Cuisine Quest

We're in London, continues...

It's our ongoing cuisine quest!

I have some bad news: not every restaurant in the London Michelin guide is fabulous. Or even good. Or even acceptable. =:-0

Wednesday evening we went to dinner at Moro. We had heard about Moro from a couple friends who love their cookbook so when John saw it in the Michelin guide he decided we would give it a try. It is a very difficult restaurant to get into, you have to book weeks ahead of time. That only increased our expectations and excitement.

When I stopped across the street from Moro to take the photo for the blog my first impression was that it was not posh. Ok, not everything is, I know that. '-) Wow, the food must really be good then! Ok, let's go! The restaurant was insanely packed, the noise level was impossible. Wow, the food must be great! The decor was uninteresting, uninspired and, frankly, boring. And so was the food.

I thought my starter was pretty good although basically it was some overcooked lamb on top of green beans in mustard sauce that even I could have made. Now, that's saying something. I can't even make toast, so when I go to a restaurant I expect the food to be better than something I can make at home. John and I got the same chicken main dish and it was seriously boring. Not only could I have made it at home, even I would have made it better. Is this why the restaurant is so famous? Because of their cookbooks? So people can make these tasteless, boring dishes at home? I guess that must be it because I can't think of a reason this restaurant exists.

Would you like lamb with that?

How much overcooked lamb can we be served in one week? A lot, apparently.

Last night we went to Noura Central. I noted this morning that their domain gives a page-not-found error (which may be fixed at this point, we'll see).

Noura was another seriously boring cuisine experience. The restaurant was lovely. The music was very cool. The service was fine. But the food was dull. Nothing had any flavor. The menu reminded us very much of one of our favorite restaurants, Tas, where the food is fabulous. We decided for this style of food we would rather go to Tas. Although Noura is all poshed up, the food is not. So we are not adding it to our list. How this restaurant got into the Michelin guide is a mystery.

Another mystery was the basket of vegetables they served after we sat down, in lieu of bread. I've had enough bread lately so the vegetables looked yummy. Except, the basket included half a head of lettuce, a whole tomato, a whole zucchini, and a whole green pepper (see photo). Unless they served a cutting board and knives, those vegetables weren't going anywhere. I looked around at the other tables to see what people were doing with their vegetable baskets and they weren't; they were just sitting there looking nice. Perhaps they are just for decoration? Well, I don't think so, because there were some radishes and cut carrots included, which we happily dipped into the hummus. But half a head of lettuce? A whole pepper? That kind of waste is disappointing. As was the whole meal.

In Conclusion

This is a quandary. We set out on this cuisine quest to add fabulous restaurants to our list but we're having difficulty finding restaurants that live up to our standards. No, we're not all that picky; c'mon, we like Belgo. So when a great restaurant comes along we'll certainly know it, because this week was a dud. The quest will continue until we find more fabulous restaurants. We know they're out there!