Ember, Farringdon

I went to Ember last night, and having never reviewed a restaurant online before, felt so compelled to warn people off this place that I have overcome my aversion on online ranting. Here goes.

The 'meal' I ate in this bar last night was potentially the worst I have ever had the misfortune of paying for. And that includes service station breakfasts and supermarket packet sandwiches.

Firsly, the bar promotes the food as being speedy, specialising in take-aways - their USP is that they sell noodles in fancy takeaway boxes with little metal handles. I will admit, I was disproportionately excited about eating from a takeaway box and pretending to be in the West Wing. Perhaps that was why I foolishly decided to go in and order food, despite the irriating music and slightly depressing ambience.

Well, I was excited about the takeaway boxes for about ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. But after nearly 50 minutes of waiting for our 'speedy' food my excitement had well and truly died a death. That's 50 minutes in which only two other people in the bar were eating, and the two waitresses spent the majority of their time flirting with two men at the bar.

After very politely inquiring whether our food would be coming any time soon, the waitress trotted off to find it, and it eventually appeared. With no apology for the ridiculously long wait, or the fact that it looked a lot like vomit.

And not in a box, but by this time I was too hungry to care.

I ordered pad tai. Which, by my recollection, should be an orangey colour, or maybe browny-red, but certainly not grey. No food should ever be grey, unless you choose to eat elephant-skin jerky.

The dish actually looked as though it had been covered in crumbled cement, before being soaked in rainwater and left on a pavement to evapourate, microwaved and then served. The noodles were so soggy that it seems likely that they were being cooked for the full 50 minutes that we waited for our food. The chicken tasted as though it was made of balsa wood, and the prawns had a texture somewhere between rubber and polystyrene, and tasted only of stale air.

In fact, the only thing in the dish that tasted of anything other than disapointment were three lone peanuts. It turns out it's very hard to stop a peanut having a taste or at least some texture. Although I'm sure if we'd given them a little longer they would have managed it.

My boyfriend's food was similarly bad. It was actually quite impressive that they had managed to remove all trace of flavour whatsoever from the ingredients used. In fact, they should probably give Heston Blumenthal a call, I'm sure he would be interested to hear about the innovative and ground-breaking chemistry that must have been taking place in the kitchen.

I think the waitresses were aware that the food was not exactly delightful, they didn't ask if the food was ok, in fact I don't think they said a single word as they cleared our plates. It was like a moment's silence to mark the sad butchering of what would once have been passably edible ingredients. The waitress' speedy exit was probably a good thing, as I was trying to restrain myself from pushing over the table and eating the over-elabourate flowers on the bar to take away the taste of concrete.

Suffice to say, I won't be going back. I would rather sit outside in the street and eat the takeaway menu than go in there again. And judging by the obvious disgruntlement of another customer sitting near us who had to return her wine twice because it was so vile, I don't think it was just me.

3 Jun 2010 13:43