Brewers Fayre, Southport (Ocean Plaza) [Session – 03/02/2012]

Brewers Fayre, Southport (Ocean Plaza)

Southport’s dining venues have proved to be very poor as of late. MS and I have had found it very difficult finding anywhere suitable to eat in this once vibrant seaside resort. In fact, NNR’s two lowest ranking eateries – KFC and The Crown – are both, unfortunately, situated in Southport. This means that unless we can find somewhere appropriate on our third attempt, Southport will be written off as a possible destination for dining.

Not feeling particularly confident about a suitable eatery in Southport, we decided to play it safe by choosing to eat at a Brewers Fayre restaurant. Brewers Fayre pubs/restaurants are part of the Whitbread Group PLC, which also operates Costa Coffee houses and Premier Inn hotels. Because these Whitbread businesses usually offer a good standard of service, we expected the Brewers Faye to follow suit.

As we approached the restaurant, there were a group of unsavoury-looking folk smoking cigarettes outside the entrance. This meant that MS and I had to inhale whatever they were smoking should we wish to enter the building. The management should not have allowed these inconsiderate wankers to stand within 10 metres of the premises seeing as they were exhaling carcinogenic fumes. Anyway, this wasn’t a good start for the Brewers Fayre, which needs to score as many points as possible if it’s to restore the town’s reputation.

The building itself is relatively new, which means we shouldn’t have any issues with tired-looking fixtures and fittings. The unit is very big in terms of floor space, but didn’t seem to be particularly well laid-out. The mishmash of circular and oblong tables made the place look untidy. Why not just stick to one shape of table? There was a children’s play area at one side of the restaurant, which thankfully, was empty when we arrived. A children’s play area has no place in a restaurant, and had it been occupied, MS and I would have exited the building immediately. When we eventually found a suitable table, we both picked up a menu, and studied its contents.

Annoyingly, almost immediately after we sat down, a social worker with a group of children sat on a table next to us. The children were very unruly, shouting and throwing condiments about the place. They clearly had learning difficulties, which means they were no doubt oblivious to the disturbance they were causing. Whilst these children with learning difficulties had as much right to dine as MS and I, they did not share our level of consideration for fellow diners . This means that it’s up to their social worker to seat them in an area that will cause the least amount of disruption. As I mentioned earlier, the Brewers Fayre is a big unit with a dedicated family area, so the social worker had no excuse to park his party amongst the regular diners. He must have known his group would make a lot of noise, so I can only assume he was showing them off: “Look everyone, I’m looking after disabled children, aren’t I fucking amazing?” No, you’re inconsiderate twat. Arguably, it was up to the management team to ask the social worker to reseat his group, seeing as they were clearly dining (or rather playing) in the wrong area.

Anyway… the menu was well laid-out and featured the usual pub favourites at what seemed like reasonable value for money. It wasn’t long before MS and I both decided to order the Mixed Grill, which on the photograph at least, looked superb. It’s been nearly a decade since MS and I have eaten a decent mixed grill. These particular mixed grills were in fact the produce of The Fishermen’s Rest in Southport (which has since changed management). If the Brewers Fayre could offer a mixed grill of the same standard, then we’d have a legitimate reason to return to this restaurant… every day.

MS went up to order, so I can’t comment on the till service; but when he returned, it was good to see that our drinks were served in their correct glasses:

In terms of the cost of our meals, the mixed grill was £10.49, and the drinks were around the £2.50 mark. At £10.49, the mixed grill represents one of the more expensive meals, so it stands to reason that it should be one the more tasty meals, too.

According the menu, the grill consisted of: “A 4oz rump steak, two pork sausages and gammon steak topped with a fried egg. Served with chips, half a grilled tomato, pan-fried mushrooms and garden peas.” Whilst there’s much debate surrounding the exact ingredients a mixed grill should consist of, this dish featured all the fundamental produce.

Whilst waiting for our food, we took a moment to absorb the atmosphere. Here’s a photograph of our window view:

It’s hard to believe that just beyond those horrendous warehouses lie Southport’s golden sands. It seems strange that not one of the Ocean Plaza restaurants makes the most of the coastal views. On the inside, the Brewers Faye looks like any other chain pub/restaurant; there is no sense of individuality. The music was equally as bland and generic. If this pub serves hearty British food, then let’s complement it with some hearty British music. Instead, we’re forced to listen to mind-numbingly shit 21^st century American pop music. Yes, chain pubs have to appeal to as broad a market as possible, but establishments need a stand out feature if they want people to talk about them. The Tavern (Liverpool) was brilliant, in that its carefully-chosen décor and music helped create an atmosphere unique to that particular establishment. The result was a memorable dining experience that we’ve subsequently shared with our friends and colleagues.

To pass the time waiting for my food, I decided to take a trip to the toilets, partly because I needed to use the facilities, but mainly for the purposes of this review. The Brewers Faye is a big unit, so I was expecting the gents to be quite substantial. Oddly, there were only two urinals and just ONE cubicle. It begs the question, on a busy Friday or Saturday night, where are diners supposed to urinate? With only three piss pots to maintain, you’d think it would be a relatively simple task to clean them. This was not the case; the one and only cubicle toilet had excrement floating in its bowl. It nearly knocked me sick. Who exactly is inspecting these toilets, and what kind of freaks don’t flush after they shit? Unfortunately, I do not have the answer to either of these questions.

So far, we haven’t been particularly impressed with the décor, music or the clientele, however, we had high hopes for the food. Just before our food had arrived, a family of freaks entered the premises, consisting of two parents and five feral children. These five little shits had just finished school, so they’d have plenty of homework to be getting on with. Rather than allowing their children to study, these selfish parents decided to have a night out at the Brewers Faye instead. Anyway, having failed to sit quietly in their seats, these badly-behaved brats decided to run around the restaurant, laughing and screaming. I assumed that after a minute or so their parents would tell them off and give them a beating for the embarrassment they’d caused. This did not happen. Instead, the fucking useless excuses for parents seemed to think that their children’s actions were proper behaviour for a restaurant, so did nothing. I don’t blame the shit parents; I blame the management team for allowing this family to upset their paying customers.

The food arrived approximately 20 minutes after we’d placed our order. In terms of its appearance, it looked pretty good:

It’s difficult to know where to start with a mixed grill, but I tend to pick up a chip, dip it into my egg, and allow the yolk to act as a gravy for the rest of the meal. Unfortunately, this was not possible as the egg had been mindlessly overcooked, which transformed the yolk into a dried, crumbling mess. This meant that I’d be leaving 1 of my 8 items of food, which works out at around £1.30. Eggs are simple to cook, so the Brewers Faye could have scored some easy points here. Instead, I’m out of pocket by £1.30, and to rub salt into the wounds, I’ve got to eat my mixed grill without egg yolk gravy. 

After the egg fiasco, I moved onto the pan-fried mushrooms, which certainly looked appetising enough. The mushrooms appeared to have been cooked for the right length of time, but they left a foul aftertaste. It’s as if they had been fried in Stork margarine, rather than a mixture of garlic and butter (which is what they ought to have been cooked in). Again, the mushrooms could have scored some easy points, as even the most incompetent chef should to be able to cook them properly.

The next item I tried were the sausages, which on the outside at least, looked like they’d been cooked for far too long. The sausages were certainly overdone on the outside, but their innards were actually quite tasty. They weren’t anything special, and would have benefited from less cooking, but they were enjoyable enough. Similarly, the chips were tasty, but equally as none-distinct as the sausages. They’re the same mass-produced crap that can be found in any other chain restaurant. The Hub’s ‘proper’ interpretation proved that chips can be distinctive and interesting.

The grilled tomato is an essential ingredient of any mixed grill. Like the egg yolk, the juices can help add flavour to this dish of single ingredients. Unfortunately, this particular tomato was completely devoid of any flavour. I suppose the warning sign was the fact that this tomato was coloured orange, rather than red. Again, it’s disappointing that yet another ingredient is not fit for consumption. Continuing this theme of disappointment, I decided to move onto the garden peas, which didn’t look particularly appetising. They looked bone dry and many of their shells were peeling off. It’s difficult to see on the photo, but most of these peas were shrivelled-up, covered in black and white marks, suggesting that they’d been left cooking in the pan without any water. The garden peas were completely tasteless as a result of this overzealous heating. I suspect they’d have tasted just fine had they been cooked by someone competent.

At this point, half of my meal has been substandard, and a further quarter could only be considered adequate. If the two remaining items were of a good standard, then The Brewers Faye could be saved from a completely embarrassing review. As I cut into my gammon steak, I noticed an inordinate amount of fluid leaking onto my plate. I’d describe my steak as water, rather than juicy, which makes me question how long this meat was actually ‘grilled’ for. The actual meat, of which there was very little, was actually quite flavoursome. Again, had this meat been cooked properly, it might have been the highlight of the meal. Unfortunately, due to poor preparation, and the fact it was so small, the gammon steak was only just acceptable.

It was clear that this mixed grill had been a complete disaster, so even if the rump steak was brilliant, I’d still feel like I’ve been robbed of £10.49. The rump steak was in fact far from brilliant. MS and I were never asked how we’d like our steaks, so they must have just assumed we’d want them cooked ‘medium’, as that’s what the waitress said when she served our meals. My steak was far from medium, in fact, it wasn’t even well-done; it was overdone. The meat was very difficult to cut, and it actually emitted quite a pungent odour. It was obvious these steaks had been stored for quite some time; I couldn’t be certain if they were off, though. The rump steak was the most expensive item on the plate, so a lot more care should have been taken to cook it properly.

Conclusion

Our visit to the Brewers Faye in Southport had not been a good one. Not only does this reflect badly on the town of Southport, but also on the Whitbread Group in general. The atmosphere was ruined by the presence of children. Parents have a responsibility to control their brats, but once that control is lost, it’s up to the management to eject inconsiderate families. It would have made more sense if the ‘family’ area was in a separate annex, bricked off from the rest of the building. This means that badly-behaved children can make as much noise as they like without disrupting the adult diners.

The food, which on paper looked great, turned out to be a fucking huge waste of money and time. What’s frustrating is the fact that I don’t think any of the produce was of a particularly poor standard, I just think it was prepared by a fucking idiot. After we’d ‘finished’, a waiter approached us and asked if we wanted any Costa Coffees or desserts. Firstly, if I wanted Costa Coffees or desserts, I’d have ordered them myself. Secondly, I don’t like this idea of staff plugging brands whilst I’m supposedly being waited on. I don’t want to be barraged by a sales pitch whilst I’m enjoying my meal. Yes, pubs and restaurants are desperate for revenue, but going down the KPI route is just going to aggravate potential customers. If the food and service is of a good standard, people will return to the premises; it’s that fucking simple. The Brewers Fayre will lose revenue in the long term, not because staff fail to sell enough add-ons, but because diners won’t want to return their restaurant.

Food: 3/10 – Had the food been cooked properly, it might have been all right.

Service: 3/10 – Toilets were not properly maintained; inconsiderate diners were not thrown out.

Ambience: 2/10 – Obnoxious parents, badly-behaved children and uncouth smokers all helped ruin the atmosphere. 

Overall: 3/10 – The Brewers Fayre will need to make some profound changes to their business if they want MS and I to return.

RH

The Hub Alehouse and Kitchen, Liverpool [Session – 04/05/2011]

The Hub Alehouse and Kitchen  (Liverpool)

For May’s Session, MS and I had already decided in advance that we were going to dine at Nando’s. As we walked towards the upmarket fast-food chain in Liverpool One, we were slightly surprised to see that all the window seats were empty. This was rather unusual, as this particular Nando’s is usually heaving. On closer inspection we found that this popular jaunt was actually closed. Yes, for some unknown reason, Nando’s Liverpool One had shut its doors to customers during peak dining hours. Annoyingly, this meant that MS and I would have to trundle around Liverpool to look for a suitable alternative. This will obviously count against Nando’s when we review one of their restaurants in the future.

After dismissing most of Liverpool One’s eateries for being too busy or too expensive, we settled on The Hub Alehouse and Kitchen at the bottom of Hanover Street. We’d heard very good things about The Hub, not just from the local rags, but a national newspaper too.  Naturally, MS and I were intrigued, and after our previous disappointment of a Session, we were hoping for a quality dining experience this time.

As we entered the rather impressive-looking building, we were immediately greeted and seated by the maître d’. Not only was the maître d’ very friendly, but she actually asked us where we wanted to sit. This was EXCELLENT customer service. It’s very rare that I’ve actually been given the option of where to sit, particularly in a busy city centre restaurant. This was a good start for The Hub, but unfortunately, this was the last we’d see of our friendly and professional maître d’. The window seat we picked was in an excellent location, and the table itself was very large and very sturdy. It’s amazing how a lack of table sturdiness can spoil a meal.

As soon as we sat down we were asked what drinks we’d like to order. So soon, in fact, that we hadn’t even had time to read through the drinks menu. I wasn’t drinking anything alcoholic, so it wasn’t overly important, but MS was, and he’d have no doubt liked to have studied the drinks menu before ordering. Our drinks arrived after a couple of minutes, which was obviously very reasonable. Less reasonable was the waitress asking us if we were ready to order once we’d been given our drinks. I wouldn’t say I’m a slow reader, but I can’t imagine anyone could have read the entire menu in the couple of minutes we were given before the drinks had arrived. We therefore asked the waitress for another 5 minutes. After a couple of minutes, a different waiter approached our table, asking us again if we were ready to order. We were starting to feel pressured into ordering quickly, despite the fact we hadn’t studied or discussed the menu properly. We had to ask for ANOTHER 5 minutes. Of course, we still hadn’t had our original 5 minutes. Fearing we’d be kicked out of the restaurant for not ordering quickly enough, we panic-picked our starters and mains. Unsurprisingly, we weren’t given our requested 5 minutes, so not long after we’d sent our second waiter away, our original waitress returned to take our order. It’s worth noting that this waitress seemed to lack the enthusiasm of the particularly friendly maître d’.

For my starter, I ordered “Soup of the day, warm crusty bread” and for my main, “Roast Chicken, Proper Chips and ‘Hub-slaw’.”  Strangely, it was assumed that I knew exactly what the soup of the day was, which I felt was rather presumptuous of the waitress. She should have confirmed what soup it was before accepting my order. I later asked our waitress the soup type I’d ordered, and she informed me it was “tomato and basil.”

Whilst we waited for our starters to arrive, there were a few details that caught our eyes. The crate of condiments sat on our table was rather unsanitary. Firstly, the sauce bottles both stated that once opened, they should be refrigerated and consumed within a certain amount of time. Not only were these bottles out of the refrigerator, but we had no way of knowing how long they’d been stood at the end of our table. It’s also worth noting that this was a window seat, meaning during certain hours of the day, these sauce bottles were at the mercy of the sun’s rays. I could have almost forgiven The Hub for poor condiment management had they bothered to clean the sauce bottles before seating customers. Just look at all the shit around these rims:

f

f

The candle was a nice touch. I’m not sure there was any call for a second vinegar jar, though.

In the Hub’s favour, the general décor of the premises was pleasant and the overall atmosphere was very good. The music, at the start of the evening, was played at an appropriate level; later on, however, they’d decided to increase the volume to the point of irritation. If I wanted to listen to loud and shit music, I’d have gone to a fucking wine bar, not an ‘alehouse and kitchen’. There didn’t appear to be any children eating at The Hub – which was obviously a plus point – but I did notice a ‘children’s menu’, so under 18s were unfortunately allowed to enter the building. But like I said, the ambience on the whole was decent, so The Hub will score well here.

Just before our starters arrived, our less-than-enthusiastic waitress began setting out our cutlery. Despite her lack of enthusiasm, she performed this task very professionally. A minute or so later, our starters arrived:

f

The ostentatious soup bowl didn’t do the dish any favours

f

It certainly looked appetising enough, but there were a couple of details that worried me. The first worrying detail to note was that my bread was served with two chunks of cheddar. Upon tasting the cheddar, I realised that these massive chunks of dairy produce were actually butter, and not cheese. How much butter is one supposed to spread on two slithers of bread? I wouldn’t mind, but the butter was frozen solid, so even if I wanted half a pound of butter on my bread, I couldn’t have spread it anyway. After a lot of fucking about, I did eventually manage to cover the bread in butter as best I could. According to the menu, I was supposed to be served “warm crusty bread.” This bread, unfortunately, was cold and stale. Had the menu been honest and stated I’d be served “cold and stale bread,” I probably wouldn’t have ordered the soup of the day.

The bread was edible, despite not being fresh, so I put up with it. The soup, on the other hand, wasn’t edible, or at least, not for a good 10 minutes. For some reason, my soup was boiling hot. There’s no excuse for boiling soup, not even the most amateur cook would make that mistake. If you look at my photograph closely, you can actually see a couple of air bubbles on its surface. Anyone would think I’d ordered a cup-a-soup from a vending machine.

