Brickbat for Brick Lane Eatery

 4 February 2024

 

BRICK LANE EATERY

The Quays, 142 Park Road, Century City, Cape Town

 

The Yorkies have become accustomed to Sunday lunch in dog friendly environments and our previous experience at BLE had been very good, so we returned for more of the same.  

 

Alas, it wasn’t quite to be.

 

Once again, we had a table away from the main crowd, to avoid intrusive mooching from the one dog and to reduce excessive yapping by the other. It was a splendid day and the joint was busy. 

 

I’d learnt from our first visit when we radically over-ordered and was content with a main meal of  battered fish and roasted vegetables whereas the wife, recalling the joys of the “nibble & sip” platter we’d had before, went for that.

 

We also ordered a bowl of cooked liver for the Yorkies. If you feed the children, they’re well behaved.

 

Last time around, the liver arrived before our meals. Today, they were served well after the main courses, causing the dogs, well, really only the one, severe emotional distress because she could smell our food and saw us chowing down yet was starved of sustenance.  Suffice to say, when the liver arrived, the Yorkies failed to linger over it.

 

The wife wasn’t filled with the joys of culinary delight with her choice, though, even if the quantity was as abundant as ever, as the spring rolls weren’t as crisp as they had been before and everything on the platter that had been deep fried tasted of frying oil beyond its sell-by date.  A simple visual comparison between the platter we shared last time and today’s less than stellar iteration, eloquently makes the point.

The first picture is of today's version; the second picture is from last time.

 

Once again, the food was too much and we took some home. A day or two later, the leftovers were my supper and I thought that the riblets and the chicken wings were very tasty and that the chicken popcorn was good. The deep-fried mac ‘n cheese ball hadn’t travelled well, though.

 

I was very happy with my perfectly cooked fish, the light, crisp batter and a good portion of al dentevegetables.  The chef may not have done the spring rolls and onion rings justice but the fish and vegetables had been treated with the proper respect.

Another mild disappointment was that the jug of mimosa  the wife ordered seemed to be in such short supply of alcoholic content one could barely raise a warm, fuzzy buzz much less get roaring day drunk.  Not that getting blotto over lunchtime is our thing but, still, to pay R150 for essentially a jug of slightly fizzy orange juice is not acceptable.

 

The serious disappointment and irritation of the day came after 15h00 when I ordered a dessert, pancakes with cinnamon sugar and ice cream. BLE closes at 16h00, with the kitchen taking last orders at about 15h15 but the server assured me that a would have my dessert.

 

Shortly after I ordered my pancakes, he brought the bill and kind of hustled us into paying it because he was almost done for the day, presumably wanted to cash up early and get the hell out. This was the opposite of the experience we usually have in restaurants, that servers basically ignore you once you’ve had your food to the extent that you have to send out a search party when you do want to pay the bill.  The wife and I would’ve liked coffees with the pancake but it seemed not to be on the card, so we left it.

 

Despite the server returning a few times to assure me that the kitchen was aware of my order, it took the best part of 40 minutes after the order had been placed, for the pancakes to appear at the table. By this time BLE was mostly empty of patrons and staff were starting to upend chairs onto tables, the classic sign of imminent closure. This also means that there would have been plenty time for us to order and enjoy coffee, but c’est la vie.

 

The pancakes had the characteristic, for me, disconcerting rubbery texture of crêpes and, typically, the cinnamon sugar had simply melted into a syrup on top of and around the pancakes without being absorbed into them, which isn’t the optimal way to enjoy a pancake but I guess it was okay.

The last very disconcerting issue was the horrible state of the women’s bathrooms (I did not go in but the wife was appalled). All the toilets were disgustingly dirty, only one of the stalls had toilet paper and there was no soap in the soap dispensers when trying to wash your hands in the also filthy basins. The wife immediately brought the terrible state of the restrooms to our waiter’s attention as there was no manager in sight and asked that he please inform the manger and/or ask someone to clean and at least refill the toilet paper and soap. Alas, by the time we left the bathrooms were even filthier, so nothing was done to improve their unhygienic state. This is always worrying because if there is so little attention paid to the restrooms used by patrons, one immediately wonders about the state of the kitchen where food is being prepared. What kind of hygiene standards are being observed there?

 

So, a curate’s egg of a meal and day out.  I thought that the nibble & sip platter was ok but the wife was not happy with it.  Perhaps one should bring one’s own half jack of bubbly to add to the mimosa mix for some real zing.  The biggest irks of the day were the pressure on us to pay the bill long before we were going to leave and the long wait for the pancakes as well as the restroom situation.

 

The bill (including only one coffee, one beer and the jug of mimosa mix) came to R690,00 including tip.

 

BLE has a lovely setting, it is well dog friendly and the food is good but the wife’s view was, dog friendly or not, we’d been twice and that would suffice, i.e. there will be no 3^rd visit.