Last Saturday was the third time we had eaten in Skylon at the Royal Festival Hall and our last. Our first meal there was about two years ago for Sunday lunch, we had their roast rib of beef which was delicious, the service was attentive and the view by the window overlooking the river is perfect. This positive experience made us go back next time we were in the area one hot evening last summer, I can’t recall what we had but Bikerboy and I felt the food was unremarkable and the service neglectful and rushed, so we put the place out of our minds until last weekend when we were attending the Festival Hall for a concert which I mention in my Two Granddads and a Baby post.
Since the forecast for the weather was to be pretty awful with a downpour of snow it seemed the sensible move was to be near the concert venue but we decided to try the Grill rather than the restaurant to see if we had better luck. We both started with crab linguine and for main courses Bikerboy had his default dish if he doesn’t fancy anything on the menu, burger, and I had shoulder of lamb, for dessert I had chocolate and pear tart and he had chocolate brownie. The linguine was the best dish of the evening, but if you have fresh crab and don’t mess up the pasta too much it’s hard to get the dish wrong, although we both kept finding shell in the sauce. Bikerboy knows his burgers and you’d think having a simple burger would be easy but let me tell you it’s the easiest thing to get wrong, his comment was, ” it was bland, no dressing, dull, could have gone to Tescos bought the burger and put in a bun served up with McDonald’s chips”. My lamb which I was expecting to be falling apart tender because the waiter said it was cooked covered in the oven for a long time was dry, no seasoning and the tiniest two little slices that I swear my 2 year old would have demanded more.
A good dessert can save the day as far as I’m concerned. My pear and chocolate tart had excellent light crumbly pastry and very rich dense chocolate which I suspect was chocolate fondant, the chocolate was good-ok not good-great, and well that was it, it was just a chocolate tart. The little pear decorating didn’t taste of anything, it was like the sprig of mint leaves people use to decorate a dessert, not adding much to the dish. Bikerboy was quite happy with the chocolate brownie but the ice-cream portion with it was mean and so was mine, I could have eaten it with one teaspoon full. We both had bellinis to start and one glass of red and one glass of white, coffee and tea with service the bill came to £130.00. Had we had a great meal or even one that was flavoursome we would’ve been happy to part with the cash but as it wasn’t we weren’t. Our waiter was attentive and friendly but strangely seemed to be rushing around serving everyone even though there were plenty of staff wondering around.