Anyway, because it was clearly overdone, I didn’t have high hopes for its taste. When it did eventually cool down, all I could taste was seasoning. The excess black pepper was fine, as it’s an ingredient that goes hand-in-hand with tomato soup. However, the ludicrous amount of salt was completely uncalled for. I can’t help but think that because the soup was overcooked, and had therefore lost its taste, the chef decided to re-flavour it with an excess amount of seasoning. Despite the overenthusiastic heating and seasoning, the soup, from what I could determine, was actually okay. It didn’t taste much like tomato and basil, but it was certainly edible. Potentially, if the soup was cooked and seasoned properly, and the bread was warm and crusty, this could have been a decent starter. Of course, the actual dish I was served was completely ruined, so on this occasion, the starter was a massive disappointment.

Because I had to wait so long for my soup to cool down, my main arrived just as I’d finished. The soup, which was a waste of time, cost me £3.50. Had it been better prepared, it might have been worth it. My main, which consisted of roast chicken, chips and “Hub-slaw” cost £10.50, which didn’t seem overly cheap. When the dish arrived, however, the large portion of meat justified the price tag:

f

f

In terms of presentation, this dish scores 10 out of 10. There was plenty of colour on the plate, the produce was placed intelligently and the actual crockery the food’s served on was both simple and elegant. Things were starting to look up for The Hub, especially after I’d sampled one of their ‘real chips’. These chips were fucking excellent – a strong contender for some of the best I’ve ever tasted. They were light and fluffy on the inside, crispy and delicate on the outside, and didn’t taste at all greasy. The fact that they were cut in such odd sizes proves they were home made. The chips were good, but unfortunately, not good enough to make up for the piss poor starter.

After consuming a couple of chips, I moved onto the ‘Hub-slaw’. The Hub seemed very proud of their coleslaw alternative, to the point of arrogance. What I noticed immediately was just how fine they’d chopped the salad contained within the slaw. This was obviously a good thing. However, upon tasting it, I wondered why they’d bothered serving it at all. It was absolutely fucking awful. It smelt of sour milk, and didn’t taste much better. I couldn’t quite work out what their secret ingredient was, and after another spoonful, I didn’t want to know. I began to question whether or not the chef tasted any of the cooked food before releasing it into the dining area. Had the chef tasted the ‘Hub-slaw’ in the kitchen, he/she wouldn’t have wanted diners anywhere near the shit… unless he/she wanted to punish us for umm, some reason. Anyway, I couldn’t eat more than two spoonfuls, as I didn’t want to vomit on my roast chicken.

Speaking of roast chicken, it was time to move onto the main event – the meat. The chicken appeared to have been roasted to perfection. It was a nice colour, and it appeared to be very succulent. There were some problems, however. Firstly, because it was such a greasy piece of meat, once I’d picked it up, I couldn’t touch anything else until I’d finished it. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I was provided with a means of cleaning the grease off my hands. KFC have the sense to provide their customers with cleaning cloths, so why not an upmarket restaurant like The Hub? An extra napkin would have probably been sufficient. In fact, I should have been offered extra napkins before I was served the dish. This was aggravating, but I can’t deduct too many points for this lack of foresight.

In order to make it easier to eat, I basically broke the chicken into two chunks. One chunk contained the breast, the other, the rest (of the shite). The breast was excellent. The meat was juicy and tender, and actually tasted of something, unlike the chicken breast I had at The Crown. Chicken is by definition a bland meat, so when it tastes good as a stand alone product, you know it’s been cooked and prepared properly. Once I’d finished the breast, I expected the rest of the chicken to be equally as tasty. Oddly, though, the rest of the chicken was rather tasteless. I praised the chicken breast for being juicy, but the remaining meat tasted watery. Some of the chicken actually had a pungent odour, which made it difficult to eat. I don’t think it was off, I just don’t think it was a very good quality bird. It’s very odd, because the breast was very tasty, and it appeared to be fresh, where as the rest of it was just shite, really. In fact, if you look at my leftovers, you’ll find that aside from the breast, most of the bird was just bones anyway. Had they just served me the breast, I wouldn’t have had any need to complain. In fact, had The Hub served me chips and chicken breast, I’d have been very satisfied with my meal… providing they did away with the dressing. It looked like balsamic vinegar, but it tasted was more like syrup. It was very sweet, and very sticky, and could have very nearly ruined the entire meal. I’m not sure what it was supposed to achieve, as the chicken breast and chips tasted fine without it. It’s all very frustrating. There was enough potential in both the starter and the main for two excellent dishes, but unfortunately, I ended up with a substandard starter and a mediocre main.

f

Not a good meat to bone ratio.

f

f

The dressing was a waste of time.

f

It’s hard to say whether our poor experience at The Hub was just a one off, and that all the other reviewers dined at the restaurant on a good night. I’m willing to bet that our visit represented a regular night, and that the other reviewers are talking out of their collective backsides. This is exactly why NNR was set up, so we can give consumers HONEST feedback about the restaurants we’ve dined at. I’m fucking sick and tired of being short-changed, and I’m sure the rest of the country is. Anyway, it’s time to wrap up this review.

In terms of customer service, we’d experienced a mixed bag, ranging from excellent, to poor. One detail I didn’t mention earlier was that I ordered a ‘coke’ as my drink. When it was served, the male waiter said ‘here’s your diet coke’. I have no idea if he said the wrong thing, or that I was simply given the wrong drink. If they can’t get a simple drinks order right, how are they expected to cook a 3 course meal? The maître d’ was the star of the show; she performed her role superbly. Our main waitress was professional, but I got the feeling she didn’t want to be waiting on tables that night. Perhaps I’m just imagining it, but I didn’t feel comfortable interacting with her. In terms of the kitchen staff, well, who knows what they were thinking boiling my soup. It also seems doubtful that the chef tasted the food before allowing it to leave the kitchen. The ‘Hub-slaw’ was a fucking joke; I can’t believe they’ve bothered to name such a shit dish. Of course, there were some good aspects of the meal. The chips were absolutely excellent, and are probably a good enough reason to return to The Hub. The chicken was well-cooked, and the breast at least, was very tasty. However, as mentioned earlier, the rest of the chicken was dire. If I could sum up our dining experience in one word, I’d say it was ‘inconsistent’. I wouldn’t go as far to say I’d never return to The Hub, as potentially, it could be an excellent restaurant. However, on this occasion, we left the restaurant feeling dissatisfied, and that sentiment will be reflected in the final score.

Food: 4/10 (Inconsistent)

Service: 6/10 (Inconsistent)

Ambience: 7/10 (Good, up until the volume of music was increased dramatically)

Overall: 5.5/10 – Not the worst dining experience of all time… we might even return one day.

 

RH

 

The Tavern Co., Liverpool (Queen Square) [Session – 22/02/2011]

The Tavern Co. (Queen Square, Liverpool)

Visiting ‘proper’ restaurants isn’t something RH and I have traditionally done, tending instead to eat our meals at pubs and, lately, fast-food outlets. The reasons for this are numerous, and include, inter alia:

1.        The relatively low cost of those places as compared with ‘proper’ restaurants;

2.        The comparatively quick service that we receive at these types of establishment; and

3.        The fact we’re unlikely to be mistaken for a couple on a date at a less-fancy eatery.

Notwithstanding the above, on this occasion we decided enough was enough. We’d been let down too much recently by the old stalwarts, the Crowns and KFCs of this world, and it was time to branch out. Once that decision had been made, we were faced with another conundrum – to which of the North West’s many restaurants should we go? After much deliberation we narrowed it down to Liverpool city centre, out of convenience. Even then, the choice was vast. Several places were under serious consideration, but having eaten at The Tavern before, I was more than willing to go back there for review purposes. A quick glance at the menu told us that there were several realistic options on offer, so in we went.

Immediately it became apparent that The Tavern wasn’t overly busy on this Thursday evening. Portions of the seating area had nobody in them, with the customers having been herded round to the area visible from the street outside, obviously to make the place seem more lively to the passer-by than it actually was. This suited RH and I just fine, since we prefer a less-crowded environment when trying to enjoy food. Another benefit of visiting somewhere that isn’t busy is that the chef/kitchen staff can, in theory, give your meal their full attention, guaranteeing that either:

1.        Your meal will be good; OR

2.        There are no excuses for the kitchen staff if the meal is shit.

As we approached the bar area to be seated, we were greeted by what you’d probably call the maitre d’, a stern-looking young lady who greeted our request for a ‘table for two’ with a rude grunt and brusquely ushered us to one of the smallest tables in the restaurant. At this stage, RH and I groaned internally – we’ve had bad experiences of being seated at inadequately-sized tables before (see Pizza Hut), so this didn’t bode well. The maitre d’ would have made a good prison warden, but obviously those kind of qualities aren’t conducive to a welcoming, relaxing dining experience.

Our table was too small, but we could have no real complaints about its cleanliness. It was spotlessly clean, with napkins provided with the cutlery. This was a stark contrast to The Crown, who should take note from The Tavern on how to present a table to incoming customers.

Whilst perusing the menu, RH and I took our time to note the general ambience of the place. I’m happy to report that this was good overall, with no kids or rowdy guests spoiling the atmosphere for serious patrons. The music wasn’t too loud, and was actually decent – I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it certainly wasn’t overly-loud pop chart fare, which is what counts. I was also impressed by the innovative wall decorations (for instance, a large, framed collection of old Captain Marvel comics) which, although not directly relevant to ‘tex-mex’ cuisine, certainly brightened the place up. I’d describe the décor as rustic, with a ‘retro’ theme, and I’m happy to say that both RH and I found it to be very pleasant.

f

Having taken in our surroundings, we studied the menu. The choice was vast, which is exactly what we look for in a menu, however we realised that our meal wasn’t going to be cheap. Average prices for starters were around the £6 mark, and around £10-11 for main courses – with drinks on top, we wouldn’t see much change from £20 each. Clearly, and particularly in these times of austerity, price is always a consideration in choosing somewhere to eat, but it’s also important to detach the issue of cost from the rest of the experience. Yes, The Tavern was going to be more expensive than most places we’d been to, but for all we knew, it could be worth every penny.

I’m pleased to say that, having seated us at our novelty-sized table, the cruel prison warden maitre d’ left us alone for the rest of the evening. Her place was taken by an extremely polite and attentive young lady who took our order at precisely 7pm. The waitress was certainly helpful, and in fact at one point we found her a little too helpful – suggesting that the nachos were designed for two people and that we therefore didn’t need another starter. Though we appreciated the suggestion, RH and I are experienced enough to know when we require two starters. What’s more, the menu at The Tavern states that the nachos are designed for two people – so we were aware of that already and had taken it into consideration, thank you very much.

Hungry though we were, it would probably have been daft to get two large starters as well as our mains, so we decided that the most appropriate way forward was to supplement our nachos with a smaller starter (on the basis that we’d share both). Alongside the nachos (£6.95) we opted for ‘loaded potato skins’ (£5.95). For our main courses, RH and I chose different variations on The Tavern’s burger. The ‘Gourmet Burger’ sounded suitable as far as I was concerned (topped with mozzarella and sautéed mushrooms & onions), whilst RH was in the mood for the chilli burger. A nice touch was the choice of chips available with the burgers – French fries or the chunkier Texas fries. The burgers came in at £8.95 each.

Our starters arrived fairly promptly, and we were instantly impressed by their appearance:

f

The nachos were clearly the main event here, so we got the loaded potato skins out of the way first. The two potato skins were loaded with a Mexican-style chilli-con-carne and were enjoyable without being anything special. As a starter they served their purpose adequately, whetting our respective appetites for the dishes to come. On a return visit to The Tavern I probably wouldn’t choose the loaded potato skins again, but that’s a reflection on the vast numbers of alternative starters on offer, rather than a damning indictment of the quality of the dish.

f

Moving on to the nachos, and I’ll keep it simple – they were amazing. Very close to perfect, the nachos at The Tavern are probably the best starter that RH and I have ever had. The picture above doesn’t really do justice to how good this starter was – probably the only query I had was the inclusion of sweetcorn – it didn’t really have any place alongside the refried beans, spicy chicken, melted cheese, tomato salsa, guacamole, soured cream and jalapenos. The only problem we found was a logistical one – how could we best divide the dish between the two of us? Our friendly waitress was happy to provide us with a couple of side-plates to remedy that issue. The waitress had been correct to flag the size of this dish up to us aswell – for a starter it really was quite large and, for those with a smaller appetite, might sufficiently stand-in as a main course.

Our unbridled enjoyment of the nachos did highlight a concern. When viewed in isolation, the loaded potato skins were a decent starter – but when compared to the nachos they seemed pointless. The size difference between our two starters was vast, yet the loaded potato skins cost only £1 less than their enormous counterpart. At almost £7, the nachos could hardly be described as a bargain, but they are reasonably-priced considering the size and quality of the serving that’s on offer. My conclusion is that the loaded potato skins are overpriced – there’s nothing wrong with them, but under no circumstances are they worth £6.

Thoroughly satisfied with the starters, we awaited our burgers with great interest. Having experienced so many disappointments lately when dining-out, our Tavern experience so far seemed a little too good to be true. Our plates were cleared away with a smile and, in another nice touch to what was becoming a very enjoyable evening, our waitress brought us fresh cutlery and napkins ahead of our main course (despite the fact that our cutlery remained largely untouched during our consumption of the starters).

We weren’t kept waiting for our mains, either. When the burgers arrived at our child-sized table, there seemed to be a good chance that the tabletop would be too small to accommodate our food. The waitress managed, somehow, and we were able to continue with our meal unhindered. One look at my plate told me that this would surpass any of the other burgers I’d had recently:

f

The side-salad that came with the burger was fairly standard, but was fresh and dressed with a simple-yet-tasty, er, dressing. Next came the chips, which were indeed impressive. I’d opted for the Texas fries which were chunky and seasoned to perfection. A crisp exterior concealed a perfectly-cooked middle and I can honestly say that these chips were some of the best I’ve had in a long while.

On then to the burger, which was a mouth-watering prospect. The size was impressive and the presentation faultless, generously topped with the aforementioned cheese, onions and mushrooms. The standard of the burger didn’t disappoint – it was juicy and had been flame-grilled to perfection. Unlike other burgers I’ve sampled lately, this offering wasn’t encumbered with too many competing flavours, and the various ingredients here worked together perfectly. The bun in which the burger was served was fresh, tasted good and, crucially, was robust enough to hold the burger together. RH and I have had a number of horrendous experiences with burgers falling apart in our hands (see KFC and, to a lesser extent, Burger King) so the sturdiness of The Tavern’s offering was most welcome.

Without being able to go into too much detail, I understand that RH’s chilli burger was equally good, and his French fries lived up to the high standards described above.

f

The meal was extremely filling, again a huge positive point when so many eateries leave us only half-full. Certainly, had the standard of food not been so high, I wouldn’t have finished the meal and I left The Tavern more full than I’ve been since RH and I ate an industrial amount of pizza at Pizza Hut, as part of a bizarre kind of dare.

A slight blot on the waitress’ copybook was the fact that she failed to ask us if we wanted dessert or coffee after our meal but, in her defence, there was no way we could have consumed anything else and she probably realised that, having seen the sheer volume of food we’d ingested over the previous hour. Overall the service (after we’d been seated) had been excellent and I can safely say that this visit to The Tavern delivered the best customer-service of any session yet.

In summary then, The Tavern was clearly the best dining experience we’ve had in many a year, and this was easily the best meal we’ve had since we started penning our no-nonsense reviews. Too many places have fallen short of our relatively high standards so this was a much-needed exception. The food was by no means cheap, but for a change we didn’t leave with the feeling that we’d been ripped-off – nobody minds paying slightly more for food which is actually good. We’ll probably be returning to The Tavern fairly shortly.

Score: 9/10 – comfortably top of the NNR eatery league-table (if one existed)

MS

The Crown, Southport [Session – 04/02/2011]

The Crown, Ainsdale (Southport)

You will all have noticed that, recently, RH and I seem to have been eating nothing but fast-food for the purposes of our no-nonsense reviews – with mixed results to say the least. Predictably, we’ve become a little bit sick of it, and were in the mood to move back onto what has traditionally been ‘safer’ ground – the humble British pub.

It’s been documented in these pages previously that we struggle badly these days to find pubs that serve decent food, so I won’t repeat myself. Suffice to say that we’d heard fairly promising things about The Crown in Ainsdale, near Southport, which is part of the Sizzling Pubs Co.

Now, given that the problems with many of our old haunts can be attributed to a large pub-chain taking over, we were naturally sceptical about a pub that was part of the Sizzling Pub franchise. It’s the kind of place where you can get 2 meals for £5 – ludicrously cheap by today’s standards, but usually with a level of quality to match. Nonetheless, we were in the Southport vicinity and (for reasons explained below) had very few other options, so decided to give it a whirl.

