Patara - Fulham Road, London

When I go out for dinner I often take a pad and pen with me. As I sit there I take notes on what I'm eating, the vibe, the service etc... My husband did it this time round and the results were interesting.

When sitting in a restaurant chatting to the company you're with while jotting down notes you often find that the servers and manager look at you differently. I believe they think you're some highfalutin food critic, so they treat you with a little more care and attention.

Case in point: we arrived, got served our drinks, ordered, and then proceeded to wait an hour to get our starters. The pad comes out and we get our starters within 5 minutes.

My husband is brilliant at this. He takes a bite and jots something down. He glances around the restaurant in the most comical fashion, rubs his chin in a pensive manner and then takes a note. You'd never think this works but we nearly always find that servers smile more and become more attentive.

Our starters finally arrived. We ordered the Satay Trio (a combination of beef, chicken and prawn skewers £8.75) along with the Stuffed Chicken Wings (£6.95). I don't like complaining in restaurants but when spending a substantial amount you expect your food to be hot when served. No such luck with our Satay. We sent it back and the managers excuse was that the kitchen was downstairs and with the weather being so cold that can happen. I'm not buying it. Somewhat luckily they replaced it within 5 minutes (the pad was out at this point don't forget).

So that's how the meal started. I was already feeling let down, but more disappointment was to follow. Our main courses included the Free Range Green Chicken Curry with Sweet Basil (£14.75), the Pad Thai Noodles (£11.95), the Chicken Skewers accompanied by a Salad and an odd Chinese Risotto (£15.50), the Lamb with Wild Ginger and Green Peppercorns in a Curry Sauce (£16.95) and finally the Pak Choi with Oyster Sauce (£7.95).

A breakdown (which I nearly had when seeing the bill) of our meal is as follows: My chicken was smoky and pretty good, the risotto was horrible (no one should ever put the words Chinese and risotto together, they can only be trying to be fancy for fancies sake). The Pad Thai was average, the Lamb was cooked medium rare. I didn't like that but my party didn't mind so I'll let that slide. The best part of the lamb dish were the green peppercorns, which says a lot. And how you can make bland Pak Choi is beyond me..

So for the 3 of us the bill came to £131.85 (including drinks). The food was far below standard. The service was utterly questionable and the vibe of the place was normal, if not a bit contrived.

Never again.

Patara
3/10 and that's mainly because we spent most of time laughing about how bad the food was.
181 Fulham Road
London, SW3 6JN
0207 376 3782
www.pataralondon.com

Eddy's notes:

Shit service.
Starter cold.
Prawn not too prawny.
Nice complimentary pen.
Hot plates but will be cold by the time the food arrives.
Plates are starting to get cold now.
This place needs to up its game if they want to get an equaliser.
Rice - Size - Piss take.
Chicken skewer good - Risotto poor.
Pak Choy under seasoned.
Pad Thai inspiring - my a*se.