• Mine was poor, his was great!

  Rating - Overall: 2  Food: 3  Service: 3  Ambience: 2

  

  jonesey
  Rookie Reviewer
  Member since Jun 09
  Rating: 0

  18 Jun 2009

  We visited Fishworks for an early-evening meal before a show at the Theatre Royal, and told our waiter that we had a finish time of 7.30 latest in mind. With hardly a soul there when we arrived at 6.15, we didn't expect to be gulping down our coffee and chasing for the bill, but guess what? We did.

  Fishworks' financial problems at the end of 2008 didn't put us off going, as we had eaten at other branches before. Still, it was a pity that the environment felt so tired. The royal blue paintwork seemed dull, the walls not as white as they could have been. The upstairs dining room was kitted out with Formica-style dining tables and chairs that felt like a student canteen. The walls were hung with acrylic paintings of Cornish-looking scenes that had no artistic merit at all. Not minimalist, just very third-rate.

  Opting for a starter and main due to the constraints on time, I ordered whitebait, which you don't see much these days. When it arrived, it was served in a perfunctory way, with just a slice of lemon and a little pot of sauce. You can't perhaps make whitebait really sing, but you can at least try! Not so much as a dusting of pepper of a scattering of greenstuff around the plate to add a touch of class. Disappointing. My partner's white prawns in a butter and lemon sauce, on the other hand, were excellent. A large portion of truly massive prawns that looked good and tasted good.

  The mains were equally unbalanced. My salmon Hollandaise was dull, and rather small on the plate. The sauce didn't look freshly applied, but was perhaps a couple of minutes old. But my partner's swordfish steak was "the best he had ever tasted".

  Not cheap, these mains, at about £15 with vegetables extra.

  No time for dessert. The first two courses had come within a reasonable time, and the restaurant was filling up but was not yet screamingly busy. Yet we had to work hard to catch the waiter's eye to get coffee and the bill.

  Coffee had the added bonus of a chocolate nibble, which does demonstrate that this restaurant doesn't skimp on the final course.

  The bill came to £75, which included two glasses of wine and 12.5 per cent service.

  The lesson is maybe to at least spend the whole evening eating if you're spending lots of money on a meal.

  Visited: June 13, 2009
  What I ate: white king prawns, swordfish, whitebait, salmon Hollandaise

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