It’s worth mentioning at this stage that we’d already visited two other pubs in Southport with the intention of eating there (again, on the strength of favourable recommendations). Those pubs were The Falstaff on King Street, Southport and The Fishermans Rest on Weld Road, Birkdale. The Falstaff came highly recommended, but upon entering the place we were greeted by a smell akin to that of an old folk’s home, which was hugely off-putting. We glanced at the cheap-looking menus and noted that a good portion of the options had been deleted with a marker-pen, leaving a very disappointing selection of dishes. Things didn’t look good, so we decided to try somewhere else. This particular Sess’ was, in part, celebration of RH’s recent birthday, so we weren’t in the mood to be fucked about.

On then to The Fishermans Rest (bad grammar, but that’s the name), which once upon a time had been our favourite pub, due to its incomparable mixed grill. Alas, several years ago the pub seemed to undergo somewhat of an ‘overhaul’, resulting in a new menu and horrible food. For old times’ sake we gave it another chance, but again were disappointed on arrival. The whole place has been painted white inside, and the pool table on which we used to while away many an enjoyable hour had gone, replaced by couches and bean-bags. Furthermore, the menu only had about 5 meals on it. What used to be a traditional British pub has turned into some kind of shit wine-bar.

By this point, having traipsed around for what felt like hours, RH and I were starving. By the time we got to The Crown, it was about 2 o’clock. This was on a Friday (RH and I both had the day off), and towards the end of what is usually the ‘lunchtime rush’. Accordingly, we expected the place to be fairly empty, however we were shocked to find that the car park was almost completely full. This wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing, but a good deal of the inconsiderate guests had parked over 2 bays, meaning we struggled to park the car safely. You’d think that the staff or management of The Crown, if they had anything about them, would do something about that, especially if they’re expecting the pub to be busy, so as not to inconvenience other patrons.

Upon entering the pub itself we could see that it was, indeed, busy for a weekday. The low prices of their ‘2 meals for £5’ menu undoubtedly attract most of the diners – again no criticism can be made of that. What we CAN criticise, though, is the fact that we couldn’t see ANY clean tables. All of the vacant tables were filthy, covered with the used glasses (and in some cases used crockery) of previous diners. We chose the least filthy, and were forced to move the empty glasses ourselves. Needless to say, this meant that the table hadn’t been wiped, and so still bore traces of previous meals.

Upon picking up the menu, RH and I were both instantly impressed by the large selection of meals available – much more like what you’d expect from a pub than the other two establishments we’d tried earlier. Feeling nostalgic for great meals of yesteryear, RH went for the Mixed Grill, whilst I chose the King Size ‘Tipsy Steak Pie’:

The ‘king size’ option boasted that I’d get “a full pound of pie” – I was certainly hungry enough for that, so was looking forward to the meal. At £7.49 it certainly wasn’t cheap, but I wouldn’t mind as long as the food was good.

Whilst waiting for our meals to arrive, RH and I noticed that the atmosphere of the pub was actually quite good, which made a refreshing change to other pubs we’d visited recently. There were no loud children or rowdy, obnoxious guests, and the music being pumped over the sound system wasn’t unsociably loud, as we’ve found in a number of eateries lately.

Our condiments arrived before the food, and what instantly disappointed us was that the cutlery wasn’t wrapped in any kind of napkin, as is customary with most pubs. Instead, a mish-mash of old-looking cutlery (none of the designs on the individual implements matched one another) was thrown into the condiment container. There were in fact no napkins at all anywhere on our table – we’d have to ask the waitress for those when our meal arrived. I was impressed by the selection of condiments – above and beyond your usual ketchup and mayonnaise. They were only the small Heinz sachet variety, and I don’t usually use condiments anyway, but at least the options were there if needed.

After exactly 17 minutes of waiting, which is by no means unreasonable in a busy pub, our meals arrived. I say our meals arrived, but actually we only initially received MY meal, and half of RH’s. Bizarrely, they’d chosen to serve RH’s chips on a separate small side-plate, and he had to wait several more minutes for them. Not only was this inconvenient, but the side-plate looked ridiculous, and made RH feel like a child.

I was initially impressed by the gravy-boat – a touch which sadly lacks from most modern pie-dishes. On closer inspection though, I noticed that there was a kind of gravy ‘skin’ a centimetre or two above the actual gravy level. This indicated that either the boat hadn’t been washed after the last customer used it, or that my gravy had been sat there for ages, being constantly heated and re-heated. Either way, I was put-off my gravy.

Before I get on to the pie itself, let’s deal with the sides. The peas, as with any peas that you get in a pub, were of the cheap pre-frozen variety, and were nothing special at all. Worth noting is that there was no mushy-pea alternative, which I would have appreciated in this instance. The peas with this dish added absolutely nothing, and I’d actually have preferred not to have them, as they’re just an annoyance.

The chips, too, were clearly of the cheapest frozen ‘oven-chip’ variety. I thought instantly that they had an odd colour to them, and RH made exactly the same comment before I’d expressed it. Upon tasting, the chips were a disappointment. Not only were they more-or-less tasteless, but about half of them seemed to be under-cooked – cold and hard in the middle, which just ruined any enjoyment I could possibly have gained from them. I actually took the unusual step of using a condiment to add some flavour to the chips – Heinz French Mustard. This was alright, but chips are an essential part of any successful pub meal, and the addition of some French mustard couldn’t make up for the sub-standard fare on offer here.

Finally, I was ready to delve into the pie. As you can see, this was a decent size, at least in terms of diameter:

My first impression was that the pie was very shallow – what it had in circumference, it most certainly lacked in depth. When perusing the menu prior to ordering, I’d noticed the promotional picture of the chicken pie, and although we didn’t bother taking a picture of that, you can take my word for it that it was a deep pie – roughly three times as deep as the pie I’d been served here. Clearly, that wasn’t the pie that I’d ordered, so I can’t really complain, but I still felt like I’d been misled in some way. Either way, I was willing to put aside my misgivings and give the pie a fair crack of the whip – a tasty filling could easily make up for the lack of depth.

Alas, the pie was consistent with the other components of the meal, in that it was dreadful. I applied my gravy and set to work, but it was apparent straight away that the pastry was going to be horrible. It was extremely brittle, and sort of fell apart when I cut into the pie – a clear indication that it had spent a good deal of time sat in a freezer. The pastry (particularly that at the edge of the pie) managed to have a disturbing powdery texture, and a nasty, stodgy quality both at the same time, and tasted just like any other cheap frozen pastry. Not only that, but there was fucking loads of it. There was a good few centimetres of pastry at the edge of the pie, before you got to any actual filling. When I finally did get towards the centre of the pie, I started to wonder when I was going to hit the actual steak – I just seemed to be getting gravy.

As you can see from the above, the filling:crust ration of my pie was unacceptable, and that picture doesn’t actually do the situation justice. What little filling there was, was around 90% gravy/sauce and only about 10% actual meat. What’s obvious is that this pie is of the very cheapest sort, and I was becoming extremely angry that I’d shelled out £8 on it.

The actual taste of the filling wasn’t all that terrible, but there was no discernable taste of ale at all! I’d ordered and paid for what was supposed to be a steak & ale pie – what I’d got was only really half of my order, and not a very good half at that. Taken in conjunction with the horrible pastry, and woeful filling:crust ratio, this was certainly amongst the worst value-for-money pies I’d ever had.

As we were sat there, RH and I attempting to finish our meals for the sake of not wasting food or money, we started to wonder why, if the food is as sub-standard as this, is the place so full on a weekday? Yes, it’s possible that every other customer in the place has no taste and is happy to eat crap food, not knowing any differently, but this is an unlikely explanation. My theory is that 95% of the other people in there were eating from the ‘2 meals for £5’ menu, meaning that they were only paying £2.50 for their meals. They probably realise the food is garbage, but at that price they don’t give a shit. Now, that’s fine – and if I was to go to The Crown again I’d almost certainly order from that menu – but when you order one of their premium meals, and pay a premium price, you expect a large step-up in quality. I concluded that most of the options on the impressively-sized menu are merely a smokescreen; a marketing ploy to give the impression of limitless choice, thought-up by the crafty management who know full-well that none of their regulars are going to order any of it whilst the ‘2 for £5’ menu exists. The kitchen staff probably have no experience of making the more expensive meals, since nobody ever orders them – they’re so used to knocking together the cheap shit, that this is their default position, regardless of the order. I’d ordered a relatively expensive pie, but had just been given a slightly larger version of something that was actually on their budget menu (NB this is not an exaggeration – I noted before we left the pub that the ‘tipsy steak pie’ is one of the options on the ‘2 for £5’ menu). This angered me a great deal – I’d been essentially conned into paying £7.49 for something I could have had for a fraction of the price if I’d been a fucking cheapskate.

I’ll mention at this point that RH had actually looked at the dessert menu, and were intrigued by one of the options on it. We also had capacity for more food, having been unable to finish our main meals due to their poor quality. Under normal circumstances then, we’d have ordered the dessert and reviewed that aswell. By this point, however, we were so outraged by the poor food and dreadful value-for-money, that we just wanted to leave. Needless to say, we didn’t leave any tip.

Food: 2/10 – really disappointing, and dreadful value-for money

Ambience: 6.5/10 – actually pretty good. No annoying kids, and an acceptable volume of music

Staff: 5/10 – standard. Waitress brought napkins without complaint, but otherwise unremarkable.

Overall: 3.5/10 – badly let down by the food, and the price of that food.

MS

---

Continuing our search for good pub grub, MS and I decided to venture into Southport with the hope of finding a suitable eatery. Before we eventually settled on The Crown (Ainsdale), we had already walked out of most of the pubs in Southport. Unfortunately, most eateries in this miserable seaside resort only seem to cater for pensioners. Instead of landlords/ladies advertising their ‘home made pie’, chalkboards had ‘2 for 1 on our pensioner’s lunch’ or ‘pensioner’s dinner served all day’ written all over them. Town centre pubs such as The Falstaff were particularly unwelcoming to anyone with a sense of smell. Virtually every dish they served seemed to be a different combination of words ‘liver’ and ‘onions’. The general atmosphere of the place could be compared to a nursing home, which is not surprising seeing as their entire clientele were as old as the Victorian building they were sat in. It’s a shame, really, because The Falstaff is a very nice building. Anyway, we obviously weren’t going to sit amongst elderly people eating substandard grub, so moved on.

The next pub we tried was the Fishermens’ Rest, which in years gone by served some of the heartiest food in Southport. The first thing we noticed upon entering the building was a tradesman, covered in cement, leaning over the bar, drinking his pint. Now, I have nothing against tradesmen, but they shouldn’t be allowed entrance to an eatery if they’re covered in fucking building materials. The Fishermens’ Rest used to be decorated with nautical furnishings which suited its location and history. Unfortunately, the new landlord has decided to strip away all of this décor replacing it with vodka bar fixtures and fittings. The old pool table has also been ripped out, and in its place, beanbags and scatter cushions. Yes, fucking beanbags in a traditional shore side pub. The oak bar had been painted a glossy white colour which just looked ridiculous. And finally, the menu, which was very small, seemed massively overpriced for what was on offer. Needless to say, MS and I soon fucked off and headed towards Ainsdale.

A pub named The Crown had recently been refurbished and we’d heard good things about the food, so decided to give it a shot. As we entered the premises, annoyingly, there was an immediate problem. Whoever was responsible for painting The Crown’s parking spaces seemed to have used a toy car as a reference for dividing up the bays. After a lot of pissing about, I managed to squeeze my vehicle between two cars. This was only the start of my problems, as once I’d engaged the handbrake, I realised my doors wouldn’t open wide enough for MS and I to get out. Had we been in a 3 door coupé, we’d have almost certainly been unable to exit such a vehicle, and therefore would have had to eat elsewhere. Fortunately, my car doors were just small enough to open, and so, after a long and hard struggle, we eventually exited the vehicle, and walked into the pub.

This wasn’t the best of starts for The Crown, but all could be forgiven if we were served a good meal and treated properly by the staff. One detail I noticed as I walked in was that they had a ‘no under 18s’ door policy. This, for me, more than made up for the lack of line-painting intelligence we’d encountered in the car park. Of course, that brief high became an almighty low when we realised we couldn’t actually sit down. Yes, for some reason, instead of the staff clearing tables before diners sat down, they left it up to their customers to do it for them. This was a fucking disgrace as there must have been at least 5 or 6 tables that were covered in shit. Reluctantly, MS and I removed the previous customer’s ice cream sundae dish, sat down, and glanced through the menu. The menu was actually very good. Not only was it nicely laid out, but it featured a vast amount of dishes at (what seemed like) very reasonable prices. The menu and door policy were enough to prevent MS and I walking out of yet another pub. This is not to say we were impressed by the indolent staff or the atrocious car park, though.

Anyway, instead of fucking about with starters, we decided to just order a large main. MS was in the mood for a good steak pie and I felt the need to sample their ‘mighty mixed grill’. Because I was especially hungry, I decided to go for the “KINGSIZE 28oz of meat” option.  Mixed grills tend to be the most expensive choice on pub menus, so at just short of £9, this king size option seemed very well-priced. Once we’d picked our dishes, we placed our order at the bar. The barman was friendly enough, which will count in The Crown’s favour. We then returned to our seats and waited patiently for our food.

The first example of poor customer service came in the form of an unenthusiastic waitress dumping condiments on our table in an aggressive manner. Perhaps she mistook us for someone who’s wronged her in the past, but those condiments couldn’t have been placed down with any less grace. The condiments mainly consisted of Heinz sauce sachets; this was a good indication that the rest of the pub’s produce would also be pre-wrapped, mass-produced shite. Not only did we receive threatening looks from the venomous waitress, but she had failed to provide us with any napkins. What the fuck was her problem? Anyway, this meant that MS was forced to walk up to the bar and beg the waitress to relinquish some of the napkins she seemed so possessive of.

After an acceptable amount of waiting time, MS received his dish. As MS is polite, he didn’t want to start it until my food had arrived. After a good 5 minutes, my order still hadn’t arrived, so MS was forced to start his before it went cold. Eventually, after MS had virtually finished his meal, my dish finally arrived, served with the same lack of enthusiasm we’d come to expect from the disgruntled waitress.

There were two things that caught my eye immediately. Firstly, where THE FUCK were my chips? Secondly, why THE FUCK does my KINGSIZE mixed grill look exactly the same as the regular mixed grill depicted in their POS? I was very insulted, but strangely, this was just the start of my ordeal. After a good few minutes, my chips finally arrived on a separate plate. Let’s remember that MS had been served his meal a good 7 minutes before mine had even arrived, so by the time the chips were served, MS had finished. Why did they even need a separate plate for the chips? MS’ plate would have been large enough to fit my pathetically-small mixed grill onto it with more than enough room for a serving of chips as well. It was mindless, but there was still a good possibility that this food could actually taste decent, and therefore make up for a multitude of mistakes.

Unsurprisingly, the food tasted as bad as it looked. I now realised why my meal was 7 minutes late:  EVERYTHING was over-cooked! Not only was every item of food overdone, but it was also of an unnaturally poor standard. I’ve eaten some shitty meat in my time, but this platter of dog food was some of the worst. I’ll go through each item to try and convey why it was so unbelievably foul.

Let’s start with the sausages. If you inspect this image of the menu, The Crown would appear to serve thick and juicy bangers cooked to perfection:

My sorry slithers of alleged pork had the circumference of a pencil, had been blackened under intense heat and were unnaturally pale in colour. After taking a bite out of one it became apparent that these were frozen, discount brand sausages of an incredibly poor standard. There were also a number of foreign bodies contained within my sausages that neither MS nor I could explain:

Having just tasted the worst sausage meat I’ve ever attempted to consume, it was time to move onto my gammon steak. This was actually a contender for the worst meat on the plate as it was virtually inedible. Just look at the shape of it:

Amongst the gristle and fat – of which there was a lot of – lay probably the worst example of ‘pork’ I’d ever encountered. Not only was the steak no thicker than a slice of bacon, but it was completely devoid of moisture. It was dry, overcooked, substandard shite that should not have been allowed to pass off as a gammon steak.

Moving onto the chicken breast, we find that ‘overcooked’ and ‘dry’ once again become key adjectives in describing this pulverised poultry. The chicken, which had obviously lived its life on a battery farm, had absolutely no taste to it whatsoever. Oddly, though, this was the best part of the meal, which meant I came quite close to actually finishing it off. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact I was enjoying eating it; I was just very hungry.

Everything on the plate up until the rump steak had been a fucking joke, which meant that I wasn’t expecting much from this low grade hunk of beef. I assumed it was low grade just from looking at it. Again, it was not much thicker than a slice of bacon, and seemed to consist of mainly gristle and fat. The Crown had at least provided me with a steak knife to cut into it, but even this sharpened utensil struggled to divide the meat up. The stringy and overcooked meat was dreadfully dry and tremendously tough. Upon tasting it, I began to question whether it was actually meat. This ‘rump steak’ literally tasted of nothing; it was that bad.

