make our selections, and when they eventually came back to take our order, they then told us that we should have initially been told some of the options were not available that night. Not surprisingly, the soup we had selected was not available. We told the waiter to forget ordering any starters and we just ordered main courses, as we were already fed up with the level of service again. 5 minutes later, the soup starter we wanted that was not available was suddenly and miraculously available again!! We had now been seated for an hour, and had only received the water offered to us after 30 minutes. When we finished our starters, we had the embarassment of having to ask the duty manager for the free bottle of wine we were promised. A waiter soon arrived with our wine, but needless to say, the duty manager never came near us again.

The first meal was a bit of a disaster. They recognised this and tried to make up for it. Unfortunately, they provided much the same service the second time around. Going out for a meal is about the experience and atmosphere, not just about the food, but the food itself wasn't exactly outstanding. We were so glad to get out of the place. We won't be going back, and we certainly won't be recommending this restaurant to anyone we know. This level of service IS the norm
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Wednesday, November 23, 2005