Restaurant Reviews

Restaurant Reviews and Food Musings

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Fed up with celebrity chefs drizzling sauces over undercooked pieces of meat? I am!

I regularly dine out and am happy to share my restaurant experiences, and musings on food with you.

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Restaurant

Mario
299 High Street
Croydon

Phone:- 0208 686 5624

Overview

Eva and I wandered into Croydon on Friday to try out Mario, an Italian restaurant.

Ambience

Mario is a very small restaurant, the walls are decorated with photos, flags and pictures; with Puccini playing in the background. It has the potential to be intimate and cosy. However, the lighting is far too bright. We asked for the spotlights, one of which was shining into Eva’s face, to be turned down.

Menu

Unlike some Italian restaurants, the menu is not that extensive. However, it offers a selection of pasta, veal and steak dishes.

Service

Efficient.

Food

I ordered the cannelloni for my starter, and was warned that it was made with beef not veal; no problem for me. However, I was (to put it mildly) far from impressed with the dish when it arrived. Instead of being rolled tubes of pasta stuffed with meat, it resembled a sloppy lasagne with very little meat.

I asked the waitress over, and lifted a layer of pasta with my fork; asking her where the meat had gone. She responded, somewhat incongruously, that she had warned me that it was made with beef; irrelevant. She offered to have the chef stuff it with more meat. We decided to forgo the dish, in return for me not being charged.

Eva started with smoked salmon, not the most generous portion I have ever seen; although served a salad, no brown bread was forthcoming.

I chose the fillet steak in green pepper sauce for my main course. This was a good quality tender piece of meat; the sauce piquant and creamy.

Eva had the veal in a white wine and sage sauce; very tasty, but not a very large portion.

Our main courses were accompanied by sauté potatoes, cauliflower in cheese and sugar snaps; all very decently cooked.

The meal, which included a bottle Pinot Grigio and several liqueurs, came to £73 before service.

Overall Opinion

Croydon has a large number of Italian restaurants, we don’t feel that there is any need to visit Mario again.

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