All that was left on my (first) plate was a mound of soggy onions, and (on my separate plate) a small portion of chips. The unusually-pale chips were seemingly cut from a very poor set of spuds. I suspect these chips were made from leftover potatoes, as virtually all of them were covered in eye buds. Unsurprisingly, the chips were fucking tasteless. They had so little taste in fact that I had to make use of one of the Heinz tomato sauce sachets in an attempt to add some flavour to them. I NEVER use tomato sauce on chips, as if they’re cooked properly, additional seasoning isn’t necessary.

The Crown’s take on the mixed grill was a fucking insult. The staff seemed to get everything wrong that day, including the glasses our Pepsi drinks were served in:

The glasses don’t necessarily have to say Pepsi on them (although that would be preferred), but they should at least be of the same type. Serving the same drink in two odd-shaped glasses is just lazy.

Perhaps the only positive aspect of The Crown was its general ambience. Firstly, there was music, but it was subtle enough for me not to pay any real attention to it. Unfortunately, too many establishments seem to think loud music is preferred to private conversation. It isn’t. Secondly, because there were no screaming children, it meant that aside from music, the only background noise that we could hear was adult conversation. It’s such a shame that the food and service couldn’t match the decent atmosphere.

I wouldn’t even serve that shit to a starving dog.

Overall, our dining experience at The Crown was absolutely appalling. Aside from the barman, not one member of staff was doing their job properly. The boorish waitress was inattentive and the chef clearly hadn’t a clue how to cook or prepare food. In reality, the only person to blame is the restaurant manager. As well as staff training, the manager is in charge of finding a suitable catering company to supply the pub’s kitchen. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference who cooked the shockingly poor quality of food, as evidently, it wasn’t fit for human consumption. I could have put up with the deceptive menu, the deranged car park and the poor customer service had the food been of a good standard, but it just wasn’t. I really hope that nobody has the misfortune of ordering The Crown’s KINGSIZE mixed grill, as it will discourage you from ever eating out again.

Ambience:  6/10 (the best thing about The Crown)

Service: 1/10 (the barman smiled, so that deserves a point)

Food: 0/10 (yes, NNR’s first zero)

 

Overall: 1/10 – I’d like to reward The Crown with a zero, I really would, but there’s no denying the atmosphere was above average. AVOID THIS SHITHOLE AT ALL COSTS.

RH

---

McDonald’s Lion Bar McFlurry™
Coming soon…

KFC, Southport [Session – 16/01/2011]

KFC, Southport (Eastbank Street)

Contrary to popular belief, MS and I are not actually obsessed with fast-food. The problem we face is that before NNR existed, we’d already dined at every eating establishment in the North West of England. At the time, we had a lot to say about these eateries, but unfortunately, we never bothered to put our thoughts down on paper. This means that for the sake of this website, we’ll have to revisit all of these eateries, and give them all a good reviewing. We’re not food snobs as such, so we’re willing to give every eatery a fair shot, even the fast-food chains. It’s untrue to say that it’s not possible to have an enjoyable eating experience at one of these places. We’ve proved this with our objective review of Burger King, Liverpool. Sure, the service wasn’t up to much, but it didn’t matter, as that burger was fucking excellent. Anyway, it’s time to review KFC and see how it compares to the King of fast food restaurants.

For this Session we decided to venture into Southport, a town considered to be ‘the classic resort’ according to local tourist literature. Despite Sefton Council’s best efforts to market the seaside town as an exclusive, middle-class jaunt, Southport is largely a shithole. As we walked down Eastbank Street expecting places of high culture depicted in the tourist brochure, we found a Poundland wedged between McDonald’s and KFC. KFC became the obvious choice of eatery as the McDonald’s was littered with chavs… and litter. I will never enter an establishment that allows children dressed in shell suits to loiter in their doorway. The KFC was a rather shabby-looking unit, which unlike the Burger King we entered in October, was in desperate need of a refit.

Upon entering the building, we were forced to queue up with a bunch of degenerates as there was only one staff member serving. Yes, just ONE person was stood behind the 5 or 6 tills, despite the fact it was a busy weekend. Because this KFC was massively understaffed, we had to wait a good 10 minutes before the spotty-looking cashier decided to serve us. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of customer service, but this lad looked a mess, didn’t look me in the eye, and failed to say please or thank you. That annoyed me, but not as much as what happened next. I asked for an iTwist (yes, the product name’s dreadful) to which the cashier replied “we’ve ran out of tortillas.” This meant that I couldn’t have either of the iTwists, the Cheesy BBQ Roller or the Spicy Caesar Roller. This fucked me off, as it meant I had to look through their limited menu for an alterative snack. In the end, I had to settle for their Mini Fillet Burger, which seemed quite reasonably priced at 99p. Of course, I later found out that I was actually charged £1.29. So, not only was I not served the snack I wanted, but I was also overcharged by 30p. Had I had the time, I’d have gone back to demand they refund my 30 pence. Failing that, I’d have contacted Trading Standards, as they were clearly breaking the law with their filthy fucking deception. I’d have also been interested to see what the Food Standards Agency would have said about the establishment, too. There were stainless steel panels on the counter that were greasy and dull-looking. All they needed was a blast of Mr. Muscle and a dish cloth to bring them up shining. The general interior of the place looked shoddy, which was surprising considering the establishment’s not much more than 5 years old.

The artwork on the packaging is pathetic

Anyway, for my main meal I chose to order a ‘Boneless Banquet for One’, as it seemed reasonable value. I decided to go for a boneless option as normally at KFC the bone-to-meat ratio is fucking atrocious. For my side order I picked ‘beans’ and because I’m not a fan of soft drinks, I ordered bottled-water. It didn’t take too long for the member of staff to throw my food into a box. Everything I ordered was already cooked, which was not necessarily a good thing, as it meant I had no idea how long it had all been left to stand. Once we’d received our food (as a take-out order), we headed back to my house to feast on it.

To compensate for not providing napkins, I was given a cryptic puzzle to solve instead. How does one eat beans without any form of utensil? I’m still working on that one.

The first thing worth noting is the fact that my box had not been closed properly. It’s a small detail, but if they were too lazy to close a box properly, what else were they too lazy to do? Perhaps they couldn’t be bothered to cook the chicken through, or check its use-by date? It might seem like an exaggeration, but if standards are sloppy in one area, chances are they’re sloppy in all areas. Upon opening the box, I noticed that my fries were not properly packaged. The few I received were wrapped-up in a fucking greasy bit of paper (see photograph). I’ve eaten at hundreds of fast-food chains, and I’ve never received fries in anything but their proper packaging. As well as the fries not being packaged properly, I also noticed the following fuck-ups: the popcorn chicken box wasn’t closed properly; the pot of beans was covered in tomato sauce; the Mini Breast Fillets were in their box upside down. The only item of produce packaged properly was the bottle of water, but of course, KFC Southport can’t take the credit for that one. What a fucking mess.

I can just about put up with shit customer service and poor presentation providing the food’s tasty. Unfortunately on this occasion, the food was anything but tasty. I’ll go through each individual item to help explain why this meal was fucking awful. At £1.29 the Mini Fillet Burger is 30% more expensive than the McDonald’s Chicken Mayo. This means that it has to taste at least 30% better than a typical Chicken Mayo in order to justify the price. Firstly, the outer packaging (a piece of grease-proof paper) was stone cold. I was so shocked by this that I had to ask MS to confirm its temperature, just to make sure there wasn’t something wrong with my circulatory system. MS agreed that it was far too cold to be a hot burger, meaning they must have served me a cold sandwich by mistake. When I stripped away the grease-proof paper, I was shocked to find that it was actually what I had ordered. Knowing it was cold, I still had to bite into it for the sake of this review. Firstly, the bread was soggy, and because it was of such poor quality, it instantly glued to my teeth. Secondly, there was far too much mayonnaise on the burger. Finally, and most importantly, the battered chicken was too cold and too greasy to be considered edible. I wasn’t impressed, although, perhaps the reason for its poor taste was a result of it being stored for too long on a ‘hot’ plate. It’s a fucking insult that I should pay over the odds for something that’s not even hot. I was fucking annoyed.

Yum…

The next item of food I decided to eat was the Popcorn Chicken, which again, felt cold through the outer packaging. I decided to use my side of baked beans as a dip. Upon opening my pot of beans, I noticed that half of them had burnt into the plastic tub. This means that they were either cooked for too long, or, more than likely, they’d been reheated again and again. I also noticed that the use-by date was the very same date as the Session, which made me question how many times they’d actually been reheated: ‘a lot’ would be my estimate. I’m not sure if the beans were KFC’s own brand, but they certainly didn’t taste as good as a batch of Heinz or Branston. As a tomato sauce dip, though, they were adequate for dunking my Popcorn Chicken into. The Popcorn Chicken was nothing special, but it wasn’t bad I suppose. Unfortunately, it’s hard to judge any cooked food that’s stone-fucking-cold.

After the disappointing Popcorn Chicken, I felt it was time to start my fries. Because they weren’t packaged properly, I had to empty the contents into my snack box. I was amazed at a) how few I received, and b) how FUCKING cold they were. I took one bite, and threw the piece of shit on the floor. Not only were they ice-cold, but they were also undercooked. What fucking mindless cunts were employed as kitchen staff? I’ve never left a portion of fries before, as normally, even if they’re cold, they’re just about edible. These, however, were fucking appalling; the worst fries I’ve ever attempted to eat. To say I was angry would be a fucking understatement. I was down to my Mini Breast Fillets, which meant I was already dissatisfied with most of my meal. Could my entire banquet be a disappointment, or could these three chunks of chicken save the day?

Well, unsurprisingly, like the rest of the meal, the Mini Breast Fillets were cold. Even if they were hot, I don’t suppose they’d have been particularly tasty. The chicken was very watery, and it had a very salty/savoury flavour which wasn’t particularly pleasant. I could have put up with the salty/savoury flavour, had they not left such a terrible aftertaste. They weren’t the worst battered chicken breast fillets I’d ever tasted, and if they were hot, they might have been okay; but on this occasion, they were shite. The best part about the whole meal was washing away the taste of greasy food with my bottled-water. Unfortunately, like the rest of the meal, the bottled-water wasn’t all that great. It was nothing compared to Isklar water, for example, or even the Buxton stuff McDonald’s serve. Despite the fact it was supposed to be ‘spring water’, it didn’t taste much better than tap water.

The deformed-looking bottle doesn’t do the product any favours

To conclude then, this visit to KFC was dreadful. The customer service was non-existent, the presentation was an insult and the stone-cold food they served-up was fucking atrocious. Perhaps they were having a bad day, or their regular staff had been replaced by trainees. Whatever the reason, though, there’s no excuse for a company the size of KFC to allow one of its restaurants to serve such bad food in such an ignorant manner. It’s unlikely MS and I will ever eat at KFC Southport again.

Score: 1.5/10

RH

---

Fast food has enjoyed something of a revival lately – at least, it has where RH and I are concerned. We’ve gone from never dreaming of going near the stuff, to being relatively enthusiastic about the prospect of reviewing fast food products, thanks mainly to our successful trip to Burger King recently (see review). Still, it was with some trepidation that we took the decision to head to KFC, as opposed to McDonalds, which also needed reviewing. The main worry was that KFC obviously only serves chicken, which is generally the cheapest and most boring meat. Whereas a trip to any of the other ‘big 3’ fast food chains gives you a choice of meats, KFC limits you instantly. As it turned out, RH and I were to be more severely limited in our choice than even we could have predicted.

We decided to get the food ‘to go’ and eat it at RH’s house (which is only a short drive away). This decision paid dividends straight away, since it was clear within seconds that no sane person would consider sitting down to a meal in this establishment. Every surface was covered in grease marks, and the floor was so heavily stained that, for a moment, I actually thought the black marks were an intentional part of the design. For the sake of completeness, and because it was clear that we’d be queuing for ages, I decided to inspect the restrooms whilst we waited. Without elaborating any more than necessary, I was sorry I’d gone anywhere near KFC Southport’s facilities – it was clear they hadn’t been cleaned for a long while. Whilst this didn’t affect me in any direct sense, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the standards of cleanliness in the kitchens matched those of the toilet.

As mentioned, I had plenty of time to explore the premises, since the queue didn’t seem to be moving. The restaurant wasn’t overly busy, but there were many customers waiting to be served due to gross understaffing issues behind the counter. There was only one employee serving, which was inadequate, bordering on negligent. Points were deducted for this, since KFC is supposed to be fast food. KFC Southport was anything but. Another point of note is that there were between 20 – 25 ready-packed portions of fries sat ready to go, from the moment we walked in. How long had they sat there? 10 minutes? Half an hour? Either way, it’s unacceptable – the fries would surely be fucking stone cold by the time we got served.

One advantage to the long wait was being able to study the menu – although as it happened, we needn’t have bothered, since most of their products were unavailable. I went for the ‘Big Daddy Box Meal’, which comprised the ‘Daddy Burger’, fries, a piece of ‘original recipe chicken’, a side, and a drink. Knowing this wouldn’t fill me up, I decided to supplement the meal with other items. Shockingly, KFC Southport had completely run out of hot wings, ‘toasted twisters’, ‘I-twists’ and ‘cheesy BBQ rollers’. I couldn’t be arsed asking the sullen employee for anything else, so was forced to stick with the box meal. Again, points were knocked off for this. I understand RH was told that they’d run out of tortillas, meaning that all tortilla products were off the menu. These products, combined with the hot wings, constitute about half of KFC’s product range. It’s fucking unforgivable that they hadn’t put a sign on the door to warn people of this, particularly since they were forcing people to wait around 15 minutes for service, and I’ll be writing to Watchdog about it.

It’s worth noting at this point that the box meal cost me just under £6 – a similar price to that I paid for a damn good meal at Burger King recently. The pressure was on, therefore, for KFC to deliver on their promise that this was the ‘daddy’ of all meals.

We made the short car journey back to RH’s house and prepared to get stuck in. I was instantly struck by how unimaginative the design of the actual box was – basically solid blue colouring with some text reading “Big Daddy Box Meal”. I hoped the food within wasn’t as disappointing.

Upon opening the box, I found it extremely odd that the piece of original-recipe chicken had simply been thrown in with everything else, without having even been wrapped separately. This meant that my fries, burger box and coleslaw was covered in grease. These meals would be difficult enough to eat at the best of times, without incompetence like that making things even worse. Add to this the fact that I hadn’t been provided with any napkins, and it was a recipe for disaster. Luckily RH had his own napkins, but he shouldn’t have had to go to that trouble. Needless to say, marks were deducted.

The chicken had just been dumped in, so there was fucking grease everywhere

Since the fries were easily the least interesting item in the box, I decided to get them out of the way first. My initial fears of stone-cold fries were, unfortunately, correct. They were absolutely disgusting – cold, tasteless and soggy. It was so bad as to make them inedible, and even combined with the coleslaw they were repulsive. The fries had obviously been sat on the counter for ages before they were served to us, showing a complete lack of foresight on the part of the KFC staff.

It’s a shame aswell, since the coleslaw was actually good. It wasn’t quite up to par with the best coleslaw I’ve ever had (that honour currently belongs to Nando’s) but it was certainly better than I’d expected. That said, it’s hard to fuck up something as simple as coleslaw, and in any case the KFC Southport staff can’t take any credit, since it’s pre-packed, meaning no preparation on their part is required.

Look at the fucking chicken grease all over the box.

Actually the highlight of the meal, the only problem with this coleslaw was trying to open its grease-covered packaging

The piece of original-recipe chicken was next, and unsurprisingly was also cold, although not to the same degree as the fries. The chicken was reasonably tasty, but very greasy as described above. The coating of the chicken wasn’t nearly as crispy as it should have been, either – it was soggy and seemed to be sort of sliding off the chicken in places. This was probably because it hadn’t been correctly packaged, and was a shame since, if properly served, it would have been enjoyable.

It looks fucking horrendous, but tasted alright

Before I get to the main event, a brief word about my soft drink. I’d opted for Diet Pepsi, since the level of sugar in ordinary Pepsi will generally numb the taste buds and spoil a meal. This Diet Pepsi was flat, which was at least consistent with the standard of the other items. There should be no excuse for flat soft drinks – and whilst I’m unsure whether the KFC staff themselves are responsible for maintaining the drinks fountains, someone has been incompetent somewhere along the line, and this has helped spoil my dining experience. Another minor point – since my drink was Diet Pepsi, the small ‘button’ on the drink lid ought to have been depressed, but it wasn’t. Whilst that doesn’t bother me particularly, it could have been potentially hazardous to a diabetic customer, for example. It could have become extremely confusing if we’d ordered several drinks – everyone would have had to taste all of the drinks to see which was diet, and which was ordinary Pepsi – the health risks associated with that are obvious.

Why have those ‘buttons’ if the staff are too fucking lazy to use them?

Finally, only the burger remained, and it’s fair to say that all of my hopes for even a mildly enjoyable experience rested on it. Upon opening the box, the burger actually looked quite impressive:

The burger comprised a chicken fillet, salsa, a hash brown, cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato and a kind of peppery mayonnaise. That might sound appetising, but in reality there were far too many competing flavours for the burger to be enjoyable. It had also been badly constructed, and started to fall apart immediately after my first bite. Perhaps the worst aspect of the burger was the volume of mayonnaise that had been used – there was far, far too much and its strong taste simply drowned all of the other ingredients. Also, the bread is of such a bizarrely poor quality, that it sort of soaked up the mayonnaise and became extremely soggy very quickly. The texture of that in my mouth was tremendously off-putting, and the whole thing left a fatty residue in my mouth afterwards, which the flat Diet Pepsi wasn’t able to remove.

I was left with a bad taste in mouth after I’d finished my meal, in both a real and metaphorical sense. I’d been charged £6 for a meal in which the highlight was a small, pre-packed tub of cheap coleslaw. The burger, for which I’d held high hopes, was a massive disappointment and will probably be enough to prevent me ever going to KFC again.

Perhaps worst of all was the fact that the meal made me feel physically sick, which is a rare sensation for someone with an iron constitution, like me. My main concern, as I drove home feeling like my bowels and stomach were about to simultaneously expel their contents, was that I might actually have been poisoned by some rancid chicken.

Value for money was shit aswell, since I wasn’t remotely full after consuming what was supposedly £6 worth of food. Coupled with the atrocious quality of the food, this meal was perhaps the least successful that RH and I have yet experienced.

Score: 1.5/10 – terrible service, choice, quality and value for money. Difficult to see how this could have been worse.

MS

Burger King, Liverpool [Session – 21/10/2010]

Burger King, Liverpool (Lord Street)

Let me start by saying Burger King was not our first choice of venue for dining that evening. Unfortunately, virtually every other eatery in Liverpool was either packed out with people that night, or it no longer existed. The original choice for the Session was Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which despite its horrendously-expensive menu, does serve a decent burger; and we were in the mood for burger that night. Annoyingly, the Liverpool One GBK had literally shut down just before we arrived, and so, we were forced to eat elsewhere.

Realistically, our only options were the fast-food chains, as pubs in Liverpool either don’t serve proper food, or are generally too busy to be considered suitable for a Session. Burger King on Lord Street had JUST been refurbished, which meant it was much more inviting than the shithole of a McDonald’s across the street. It was therefore the obvious choice to dine that night.

Naturally, I ordered the biggest burger on the menu, the Double Texican Whopper, along with large fries, bottled-water and a Texican Wrap. This meal cost about £10 which is obviously a ridiculous amount of money to pay at a fast-food restaurant. There was a lot of food, though, and when I saw the sheer size of the burger, I was slightly intimidated:

Before I began my meal I felt that I needed a strategy to tackle this titanic of a burger. To give me time to think one up, I proceeded to eat my Texican Wrap. The wrap was tasty enough, but I didn’t think it was brilliant value. At the time, I had no idea what the fuck was in it; I still don’t. It was like someone had thrown a pot of chilli con carne into a deep fat fryer and wrapped up the contents in a tortilla. It wasn’t spicy by any stretch of the imagination, but it could certainly be described tangy. As disgusting as trans-fat chilli sounds, it was, like I said, tasty. I’m not sure I’d necessary order one again, but I certainly wouldn’t say no to a Texican Wrap if I was offered one for half price (when bought with an XL value meal).

Having still not thought up a suitable means of tackling the burger, I decided to eat my fries next. It’s difficult to review fries, as they’re essentially just slithers of second-rate potato covered in fat. Out of the Big Three (McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King), I’d say BK’s fries are probably the tastiest, but also the fattiest, and therefore leave the worst aftertaste. It’s worth noting that the fries I was served were hot and not covered in too much salt, which was actually quite surprising. I’m not a massive fan of fries at the best of times, but these were reasonably tasty, so I can’t complain.

I came to the conclusion that there was no strategy for eating the burger, so squashed it up as best I could, opened wide, and bit into it. That didn’t work, so I decided to remove some of its innards, and eat those separately. The innard I removed was basically what I’d just eaten wrapped up in the tortilla. It was actually tasty enough to eat on its own. By reducing the burger to two beef pâtés, salad, relish and buns, it was now small enough to fit into my mouth, just. It’s worth noting that the fucking about, trying to fit the burger in my mouth, was part of the appeal of ordering such a big item of food. Of course, all of this is irrelevant if the burger tastes like shit. This burger did NOT taste like shit: quite the opposite, in fact. I have to admit, this was probably one of the tastiest burgers I’ve ever eaten. It helps that the meat is flame grilled, and the pâtés are a decent size (unlike the sorry slithers of ‘meat’ served up in McDonald’s). The salad, as the photograph illustrates, was fresh enough not to be covered in brown bits. I was also pleased with the fact that the bun tasted fresh, too. Often in fast-food restaurants the bread that’s served falls apart as if it’s been stored in a freezer for too long. Admittedly, though, there wasn’t enough bread to cover the contents of the burger, which meant for a messy eating experience. The Texican Whooper wasn’t spicy, despite what the advertising campaign claimed. It didn’t matter, though, as I hadn’t gone to Burger King for a spicy meal, just a good burger. And it was a damn good burger.

Whilst the food was good, the same cannot be said for the ambience. With all fast-food restaurants, you’ll have to put up with unhappy work staff showing little in the way of customer service. You can’t blame them for not smiling or saying thank you, though, as they work such a horrendous job. Good customer service does exist in certain fast food restaurants, but it’s rare you’ll receive it in a busy city centre unit. I wasn’t pleased or displeased with the staff’s service on this particular occasion. All you can really ask for at a fast-food restaurant is that your food is cooked properly. At this visit, I’m pleased to say all of my meal was cooked properly.

Unsurprisingly, the atmosphere at this particular Burger King wasn’t great. Firstly, it was spoilt by fucking idiot music being blasted through their sound system. Why can’t people make do with conversation, rather than having JLS or some other mindless set of cunts keeping them company. The mindless music was no doubt a means to entertain their clientele, which consisted of children and degenerates. On one table, a set of chavs were playing with their meals, making far too much noise. Of course, this was preferred to the set of degenerates who were sat opposite staring at us throughout our meal. They were either drugged-up or brain dead… or both. Burger King isn’t cheap, which makes me wonder how the job seeker’s brigade can afford to eat there. It’s also sickening to think that the kids sat in there have received enough pocket money to be able afford BK’s menu. When I was a child, I’d have had to save up my pocket money for 12 months to be able to afford a Burger King meal. Anyway, points will be deducted for Burger King not having a stricter door policy.

To conclude then, our visit to Burger King wasn’t brilliant. The wrap and fries were nothing to write home about, and the general ambience was atrocious. It wasn’t all bad, though. Firstly, the recent re-fit meant we were sat on clean stools, which is obviously unheard of at a fast-food restaurant. Secondly, we didn’t have to wait too long our food. Thirdly, and most importantly, the Double Texican Whopper was fucking amazing. It was a rather expensive choice, but I felt it was well worth the money, and more than made up for all the negative factors we’d experience during our visit. Burger King certainly lived up their reputation of being king when it comes to burgers.

Score: 6/10 (thanks to the superb burger)

RH

---

In years gone by, RH and I would never have even contemplated going into a fast food restaurant for anything other than a coffee. The accepted logic was that fast food is largely shite, and that for similar money you could get ‘proper’ versions of the same food in a pub. The advantages of the pub being, inter alia,  the availability of alcohol and the absence of children.

Over the last few years, however, things have been turned on their head somewhat. Slowly but surely, all of our favoured public-house haunts have either:

1. Been gobbled up by faceless brewery chains serving plastic microwave meals instead of food;
2. Stopped serving any kind of edible goods whatsoever;
3. Been turned into a nursery school;
4. Been turned into a student union; or
5. Disappeared

You’re probably thinking “where have you been getting your burgers?”. It’s a valid question – avid readers amongst you will know that we were forced to cook our own last time, almost burning down my wooden balcony in the process. Of course, the weather’s unsuitable for BBQs at this time of year, and so we’re left with only one option when we need a burger – fast food.

We decided to visit the Burger King on Liverpool’s Lord Street really as a last-resort. We initially tried the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, having enjoyed a damn good burger there last year, however upon arrival the place looked to have been deserted. We soon discovered why – their prices had roughly trebled since our last visit, putting their (admittedly good) burgers beyond the reach of even the most perverted of money-wasters.

Nothing else but a burger would do. It was a toss-up between McDonalds and Burger King. Luckily, the two face each other on opposite sides of the road, so we could afford to walk there and decide on the spot. I’ve long considered Burger King to be vastly superior to McDonalds in almost every respect, but if I needed any more convincing, we spotted that the Burger King on Lord Street appeared to have just opened following an extensive refurbishment. The McDonalds opposite, on the other hand, looked like a homeless shelter. Our decision was made.

We’d missed the dinnertime rush, so we weren’t greeted by what looked like an outtake from The Hills Have Eyes, as you’d expect at a fast food restaurant, and we didn’t have to wait long to be served. Unfortunately, since I’m unfamiliar with the protocol at these establishments, I could have done with a bit more time to think about what I wanted. As it was, I chose the first thing I saw on the menu – the Texican Whopper. It was accompanied by fries, and a side order of onion rings. Coca Cola was the drink of choice.

Since the restaurant was relatively empty, they’d cordoned off most of the seating areas, presumably so the lazy staff wouldn’t have to clean more than a square metre of the restaurant at closing time. Unfortunately, that meant that RH and I were forced to sit in close proximity to a number of freaks. A bunch of morons at one table who appeared to be talking to their food rather than eating it, and some nosey couple at another table who wouldn’t take their eyes off us. I tried to make these observations to RH, only to discover that we couldn’t hear each other due to the obnoxiously loud music. Marks were knocked off instantly for both of these things, although in fairness we fully expected a complete lack of ambience once we took the decision to visit Burger King.

Onto the food. My first impressions of the burger itself were good. It looked more or less like the picture advertised, although I instantly regretted not getting the ‘double’ Texican Whopper (see RH review).

It looked good, but felt inferior when compared with RH’s choice.

Not wanting to dive straight into the main event, I sampled the fries and onion rings first. Fries, by and large, are fries when it comes to fast food. There are subtle differences, and overall Burger King’s are probably marginally better than McDonalds’, and certainly a lot better than what I remember of KFC’s. They feel more substantial and are invariably crispier than McDonalds fries, and this batch was no exception. They were nothing special, but lived up to my expectations.

The onion rings were more of an event than the fries, as you’d expect since you have to order them separately to the burger meal itself. I love a good onion ring, and was pleased to find that those served at Burger King that night were more or less on par with what you’d get at a good pub. McDonalds don’t even offer onion rings so far as I know, so I suppose Burger King is awarded marks for that alone.

The onion rings certainly added to the experience

Having sampled the hors d’oeuvres, it was time to get stuck in to the burger. And boy, was I pleasantly surprised. Rather than the greasy, flimsy, tasteless shit I’d been expecting, what I got was a delicious and robust burger. Although it wasn’t as spicy as I’d been led to expect, it was certainly good. The addition of the kind of deep-fried chilli con carne was a stroke of genius. As a side note, although the burger wasn’t as big as RH’s option, it was easier to manoeuvre and didn’t require taking apart in order to eat. So those points probably counter-balance one another. I thoroughly enjoyed the burger and it was complemented well by the fries, and very well by the onion rings.

The price I paid for the food was reasonable (about £6-ish), but it didn’t fill me up completely. That said, these days probably the only places where you’d spend £6 and expect to be completely full are the chippy or Netto. Whilst Burger King doesn’t exactly represent value for money (being roughly 5 times the price I remember paying for fast food as a youngster), the quality of the burger made up for that. On a return visit I’d probably have to spend more in order to fill myself up, but so long as the other burgers on the menu are as good as the Texican Whopper, I won’t mind.

In summary:

Fixtures and Fittings: 7/10 (recently refurbished, but still a fast food restaurant)
Staff: 5/10 (did their job adequately but were not ‘polite’. Were lazy)
Ambience: 1/10 (music far, far too loud and other patrons disgusting)
Food: 8/10 (very good for fast food, but didn’t get enough for my money)

Overall: 6/10 – good food let down by the other aspects of the dining experience

MS

---

McDonald’s Rolo McFlurry™

After serving us two truly abysmal McFlurries at the previous Sessions, McDonald’s were on their last strike. I’m still amazed that they had managed to fuck up their Cornetto concoction so badly. But let’s leave that mistake in the past for now and concentrate on the present. Rolo is quite possibly Nestle’s tastiest chocolate treat, so McDonald’s decision to add it to their ice-cream seemed most judicious. On removing the needless plastic lid, the Rolo McFlurry certainly looked impressive:

There are some important details to note here. Firstly, those shells of chocolate are clearly Rolo. I’m sick of McFlurry’s not bearing any resemblance to what’s displayed on their POS. This looked good enough to be photographed for their marketing campaign. Secondly, the brown fluid mixed in with the ice-cream is clearly Rolo caramel. It seems like McDonald’s have just broken up Rolo pieces and mixed them in with their ice-cream. Thankfully, this is what they were supposed to do, so it seems on this occasion McDonald’s have got it right.

It might have looked the part, but did it actually taste any good? Well, I’m pleased to report, the Rolo McFlurry was fucking excellent. It tasted exactly how it looked – like Rolo mixed with ice-cream – which let’s face it, is a mouth-watering combination. I’m not sure it’s the best McFlurry I’ve ever eaten, but for the sake of this website at least, it’s by far the tastiest we’ve consumed in our Sessions so far. Unfortunately, the Rolo McFlurry will miss out on full marks as these promotional products cost more than 99p.

Score: 9/10

RH

The NNR McFlurry™ Leaderboard so far:

1. Rolo

2. Aero

3. Cornetto

Pizza Hut, Liverpool [Session – 28/09/2010]

Pizza Hut, Liverpool (Liverpool One)

As a venue for eating out, Pizza Hut bridges the gap between fast food joints and proper restaurants. Their food, which is essentially stodgy shite, is dressed up as authentic Italian cuisine; and their customer service, whilst not professional, is better than most fast food chains. Generally, MS and I eat at Pizza Hut because it’s a safe bet. It’s very hard to fuck up a pizza; and even harder to fuck up serving one. Because MS and I were not in the mood to be fucked about for this particular Session, we decided to play it safe and dine at Liverpool One’s Pizza Hut.

For this outing, we made sure we picked be a quiet time, i.e. an autumn weeknight. Whilst the city centre was virtually empty, Pizza Hut seemed to have punters queuing up to eat there. Oddly, when we glimpsed inside, there were very few people sat down eating. It seemed that Pizza Hut was either heavily understaffed or their employees were not properly trained. I’m going with the latter. Anyway, we were told to wait ‘5 minutes’ in the waiting area, which annoyed us, as there were plenty of empty places they could have walked us to. The waiting area itself wasn’t particularly impressive. Firstly, the cushions were dreadfully uncomfortable; the material they were weaved out of was very rough. Secondly, the colour of the seats was truly awful; it wasn’t at all pleasant to look at:

Whilst we were waiting (for MORE than 5 minutes), MS and I decided to have a glance at the menu. The menus were fucking disgusting; they were covered in what looked like (and felt like) human semen:

MS and I were just about ready to walk out, but just as we stood up, we were finally called to our table. We knew immediately the pokey little table they’d sat us on would be far too small for our man-sized order. When we explained why we’d need a bigger table, the Eastern European waitress didn’t seem to understand us, and just wandered off. Not only was it too small, but it hadn’t been cleaned properly from whoever, or whatever, had sat on it last. After a good 5 minutes the waitress returned and asked what drinks we’d like to order. We both opted to coke, as it was free to refill. In reply to our order, the pedantic waitress said: “we have Pepsi, no coke.” Now, ‘coke’ isn’t a brand, where as Pepsi is. Had we asked specifically for ‘Coca Cola’, then we would have needed to be told they only offered Pepsi Cola. However, we asked for coke, so their ‘we only have Pepsi’ comment wasn’t necessary. Anyway, we were given our ‘Pepsi’ after a short while, and then our Eastern European waitress disappeared… for good. A teenage English waiter took over from her, and after we uttered our order, he had the sense to reseat us, fully knowing our food wouldn’t fit on the tiny table we were squashed into.

As MS and I were particularly hungry, as well as a large main order, we decided to order a ‘Favourites Platter’ as our starter, which included chicken strips, potato wedges, cheese melts and salad. It wasn’t overly priced and looked rather good in the photograph. For our main, we ordered a large ‘Super Supreme’ (as it contains every ingredient on the menu) and a medium ‘Meat Feast’ as we didn’t want to other another Super Supreme. We requested both pizzas to be cooked on an ‘Italian’ base to reduce the amount of stodginess.

Our starter took about 10 minutes to arrive, which isn’t unreasonable, considering it’s (allegedly) cooked from a raw state. It certainly looked appetising enough, despite the fact everything was covered in batter. It’s worth noting that the menu clearly states we’d be provided with coleslaw, which as you can see, is absent from the photograph.

I picked up a couple of wedges to and dipped them in the tomato/salsa sauce. What’s rather unhygienic is the fact that there’s only one dish of dipping sauce. This means that if someone decides to re-dip their food into the sauce, they’re putting their germ-ridden saliva into the dish for the other person to share. Luckily, MS and I are quite conscious of this sort of thing, so didn’t fall victim of this blatant breach of health and safety. Anyway, the wedges themselves were not particularly tasty; it wouldn’t surprise me if they a discount brand frozen batch. The cheese melts were rather disgusting, too, as they were essentially just processed cheese wrapped in batter. This meant that two out of three of the platter’s offerings were substandard. If the chicken was shit, we’d have been very fucking angry. Thankfully, the chicken strips were actually all right. They weren’t too salty or fatty, and didn’t leave a sickly aftertaste like KFC’s battered wank. What was annoying, though, was that we were given an odd number, which meant we had to fuck about trying to divide strip number five in two pieces. At £6.49, the Favourite’s Platter ended up a massive waste of money. Most of the platter was either substandard, or in the case of the coleslaw, wasn’t actually provided. The chicken strips were fine, but for the money we paid, we’d have expected a lot more. It’s a very disappointing start for Pizza Hut.

We didn’t have to wait too long for our main course to arrive, but when it did, we were a little shocked. One slice of our Super Supreme was missing! According to the waiter, someone had ‘dropped it’. How on earth can you be stupid enough to drop a slice of pizza? I hope this means that if Pizza Hut staff do drop things, they’re at least sensible enough not to simply place it back on the plate. Anyway, to make up for their mistake, they offered to cook an entire small Super Supreme for no extra charge. This was the best customer service we’d received all night, and more than made up for the dropping error. However, it wasn’t enough repair the damage done by the Eastern European waitress or the maître d’ in the waiting area. Besides, were we really going to eat another pizza on top of our two large orders?

Once all the food was placed on the table, I started to munch on the Super Supreme. Generally, MS and I are big fans of this pizza. It’s got every imaginable ingredient on top, and if the pizza’s served on an Italian base, it’s not overly stodgy. Cooked properly, this is a truly supreme pizza. On this occasion, though, there were some problems. After biting into it, there were two immediate issues: Firstly, the red onions smelt and tasted foul. It seems that whoever was working in the kitchen that day didn’t bother to assess the freshness of their vegetables. Secondly, the olives were a disgrace. They tasted atrocious, and looked like they’d been stored in a vat of bleach. At least one of the olives on the pizza was edible:

Left: Are you having a laugh?  Right: How a cooked olive should look.

Another problem with the pizza was the crust to topping ratio. Most of the pizza was fine, but at certain points around the rim, the crust was a good inch and a half thick. This meant that certain slices had little in the way of topping, and a lot in the way of dough. MS and I were really starting to regret out decision to dine at Pizza Hut; it turns out you can fuck up a pizza. We managed to finish it in the end, but this was because we were hungry, and not because we were enjoying the pizza. This was massively disappointing, as this particular pizza has been consistently good when we’ve ordered it in the past.

Once we’d conquered the Super Supreme, we started on our Meat Feast. Generally, there’s no point in ordering this pizza as it’s exactly the same as the Super Supreme, only with a lot less ingredients. However, we wanted two pizzas, so we chose the one with the most meat on it. Virtually every other pizza the Hut has on offer is a different combination of the Super Supreme’s ingredients. Anyway, we were not expecting much from this pizza, seeing as virtually everything else we’d consumed that evening was dire. Much to my surprise, the Meat Feast was actually very good. The crust to topping ratio was as it should be, there were no missing slices, and none of the ingredients had passed their use-by date. It was actually a good pizza, which is lucky for Pizza Hut, as it will mean their overall score won’t be too embarrassing.

Speaking of scores, it’s time to wrap up this review. In terms of service, only one out of the three floor staff acted professional. This particular member of staff deserves praise, as he did his best to undo his colleagues’ appalling mistakes. In terms of the kitchen staff, well, who knows what they were thinking serving ingredients that were not edible. In terms of ambience, because we were moved around so much, it was difficult to absorb the atmosphere. The shitty pop music playing through their speaker system was far too loud, and we weren’t seated in a particularly desirable area. We actually requested a window seat, but the Eastern European waitress claimed those tables hadn’t been cleaned. This was truly atrocious customer service, as she should have simply cleaned the table we’d requested to sit at. The food, on the whole, was a disappointment. The starter was an expensive waste of time, and the Super Supreme was completely ruined. The Meat Feast was decent, which meant at least someone in the kitchen was doing their job properly. We ended up spending about £20 per head, which is fucking ridiculous seeing as Pizza Hut isn’t really a proper restaurant. Granted, we’d have put up with the silly price tag if ALL of the food was good, but on this occasion, it just wasn’t. It’s a big blow for Pizza Hut, as it’s lost its title of ‘most reliable eatery’. Let’s hope the next time we visit (if there is a next time), things will have improved.

Favourites Platter: 3/10 – A pointless waste of £6.49.
Super Supreme: 4/10 – The worst Super Supreme we’ve ever tasted.
Meat Feast: 8/10 – Tasty.

Service: 3/10 – Points scored because one member of staff was at least doing his job.

Ambience: 2/10 – Points lost because of piss-poor customer service.

Overall Score: 3.5/10 – £40 for substandard food and service – what a joke.

RH

---

Over the years, RH and I have eaten at Pizza Hut many times, and it must be said that our dining experiences there have ranged from adequate to dreadful. Pizza Hut is never going to be the kind of place that you come away from thinking “that was amazing”, yet we always end up going back. Why? Certainly it isn’t the prices, as they’re far in excess of what you should be paying for what is essentially cheap, mass-produced stodge. Nor is it the quality of food or level of customer service that you get at Pizza Hut – it’s probably just because it’s a ‘safe’ option; you know what you’re getting, and you’re never going to be as crushingly disappointed as you might be if you try somewhere new and exotic.

Having been let down on our last visit to somewhere ‘new’, we reverted to Pizza Hut. It’s not a proper restaurant, obviously, but isn’t quite fast-food either, and we were in the mood for some dependably-average pizza. Also, we needed to review the place.

If you’ve visited Liverpool One, you’ll know that there are in excess of a dozen eateries within close proximity of one another, including this Pizza Hut. For some bizarre reason though, and despite our visit taking place on a quiet day, Pizza Hut was the only establishment to have a queue stretching back through its doors. RH and I thought this terribly odd – even Nando’s, which is probably the busiest restaurant in Liverpool One, didn’t have such a queue. The reason for the backlog of customers became apparent, however, once we got inside. About two-thirds of the tables were empty, meaning that people who should have been sitting down to their meal, were being forced to wait in line, like cattle at an abattoir. It’s fucking demeaning, and there was no need for it. Each of the other restaurants in Liverpool One probably had just as many customers, and were able to accommodate them easily.

When we were finally seated (having been made to wait longer than originally indicated), we were led to what looked like a coffee table. The staff ought to have known that two grown men were going to order more than one pizza (which was all this small table could handle), and seated us accordingly. As it was, we asked our waitress to find us a different table, preferably by the window. The waitress merely mumbled incoherently and walked off, which we found completely unacceptable. Whilst waiting for someone with half a brain to come along and assist us in finding a suitable table, I perused the menu:

My instant reaction was to cast the menu away, since it was a hideous thing to touch. It was literally covered in grease, and stained with what RH and I agreed could only be semen. After constructing some makeshift ‘menu gloves’ from napkins that I pinched from a nearby (empty) table, I looked through the options with increasing bewilderment. Pizza Hut’s menu is, without doubt, the most confusing pile of shit I’ve ever seen. It barely contains any pizza, for a start, and trying to work out what everything costs is a fucking chore. Not only that, but their ‘meal deal’ offers such as the ‘Full Works’ (meant for a family of 6, or something, but barely adequate for RH and I) no longer exist, meaning you’re forced to pay about 50% more when you want a large, complex meal.

RH and I both ordered soft drinks, since the refills are included in the price, and decided to order a ‘sharing platter’ as a prelude to the main event. We went for the ‘Favourites Platter’, which apparently consisted of chicken strips, potato wedges, three-cheese melts, coleslaw and dipping sauce. To follow, we ordered a large Super Supreme pizza, and a medium Meat Feast pizza (both on Italian bases). It’s worth noting at this point that, although the Meat Feast is just a toned-down version of the Super Supreme, we had no other realistic option, since all of the other toppings on the menu sounded disgusting. Luckily, we were served by a member of staff who had something about him, since he recognised straight away that we’d need a bigger table, and we were moved to somewhere more suitable.

The sharing platter arrived within about 10 minutes, but unfortunately was incomplete. by the time we’d noticed that the coleslaw was missing, the waiter had gone, and there were no other staff in sight. The platter was only lukewarm on arrival, and cooling rapidly, so we were face with the choice of either ploughing ahead without our coleslaw, or getting up and looking for a member of staff to complain to. We quickly decided that it was belittling to have to hunt down a member of staff, so we just started eating – but that was a choice we should never have had to make.

Because of the hygiene issues associated with sharing food from the same plate, RH and I always divide the food equally onto two smaller plates before eating. An immediate problem presented itself however, when we realised that there were odd numbers of everything – only 3 ‘three-cheese melts’ and 5 chicken strips, meaning that we had to start cutting things into pieces, which wasn’t ideal. It made me wonder just how many people this ‘sharing platter’ is intended for. Clearly it isn’t 2, since odd numbers of everything is awkward. Is it 3? That would mean one three-cheese melt each, but an even-more-awkward 1 and two-thirds of a chicken strip. Not 4 or 5 either, as that would leave everyone with less than one three-cheese melt. It’s fucking mindless when you think about it. The optimum number for these things is 2, since that’s the most common size of party at any restaurant. Going out in a group of 3 is perverse, and there isn’t nearly enough food on the platter for 4 people, so Pizza Hut’s practice of putting odd numbers of each item on their platters is fucking mindless. They need to sort that out, or offer people the option of tailoring the size of their platter to the size of their party.

The actual platter itself was a disappointment. The ‘three-cheese melts’ were clearly just deep-fried ‘babybel’, and obviously didn’t actually contain three types of cheese, or they wouldn’t have been so fucking tasteless. The potato wedges were bland – much like what you’d expect from frozen supermarket wedges. The chicken strips were slightly better, but again were devoid of any real flavour, which was a shame. The dull flavours weren’t helped by the lack of coleslaw, and there was nothing on the platter which came close to justifying its £6.49 price-tag.

The Pizzas arrived without any unnecessary delay, however we were staggered to see that there was a slice of our large Super Supreme missing. The waiter quickly explained that someone had dropped the slice, and that they’d cook us a small Super Supreme free-of-charge to make up for it. Their gesture was kind, however I suspected that the waiter’s explanation was a lie. How the fuck do you manage to drop just ONE slice of a pizza? It was clear that one of two alternative explanations was true:

1. The entire pizza had been dropped, and all but one slice had been found and put back on the plate/board thing. The missing piece must have fallen underneath an oven/fridge, or something; OR
2. One of the kitchen staff saw our pizza, got hungry, and swiped a piece, thinking “they won’t mind, I’ll just cook them a small pizza instead, after all, I’m not paying for it”.

Let’s assume for now that he was telling the truth – any points lost by the clumsiness of dropping the pizza slice were clawed back by this member of staff having the good sense to use some initiative and customer service skills. What was obvious was that we wouldn’t want the small pizza in any case, but it’s the thought that counts.

The pizzas themselves were a mixed bag, and RH and I were somewhat surprised. We’d expected the Super Supreme to be very good, since it has basically every topping imaginable on it. On the other hand, the Meat Feat was sure to be inferior, since it’s essentially the same pizza but with some key ingredients missing. Shockingly, we couldn’t have been more wrong. The Super Supreme was a let-down in a number of ways. First, there was a piece missing. Second, the topping had been applied inappropriately, meaning that one half of the Pizza had a giant crust, and was basically tasteless stodge. Thirdly, some of the ingredients tasted foul – most notably the olives. RH and I both commented that they tasted like bleach, which caused some concern that we were going to be poisoned. The olives looked really unappealing aswell, kind of shrivelled and unhealthy, more like raisins than anything else.

The Meat Feast pizza, on the other hand, was a success:

A feast of meat, this should really have been the large pizza, not the medium

The pizza was complete, the topping was evenly spread, and all of the ingredients tasted as they should. On previous visits to Pizza Hut this pizza has always been inferior to the Super Supreme, but we found ourselves with a bizarre reversal of roles this time around. Whilst by no means outstanding, this Pizza was certainly better than average, and went some way to make up for the other shitty aspects of our visit.

Overall, our Pizza Hut experience was fairly shit. If not for the decent medium Meat Feat, it would have been an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps the worst part is the price that we paid – around £40, which is an absolute outrage. A meal for two at an authentic Italian (or any proper restaurant) wouldn’t cost that much, and the food would certainly be better. For what is essentially jumped-up fast-food, the prices at Pizza Hut are utterly disgraceful, and in fact might well put us off returning there, now that our review is done. Pizza Hut prices itself as though it’s a proper restaurant, which it isn’t – the food isn’t anywhere near the standard required.

Favourites Platter: 2/10 – a waste of money and badly conceived.
Super Supreme: 2/10 – horrible, and with a slice missing – hard to see hoe it could have been worse
Meat Feast: 8/10 – very good, amongst the best pizzas I’ve had at Pizza Hut

Service: 4/10 – one member of staff showed initiative, but I’m suspicious of the kitchen staff

Ambience: 2/10 – what ambience?

Overall: 3/10 – one decent pizza can’t make up for the extortionate prices

MS

---

McDonald’s Aero McFlurry™

It has long been a tradition for RH and I to end Sessions with a trip to McDonald’s, for a white coffee and a McFlurry. Whilst the coffee can always be depended upon to be decent,. The quality of the McFlurry tends to vary drastically with each visit. Unfortunately, it tends to be the ‘guest’ McFlurries which let the side down – and this is doubly annoying since they cost more than the standard 99p.

RH and I had been stung badly by the last promotional McFlurry – the ‘Cornetto’ (see review – Session 20/08/2010), and were hoping desperately that the Aero version, which McDonald’s were advertising heavily, could register a vast improvement. I ordered the ‘standard’ chocolate Aero McFlurry, RH opting for its mint chocolate counterpart. Regrettably, we were in for another disappointment.

You’re probably thinking to yourself “how hard can it be to fuck up an Aero McFlurry, for fuck’s sake?” and that’s a valid question. After all, an Aero is just chocolate like any other, but with a slightly different texture. All McDonald’s needed to do was crush up a few Aero bars and add it to the ice cream. It shouldn’t really have been any different, composition-wise, to a Flake or Dairy Milk McFlurry.

You can imagine my horror, therefore, when I removed the pointless lid on my McFlurry, to find this:

My first question was “where did that sauce come from?” Since when have Aeros had fucking sauce inside them?! If you buy a McFlurry which is advertised as containing Aero chocolate, that’s what you expect – I’m absolutely baffled as to why McDonald’s decided to add an extra ingredient. It’s like going into a car showroom and ordering a Black SEAT Ibiza, only to have your car delivered and find that the manufacturer has added green stripes to the paintwork – you don’t need it, you didn’t ask for it, and you don’t WANT it.

In truth, I could have forgiven the fact they’d added a load of pointless ingredients to my McFlurry, if it’d enhanced the flavour beyond that of a normal Aero – but it didn’t. The (presumably chocolate flavour) sauce they’d used was of the cheapest, nastiest variety and tasted like some kind of paint.

Picking my way carefully around the sauce, I tried the ice cream and pieces of Aero together – and that was just as much of a disappointment. If they HAD used real Aero for this (which I doubt), it must have been out-of-date and severely water-damaged. Rather than the bubbly texture you’d expect of an Aero, this chocolate had an unnerving brittle quality to it, and was almost completely tasteless.

Needless to say, RH and I were disheartened. For the second time we’d been badly let down by what should be a simple, delicious dessert. RH predicted at the conclusion of his Cornetto McFlurry review that the incoming Aero version couldn’t possibly be any worse – and actually he was probably right, but this came damn close.

Score: 2/10

MS

Avatar – Extended Blu-Ray Collector’s Edition (2009/2010)

As I starting point for this review, I feel it’s worth discussing the packaging the content is boxed in. This is, after all, a collector’s edition, which means I paid nearly double what the standard film would cost. The packaging certainly looks and feels special; it’s undoubtedly one of the nicest-looking Blu-Ray boxes I’ve ever come across. It makes the standard DVD box look cheap and bland:

1

Above: DVD

1

Below: Blu-Ray

As well as a fancy box, the collector’s edition includes: extra film content, ‘8 hours of never before seen footage’ and 45 minutes of deleted scenes. Admittedly, I haven’t bothered to watch any of the content on disc 2 or 3, so I can’t say much about that. I have, however, watched the extra quarter of an hour of cut content, so I’ll at least have something to say about that. The cynics amongst you will tell me that collector’s editions are just a means for film companies to rake in extra revenue from consumers stupid enough to pay double for what’s essentially the same cinematic experience as the original release. Those cynics are correct, but I was bought this Blu-Ray disc as a gift; and as a gift, I was much happier to receive the collector’s edition as opposed to the standard version. Was it worth the £19.99 price tag? I’d say yes, if you don’t already own a copy of the film.

I originally watched the film in (576i) standard definition (DVD) in two channel stereo (2.0). I was pleased with the picture and sound quality. However, on this occasion, MS and I watched the film in (1080p) high-definition (Blu-Ray) and listened to it in 5.1 digital surround sound (on my Sony KDL-40EX503). The quality of the sound and visuals was absolutely (fucking) incredible. If, like many people, you’re still not convinced by Blu-Ray, Avatar is the film that will change your mind. Not only is the picture completely noiseless, but it will fill your entire 16:9 television screen (without the shitty letterbox effect). Superb.

Now, it’s time to move onto the plot. For those who haven’t seen it (very few, I suspect), the narrative is as follows: A deadbeat, disabled ex-marine is shipped to Pandora –  the fictional world in which the film is set –  to fulfil a role originally intended for his now deceased brother. His role is to remotely control a genetically engineered avatar (through a neural link of sorts), which is a construct of human and Na’vi DNA. The Na’vi are the indigenous humanoid race that populates Pandora. They’re a sort of tribal race, who are very much connected to their natural surroundings. Our deadbeat, disabled ex-marine is named Jake Sully; he is to gain the Na’vi’s trust (by masquerading as one of them through his avatar), so he can eventually negotiate their relocation terms. Humanity needs the natives to relocate, as their village sits on a site rich in ‘unobtainium’, which is an extremely rare and valuable mineral.

After Jake learns the ways of the tribe, he effectively becomes one of the Na’vi. He even finds a love interest amongst the villagers in the form of the beautiful Neytiri. Eventually he gets so wrapped up in Na’vi life that he forgets why he was originally sent to infiltrate the tribe. He fails to negotiate their relocation, so the company in charge of mining the unobtainium sends in a trigger-happy psycho named Colonel Miles Quaritch, along with his band of heavily-armed marines, with a hope of resolving the situation. The humans flatten the village as well as a number of sites of cultural heritage, and then bugger off to celebrate. Jake decides to fight back by rallying together all the Na’vi tribes. In one last attempt to force the Na’vi off their land, Colonel Quaritch masses his entire army and gives the order to attack. Sully and his gang of Na’vis await the attack, and after a long and bloody battle, the humans are forced to evacuate the planet, and Jake and the Na’vi live happily ever after.

The plot isn’t anything you haven’t read or seen before (Last of the Mohicans, etc.), but the fictional world of Pandora is full of original ideas. Perhaps the most original idea is the concept of the avatars themselves. Mind you, it isn’t a million miles from the concept of jacking into ‘The Matrix’. In The Matrix your human body is linked into a machine in which you control an alternative version of yourself in a different landscape. Of course, The Matrix is a virtual world, where as Pandora is real, apparently. I didn’t really want to go down this avenue of originality, but I’ve started now, so I may as well continue.

The environments in Avatar are stunning; it’s impossible to deny this. However, are they necessarily original? It seems that Pandora was somewhat inspired by the forest featured in Princess Mononoke (a Japanese animation film). For example, when Na’vis step on certain foliage, it lights up, and even transforms. This is exactly what happens when the Forest Spirit of Princess Mononoke takes its steps in their forest. The woodsprites in Pandora seem awfully similar to the tree spirits in the Japanese film. Oh, and, the civilised protagonist in that film falls in love with some savage female obsessed with wildlife. Sound familiar? There are lots of other similarities which I can’t be bothered going into, but the point I’m making is that if you’ve seen Princess Mononoke, you’ll feel a sense of déjà vu watching Avatar.

Whilst we’re on the subject of a feel of familiarity, there were a couple of scenes I recognised from the three-part TV epic ‘Dinotopia’. Now, not many people are even aware of Dinotopia’s existence, which is in part due to it being a load of shit. However, it wasn’t all bad, and there were quite a few memorable scenes. Without going into too much detail, Dinotopia is set on a fantasy island populated by dinosaurs. It’s a land where humans have cut themselves off from the outside world, and have learned to live with, and respect the dinosaurs. A couple of travellers find themselves stranded on the island: one of them wants to leave, the other wants to learn the culture and live amongst the natives. Anyway, there’s a scene in which one of the protagonists has to learn how to fly a pterodactyl (or something) in order to pass some sort of initiation test. Anyway, like the Na’vi, they also have to pick their flying monster, and learn to control it. This happens on the edge of an animated cliff (like on Pandora), and once they’ve mastered it, they’re part of the squadron. It’s strikingly similar to the initiation tests Jake Sully had to go through to in order to join the Na’vi’s tribe. Oddly, I’m not the first person to make this comparison; there are forum members all over the Internet drawing similar parallels.

I could spend all day discussing scenes in Avatar that have been done before, but I’m now getting bored of doing so. The two examples I chose are perhaps less obvious than the more blatant example of the similarities between Avatar and the Star Wars universe. But anyway, the lack of originality isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are so few ideas that haven’t already been put into script that it’s inevitable there will be repetition in films. I do think, however, that had I not seen either Princess Mononoke or Dinotopia, I’d have been even more blown away by the world of Pandora.

The setting in which Avatar takes place can be divided up into the natural, flamboyant landscape of Pandora and the stale, industrial environment of Hell’s Gate. Pandora is a beautiful place, full of bioluminescent vegetation and hexapodal animals. It’s certainly a hostile place from a human’s perspective, but the natives can’t get enough of it. As mentioned earlier, the indigenous race of Pandora is called the Na’vi – a ridiculously-tall humanoid species with tribal tendencies. The Na’vi species is quite original, I think. In the Star Trek universe, for example, each star ship captain encounters a myriad of humanoid species throughout their service, all of which are human-sized. Cameron’s decision to make the Na’vi 10 feet tall was certainly interesting. Their neural connection to the various species throughout the planet is also very imaginative. Even the colour, to some extent, is original. Traditionally, Hollywood aliens have tended to be green or grey; the Na’vi are blue. Annoyingly, I’d just played Mass Effect (X-Box 360) before watching this film; a game which features a blue, humanoid alien race called the Asari. However, the Asari are much more human-looking than the Na’vi, so the two races are not overly similar. Anyway, if you don’t find the narrative particularly interesting, or you’re unimpressed with the performances, it’s unlikely you won’t be a little taken aback by the breathtaking landscapes.

1

Above: Dr. Liara T’Soni (Mass Effect)

 

Below: Neytiri te Tskaha Mo’at’ite (Avatar)

 

The human environments are just as interesting as the natural landscapes. Annoyingly, in the cinematic release, you will never get to see the (dystopian) 22nd century Earth our protagonist hails. It’s very much an unnatural, stale environment which appears dark and overcrowded. I’m annoyed Cameron didn’t include more Earth in the film, as these scenes had a lot of potential to portray human society post 21st century. We see how a modern day security/military group behave, not to mention big, profit-hungry corporations, but what about your average Joe? What’s their view on the world in which they live in, and how do they react to it? It’s a missed opportunity, but perhaps we’ll find out in one of the sequels… or prequels. The humans we meet are a mixed bag of plutocrats, trigger-happy morons and eco-warrior ‘science majors’. Hell’s Gate is filled with sophisticated computer technology as well as monstrous mining machinery. The most exciting engineering comes in the form of military arsenal, which includes helicopter gun ships, flying fortresses and er, heavily armed versions of the loaders featured in Aliens. When these machines go to battle, the ensuing visuals are spectacular. I think Cameron strikes a good balance between the aesthetic beauty of the natural world and the umm, awesomeness of heavily-armed gun ships.

I’ve talked about the different environments in the film, so it’s time to discuss the characters and the actors who portray them. Let’s begin with our main protagonist played by Sam Worthington. As I touched on in my introduction, Worthington’s character is a disabled ex-marine, who lives in squalor and has no prospects. He’s volunteered to replace his deceased brother on the Avatar project. His loyalty is initially to the security forces on the planet, but he soon switches sides after he learns the ways of the Na’vi, eventually becoming part of their clan. He comes across as a bit stupid, perhaps because he is uneducated, but he’s a skilled warrior, and apparently, has a strong heart. The character of Jake Sully is quite convincing. He had nothing to live for as a disabled deadbeat, but when he’s given the opportunity to fight for a good cause, he flourishes. Does Sam Worthington do the character justice, though? Aside from Avatar, the only film I’ve seen him act in is Terminator Salvation. I actually thought he performed that role superbly, and hoped it wouldn’t be the last time I saw him act. Of course, he might have come across as well as he did because Christian Bale, who played John Connor, gave such a poor performance. It’s amazing how John Connor has been cast badly in every single Terminator film. But anyway, I felt Worthington’s performance was good throughout most of Avatar. What annoyed me, though, were his very unfunny and pointless one-liners. This film’s too serious for cheesy one-liners. Usually James Cameron films are full of incredible one-liners (usually delivered by Schwarzenegger) for example Terminator, True Lies and even Aliens. It’s not that Worthington didn’t pull them off, it’s just the lines he was made to read were shit: ‘let’s dance’ and ‘get your punk ass back to mommy’. There were quite a few examples of this throughout Avatar, which very nearly ruined the film. But like I said, Worthington’s performance was solid and convincing, and thankfully, there weren’t enough one-liners to ruin his entire career.

The lead female character, Neytiri, is portrayed by Zoe Saldana. Neytiri is a female warrior who’s also daughter of the head of the tribe. She’s very beautiful and powerful and seems fascinated by Jake Sully. After teaching him the ways of the tribe, she eventually chooses him as a mate. The two have their ups and downs, but after the final battle with humanity, they settle down and live happily ever after, probably. Like Worthington, Zoe Saldana was little known to me before Avatar, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from her. I was actually very convinced by her portrayal; she came across as strong and athletic, but also deep and spiritual. Her silly broken English worked well, too. It was certainly a good decision to cast her.

The main antagonist in the film comes in the form of Colonel Quaritch, who is played by Stephen Lang. He’s head of security, and is in charge of protecting humanity (on the planet). He’s a clichéd battle-hardened-drill-sergeant type, who looks for any excuse to fire his laser-sighted pistol. Yes, this type of military officer has been done a thousand times before, but if it’s done well, can add a lot to a film. For example, Full Metal Jacket was one of the best war films of all time, not because of how it portrays the horrific realities of fighting a guerrilla war, but because Sergeant Hartman was fucking mesmerising to watch. Colonel Quaritch is no Sergeant Hartman, but he’s still a damn good character. Stephen Lang’s performance is excellent; it’s hard to believe he’s not a marine in real life.

Giovanni Ribisi plays plutocrat Parker Selfridge, who’s head of the Resources Development Administration. He’s obsessed with deadlines and quarterly statements, and will do virtually anything to get his hands on the rare unobtainium. He’s similar to Carter Burke from Aliens who was portrayed by Paul Reiser. Reiser’s performance was much better; he genuinely would have sold his own mother to the highest bidder. Of course, we later learn that Parker Selfridge isn’t actually as ruthless as his counterpart, Colonel Quaritch. Annoyingly, the film makers cut the scene in which we see him objecting to Quaritch’s final military campaign. We see him getting manhandled by Quaritch, and learn he’s just a snivelling little boy with no real power. As a powerless wimp, Ribisi performs his role admirably. However, in the cinematic version, we don’t see enough of Selfridge to appreciate Ribisi’s performance. We see a character closer to Vilos Cohaagen out of Total Recall, who was performed impeccably by Ronny Cox. Ribisi would have just looked silly in Cohaagen’s suit.

The final character who plays a key role in Avatar is Dr. Grace Augustine, portrayed by Sigourney Weaver. Dr. Augustine is head of the Avatar programme, and was responsible for teaching the Na’vi about human culture. Unfortunately, the Na’vi cut their ties with humanity (after an unexplained incident), and Dr. Augustine is thereafter forced to observe their activity outside the tribe. She’s strong-willed and intelligent and has no time for Quaritch and his goons. Because Sigourney Weaver’s such a diverse and brilliant actress, it was impossible for her not to perform her character brilliantly. Unlike Aliens, she isn’t the last person standing at the end of the film, and doesn’t fire a weapon… which was a little disappointing, really.

There are a couple of minor characters such as Norm Spellman, played by Joel Moore and Trudy Chacon, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Norm’s one of the most annoying characters in Avatar. I don’t think he adds anything to the film, and I was glad to learn a lot of his ‘one liners’ were cut from the final edit. Trudy Chacon had her place, and was performed well by Rodriguez. She came across as a watered-down version of Pvt. Vasquez from Aliens. Oddly, the decision was taken to cut out the relationship between Norm and Trudy. I think this was probably due to the un-likeliness of them having a relationship, and also, to limit Norm’s screen time, as he was just shit. The only other character worth mentioning is Tsu’tey, who was performed by Laz Alonso. Tsu’tey’s a Na’vi and apparently the best warrior in the Omaticaya clan. Like with most of the cast, I had no idea who Laz Alonso was before I watched Avatar. I might see him in the future, though, as his performance of Tsu’tey was pretty decent.

To compliment a good setting and cast of characters, there needs to be a decent score. Having studied the Titanic score in great detail, I’m quite familiar with James Horner’s work. I’m not going to discuss this score in great detail, though, as there isn’t the time. In brief, though, Horner combines traditional orchestral music with ‘other worldly’ and tribal timbres. There’re lots of horns when the military are flying around, ethnic drums and voices when the Na’vi are pissing about, and ‘other worldly’ tones when we’re admiring the alien landscape. Horner’s score works well and there’s enough variety in the music to compliment the contrasting landscape. It’s worth noting that the sound design of the film is also very good. However, there are some instances where the sounds, and even the music, don’t sound alien enough. But of course, it could be argued Pandora and the Na’vi aren’t alien enough. Whatever your opinion of the narrative, there’s no denying that if you listen to this film in 5.1 surround sound, it’s a truly awesome aural experience.

When I first watched the original release, I left the (home) cinema with a lot of unanswered questions. The extended version of the film actually helped answer a lot of those questions, but a lot of the background information about the characters, wildlife and technology was still left out. According to Cameron, the film was getting too long to include all of this information, so the decision was made to either cut, or not finish certain scenes. He makes a valid point, as the extended version of Avatar is as long as The Fellowship of the Ring. However, the cinematic release of Return of the King was 192 minutes, which meant Cameron had another 20 minutes to play with, seeing as nobody complained (that much) about the length of the third LOTRs film. Yes, Avatar is a ‘science fantasy’ film, so we should just accept all the nonsense portrayed on screen without asking too many questions. However, there’s no excuse for not giving a more detailed account of 22nd century Earth, and more biographical information about the human characters. I noticed that a lot of the ritualistic nonsense the Na’vis indulge in was cut from the final edit. A lot of it was tedious, but more of it should have been included in the cinematic release, specifically the ‘vision quest’, which we learn is the finally test Jake has to pass to join the tribe. And whilst we’re on the subject of Jake, would a person who’s lived his life surrounded by creature comforts, such a roof over his head, central heating, convenient food etc. really be willing to trade it all in for a nomadic lifestyle? What if he suddenly has the urge for a full English breakfast, or to watch a good film, or listen to some rock music… or browse the Internet for pornography? These things are not possible on Pandora, and he must have known this when he turned his back on humanity. As mentioned earlier, we’re not given enough of a glimpse into 22nd society to understand his decision.

To finish with, it’s worth discussing some of the wider issues raised in this film. Clearly, there’s a deep social commentary running through Avatar, which is very much to do with eco-politics and anti-industrialisation. It’s difficult to watch this film and not think of how we, the human viewing audience, have ruined our own planet. I’m sure a lot of people who watched Avatar felt encouraged to do something about the destruction of their natural environment. I’m not influenced by what I see on a television screen, but it’s true to say that a good majority of people are. To a lot of people, moving images based on fiction are a lot more convincing than true accounts of environmental destruction written on paper. Whilst Cameron’s portrayal of the military as a bunch of trigger-happy morons no doubt rustled a few feathers, his anti-capitalist sentiment would have upset a lot fewer people. It’s actually a very politically-charged film; it’s not particularly subtle, but it gets the message across. Whether or not it will have a profound impact on the viewing audience, it will at least provide discussion topics for Internet forums.

So, let’s conclude this review (which has ended up being far longer than originally intended) of Avatar. On the whole, I think it’s largely a good film. It was tedious in places, and not always convincing, but it made for an enjoyable audio-visual experience. The special effects were superb, particularly the Na’vi CGI. Normally CGI characters look dreadful and are massively distracting and hugely annoying. Jar Jar (fucking) Binks from The Phanton Menance is a good example of this. It was obvious he was computer generated, and because it was obvious, it was aggravating. The Na’vi, thanks to Cameron’s innovative special effects team, actually looked real. This was obviously an excellent technical achievement, for which Cameron’s team deserves praise. Perhaps less deserving of praise is the narrative; it’s a decent story, but it was too predictable, and there weren’t enough plot twists. It’s a shame, really, because this film had the potential to be one of the all time greats. Instead, we’re left with a decent film which feels rather incomplete.

Score: 7/10

RH

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – DVD (2009)

First of all, I want to start this review by saying that the first (Michael Bay) Transformers was good fun. It was a rather unsophisticated piece of cinema that relied heavily on special effects, cheesy jokes and tight female bodies to provide entertainment. However, despite its simplistic narrative and dreadful acting, like I said, it was fun. I particularly enjoyed the epic battles between the giant CGI robots and of course, Megan Fox’s aesthetic beauty. Transformers 2 had the potential to be an even better film: repeat the existing formula, but this time around, add a proper narrative into the mix. It appears that Michael Bay approached the second Transformers with this formula in mind. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t work, and Revenge of the Fallen ended up a spectacular mess. This review will help explain why this sequel failed on every imaginable level.

The narrative is, well, mindless, really. Following the defeat of the Decepticons, our protagonist Sam Witwicky, is attempting to revert back to his normal life. He’s about to start college, which means he’ll be moving away from his girlfriend, Mikaela Banes, who he met in the last film. By going to college, he also leaves his shitty Chevrolet Camaro behind, which transforms into this best friend Bumblebee. This is all very mundane until we learn a piece of the ‘All Spark’ becomes active, which later does something peculiar to Sam. For the time being, though, he’s at college, and promises to keep in touch with Mikaela, who’s in possession of this piece of the All Spark, I think. Whilst Sam’s in college he meets an annoying geek and attracts the attention of a girl. Bumblebee comes to visit him, for some reason, and takes a dislike to the girl who’s sniffing around Sam. Whilst the All Spark piece is in Mikaela’s possession, it brings some robot to life, which tries to kill her. She captures it and takes it to Sam, where she catches a girl trying to have sex with him. She storms off, hears some screaming, and returns to find this girl is a Decepticon who’s trying to kill Sam. Anyway, the reunited couple flee in Bumblebee, taking Sam’s new nerdy friend along for the ride. The nerdy friend suggests ‘Robo-Warrior’ might be able to help them figure out the strange symbols Sam has been seeing after he came into contact with the All Spark splinter. Meanwhile the Decepticons are trying to track down Sam, as they need his symbols for evil deeds.

Robo-Warrior turns out to be Seymour Simmons who was a minor antagonist in the last film (as an agent for Sector 7). After Sam and Seymour straighten things out, he decides to help our heroes. He takes them to an aviation museum (I forget why), where they accidentally bring to life an inactive Decepticon. He turns out to be an Autobot who has switched sides, and tells Sam the symbols he’s seeing are the language of the Primes, and that only a Prime can decipher it. Without any scientific explanation, they’re all teleported to Egypt, where the tomb of the Primes is located. They manage to locate it, and inside, find The Matrix of Leadership. It turns to dust in Sam’s hands, but he manages to collect the pieces in a sock. He uses this dust to resurrect Optimus Prime, who becomes more powerful, and stops The Fallen from activating the sun harvester, thus stopping the Decepticons and saving the earth, again. I’ve probably missed out some of the plot, as whilst I was watching it, I was far too busy trying to keep myself from falling asleep.

Anyway, the story was mundane and made very little sense, but weirdly, this wasn’t the worst thing about Revenge of the Fallen. As mentioned in the introduction, the first film relied on special effects, light humour and Megan Fox to provide entertainment. Michael Bay seems to have been aware of this, so decided to repeat the formula. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, so I’ll try to explain where he went wrong. Let’s start with the ‘special effects’. In the first film, it was spectacular watching our heroes transform from road vehicles into giant robots. The special effects didn’t look too CG, and the transition from vehicle to robot was smooth and believable. Unfortunately, by the second film, the novelty of watching the vehicles transform had worn off. Perhaps if Bay had larger, more exotic vehicles transforming, such as freight trains or aircraft carriers, it might have been a bit more exciting to watch. Instead, we were forced to watch shitty Chevrolet superminis and wanky motorcycles transforming. Perhaps to compensate for these mundane transformations, Bay had something exploding every few minutes, which was obviously exciting, right? Wrong. This got fucking tedious after the first 2 minutes and achieved nothing other than giving MS & I a migraine. The sound design for this film is atrocious. Of course, what was even more atrocious was the picture quality of the DVD release. I’d watched the HD version of the film originally, and was actually very impressed with the image clarity. The quality of the DVD can be likened to a VHS tape recorded from an analogue source on a machine with dirty heads. It was literally that bad.

So, it seemed Bay had failed with the sounds and visuals. It might have worked in the original, but for this film, this formula became monotonous and annoying. But what about Megan Fox? Surely she can still provide visual pleasure? Unfortunately, whilst she was on a break between finishing Transformers and filming the sequel, she decided to violate her entire physique. Firstly, she had some mindless idiot draw all over her body in permanent ink, creating some of the ugliest and out-of-place tattoos I’ve ever seen. As well as her shit tattoos, her skin tone transformed from freckled and natural to orange and ridiculous. She also appears to have been surgically-altered; her nose and lips did not look at all like they did in the original film. In the first Transformers, she had a ‘girl from next door’ appeal; she looked beautiful, but approachable. Now, it didn’t matter what outfit Michael Bay had her dressed in, she still ended up looking like a prostitute. It’s such a shame, really, as she used to look stunning. The most attractive girl in this film was the blonde girl that transformed into a Decepticon. Casting Isabel Lucas was perhaps the only good decision Michael Bay made throughout the entire making of Revenge of the Fallen.

Even though Bay had failed with the special effects and his casting of Megan Fox, it was possible that some well-placed humour could compensate for these errors. Unfortunately, like with everything else in this film, Bay has gone overboard with the jokes. Virtually every fucking character has been put on screen to provide comic relief. Sam’s parents in the first film were a bit naïve, overprotective and rather embarrassing. In the second film, they’re much the same, only they’re even more naïve, even more over protective and even more embarrassing. It wasn’t particularly funny the first time around, so why grossly exaggerate their personality defects in this film? It was unfunny, at best. As well as Sam’s parents providing humour, two new Autobots seem to have been introduced to the franchise solely for comedy value. They’re called Skidz and Mudflaps, and they play bucked-tooth, illiterate morons who wouldn’t look out of place in one of those fucking Wayans brothers’ films. Both of these characters seem to reflect negative racial stereotypes, which will have no doubt offended a lot of people. If this was Bay’s idea of trying to appeal to a wider demographic, I’d hate to see his attempts at trying to alienate an audience. If viewers aren’t insulted by the blatant racism, they’ll surely be offended by the mindless slapstick and inane dialogue Bay’s trying to pass off as humour. I know this isn’t really a film aimed at adults, but not even children are unintelligent enough to find any of this ‘humour’ remotely entertaining. It’s not just Sam’s parents and the Autobot twins that provide comic relief; Seymour Simmons, Leo Spitz and even Starscream seem to only exist to provide humour. It’s not a fucking sitcom; not every character needs a script of fucking (unfunny) jokes.

Okay, so the film’s annoying and unfunny, but perhaps there were at least some good performances by the cast? I’ll discuss each character, assessing how well they’ve been portrayed by their respective actors.

The protagonist of the story is Sam Whitwicky, a teenage boy who in the last film, helped save the world. He’s moved on from that nonsense in this film, and tries instead to lead a normal life. Despite his best attempts to stay in college, he’s forced into saving the world for a second time. Sam is an annoying, nerdy brat, who doesn’t appear to have any friends. For some reason, despite looking and acting like a wimp, he manages to bag FHM’s (2008) sexiest woman in the world. This would never happen in the real world, which makes their on-screen romance seem ridiculous. Shia LaBeouf certainly looks and acts like an annoying, nerdy brat, but are these really the personality traits we want in our protagonist? Bay should have cast someone who a) acted a lot less annoying, and b) looked a lot less like John Turturro (who plays Seymour Simmons). Why wasn’t John Turturro playing Sam’s father, seeing as they’re the fucking spitting image of one another? But anyway, the character of Sam Whitwicky was extremely dislikeable, and LaBeouf’s performance was unconvincing.

The lead female character, Mikaela Banes, was portrayed by Megan Fox. She plays a feisty idiot, from what I can tell. Fox looks completely ridiculous playing a mechanic, and her performance as Sam’s love interest is absolutely pathetic. She’s not just the worst actor in the film, but could quite easily be considered the worst actress in Hollywood today. As mentioned earlier, she’s not even attractive enough to get by on her looks anymore. What a waste of space.

Optimus Prime is the leader of the umm, good transformers. Quite early on in the film he gets killed trying to save Sam, who he appears to have a crush on. Sam later uses The Matrix of Leadership to resurrect Optimus, who goes onto destroy the chief Decepticons, saving the world. It’s all very silly. The voice acting (by Peter Cullen) is nothing out of the ordinary. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference who voiced Optimus, as the ridiculous plot is too distracting to appreciate any actor’s performances. Bay was at least loyal to the 1980’s cartoon by using the original voice artist.

Jetfire was originally a Decepticon, but switches sides to the Autobots, because he didn’t like all the doom and gloom associated with the other team. He appears to be an Obi Wan Kenobi figure, who uses such clichés as ‘follow your mind’ on Sam, and ‘fulfil your destiny’ on Optimus. This quasi-religious nonsense Jetfire spouts becomes tedious very quickly. It seems completely out-of-place in a Transformers film, and fails in its attempt to add more depth to the rather shallow narrative. It’s a fucking embarrassment, really. Jetfire was voiced by Mark Ryan, who’s a relatively unknown English actor. Can’t say I was impressed with his voice acting.

The chief antagonist of this sequel comes in the form of The Fallen, a powerful Decepticon, who aims to use the Sun Harvester to destroy all of humanity. Like Sam and his band of freaks, he’s also seeking The Matrix of Leadership. He’s not a particularly memorable character, despite getting a mention in the film’s title. There’s not much else to say, other than he gets destroyed at the end of the film. Getting destroyed in a Transformers film means nothing, really, as resurrection seems a common occurrence. He’s voiced by the ‘Candyman’ himself, Tony Todd. I forget whether or not he did a job, as at this point in the film, I was struggling to stay awake.

In the last film, Megatron (the previous chief antagonist) was completely destroyed, and what was left of his battered carcass was dropped to the bottom the ocean. Naturally, anything that remained of it would have been crushed by enormous ocean pressures, and all its electronic components would have surely been corroded by the freezing cold salt water. So yes, there was no possibility of that particular Transformer ever appearing on our cinema screens again. Oddly, though, in Revenge of the Fallen, he actually comes back to life. Rather than coming up with an alternate antagonist, the writers were so lazy, they just resurrected someone who died in the original. It’s not just unrealistic, but it’s also rather insulting to the viewing audience. Once again, at the end of the film, he’s destroyed by Optimus Prime. It’s unlikely this will be the end of Megatron, as I think there’s going to be a third Transformers film. Megatron’s probably the only decent character in the whole film. He seems to be the most powerful Transformer, and is voiced by the only proper actor in the film, Hugo Weaving. It’s hard to judge a voice actor, but Weaving’s performance was probably the best in Transformers 2.

It’s not even worth discussing the rest of the characters, as they’re either too insignificant, or they were used unsuccessfully as comic relief. In fact, it’s not even worth discussing any more of the film as it was just fucking awful. It seemed to go on for hours and hours, too. The first time I watched it, I ended up having to press the chapter skip button a number of times, as I just wanted my ordeal to end quickly. For the sake of this review, though, I had to watch it in its entirety. It was a fucking challenge to stay awake; I’ve also never seen MS look so fucking bored before. There’s literally nothing positive to say about this film. I mentioned earlier that the sound design was appalling, but at least I noticed the sound effects; I completely failed to register the soundtrack. If there was a soundtrack, it would be difficult to hear it over all the needless fucking explosions. There wasn’t a single decent acting performance throughout the entire film. The ridiculously-mindless narrative is probably the worst thing about this film (I take back what I said at the start of the review): It was a predictable, boring, clichéd mess that made absolutely no sense. It’s easily the worst film of 2009, and thoroughly deserved its Razzie.

Score: 1.5/10 (Isabel Lucas prevented Revenge of the Fallen scoring a zero)

RH

IT – DVD (1990)

Those loyal readers amongst you will know of my admiration for Stephen King. When it comes to disturbing horror, nobody does it better. Unfortunately, many of the films based on his works are a fucking insult. IT is one such film.

Like any normal, well-rounded young man, I spent good portions of my youth browsing the horror section at my local video rental establishment. I fantasised about the horrific wonders contained within the video covers, frustrated that it would likely be years before I could get my hands on the VHS tapes themselves.

No cover intrigued me more than that for IT, released in 1990 in two parts, for television. The clown on the front looked genuinely disturbing, and whilst I’ve never been coulrophobic, I wouldn’t have been normal if I’d been able to look at that box without thinking “I wonder what kind of sickening terror that clown is capable of”.

The front cover of IT built my expectations, but the film within was a fucking disappointment

Stephen King’s novel IT is, without doubt, one of my favourite books and one of the best literary works of horror of all time. Comparisons between the source material and the film adaptation are inevitable. That said, I did see the first half of the film before I’d ever been near the book, at the age of 10.

Even from the perspective of a 10 year old child, IT seemed very, very tame for a supposed horror film. I was disappointed to see  no gore in the film whatsoever. The physical appearance of Pennywise the clown is good – he looks menacing and could have genuinely been a frightening character. But the thought running predominantly through my 10 year old head was “why isn’t the clown actually DOING anything?”. After an hour and a half of boredom, I decided I couldn’t be arsed any more, and didn’t think about IT again for about 8 years.

That about sums up my 10 year old’s critique of the film. It’s when I revisit the film with a mature take on things, and with the benefit of having read through the book, that the shortfalls really become apparent.

The book is an epic, sprawling masterpiece. Huge in scope and with a large, varied and well-developed cast of characters, the book is totally absorbing, disturbing and terrifying in equal measure. I won’t let this turn into a book review (look out for that feature coming up in the near future), but the bottom line is that, having thoroughly enjoyed the book, I convinced myself that the film was worth another shot. After all, what the fuck would a 10 year old know?

It turns out I was right first time.

A film which pales in comparison to its source material is nothing new, but rarely do things go as spectacularly wrong as this. Admittedly, the book is huge, and doing justice on celluloid was always going to be difficult. That said, they’ve made this as a two-part series, at a combined running time of over 3 hours. They ought to have been able to come up with something better than the mess I‘m reviewing here.

IT has very few redeeming features. The child characters are played by a bunch of kids who aren’t fit for a primary school pantomime and their adult characters, if anything, are even worse. I don’t know (or care) what the name of the actor playing ‘Bill’ is, but I’ve never seen anything quite so bad as when he attempts to bring to life the stutter that Bill is so renowned for in the book.

Aside from the atrocious acting, the characters themselves are under-developed and essentially meaningless. Large and important parts of the story, so essential to the character development which makes the book such a success, are missing entirely from the film. You’re left watching a bunch of pointless, one-dimensional characters that you simply don’t give a shit about.

The lack of gore is a real problem with this film, given the level of explicit gore contained in the book. The producers have clearly dumbed it down to avoid an ‘18’ rating but you have to wonder why? The film was made for television, not the box office. Pennywise makes his sporadic appearances throughout the film, but as mentioned above, doesn’t actually do anything that might harm anybody. Typically he will show up, bare his teeth and make a mildly threatening comment, before disappearing again. I’d liken it to that fucking stupid ‘evil monkey’ character from Family Guy.

Not only that, but none of the characters look even remotely scared at any point during the film. The sense of fear and desperation so evident in the book is crucial, yet completely lacking here. The most terrifying and disturbing (and therefore the best) sequences from the book are missing in their entirety. The characters’ plight has the feel of a fucking boy scout’s adventure –  “off to the sewers we go then, to teach that pesky clown a lesson!”.

..Which brings me neatly on to the ending of the film. I’ve honestly never seen a more pathetic excuse for a ‘monster’ as the plastic spider puppet wheeled out at the end of IT. I’d have actually pissed myself laughing, if I wasn’t so fucking furious at having wasted more than 3 fucking hours of my life, and several English pounds on this DVD, only to be insulted like that. I was literally on the verge of smashing the disc to pieces, until I remembered that I needed to review the fucking thing. I restrained myself for your benefit, so I hope you’re grateful.

In summary, don’t buy this film, or borrow it, or even bother to watch a clip on the internet, unless you’re a moron who is too stupid to realise when you’re being ridiculed by the film industry. This film couldn’t possibly have been more disrespectful to Stephen King and his original tour de force than it is, and is certainly a contender for the worst book-to-film adaptation ever made.. Which gives me a good idea for a ‘top 10’ list, actually…

Score: 2/10

MS