Market Cafe — Restaurant in London

Awful place - two questions to the waitress got us lots of smiling from the spaced out waitress but no answers. "Maybe I should check?" - she never did. I was a simple question "Is there wine in the clam sauce?" I ordered a large portion of Spaghetti with clams, my friend ordered small. When the waitress came I asked what the difference was as they looked the same except the size of the plate. She pointed at mine and said 'That's large" - yes but what is the difference other than the size of plate? More inane smiles. Then another waitress came and smiled a lot. This time, I said I was not happy. She took it away and went to take my friends too, who said "Mine's ok for a small portion". They came back (to give them credit fairly quickly) with perhaps another spoonful of spaghetti. The clams were nice but there was NO flavour at all - no herbs, no pepper, just a sad tiny amount of the water the clams had cooked in. There WAS chilli which had probably been lying around in water all day as it had ZERO kick. Why on earth they couldn't cut the chilli fresh and maybe add some fresh parsley or something. Oh and if the waitress reads this: No there is no wine in the sauce, just water. On top of that the spaghetti was seriously overcooked. We left the spaghetti and ate the clams. I had four more clams than my friend (sadly we counted the empty shells just to prove a point) and one extra spoonful of overcooked spaghetti. When the waitress came back to plates full of food she asked "How was it?" - I replied "It really was bad - it tasted of nothing and the spaghetti was overcooked" - "Oh I am sorry..." - A quick look online shows that many people are unhappy with their small/large portions. I could have coped with the tiny portions if the food was great or even good but it was bad. If a chef can't cook pasta properly then an Italian menu is a problem. I feel a bit like the Jewish joke about the two ladies complaining about a restaurant "The food is just AWFUL.... and the portions are so small" but if you are going to have small and large portions then make them discernibly different. I live here and won't be going back. "Oh I...

When I walk into a restaurant, I don’t want to be quizzed by the host as to how many we are, and whether we are eating, in an obvious fashion so that he can put a price on our party and determine whether it is optimally profitable to offer us the last table. Thankfully we were 4 and eating, but it’s just tactless and tasteless to intimate that you will refuse to seat us unless we are going to spend enough money in your restaurant to make it worth your opportunity cost. It immediately made me feel not welcome, and gives the restaurant a business-like rather than homely vibe. No one came to take our order or give us water for at least 15 minutes.

We ordered eggs on toast and avocado on toast. It took 40 minutes to prepare. The avacodo/guacamole is completely tasteless and is to be avoided. Thankfully my Bloody Mary was spicey enough so that if I ate a mouthful and then had a quick sip I would actually taste something. The toast is hardened to a crisp and served with a blunt butter knife; one of my friends gave up trying to cut it and ate with her hands.

At no stage did anyone ask how we were enjoying our meal or whether there was anything they could get us (I wanted tabasco for 15 minutes but ended up eating 4/5ths of the food before I had the chance to ask a waitress to supply some taste). The staff in general are unprofessional youngsters who have clearly never received any training. I don’t blame them as the place gets busy and I only saw three waitresses for more than 100 people.

Prices are excessive and would not be value at 1/2 price. I hope management is benefiting from capital gains in the land value because I (and I imagine most customers) certainly...

One of the worst meals out I've had in a looong time - if we hadn't been on a tight schedule and so hungry I would have made quite a scene at the restaurant.

We ordered a full English (passable, but very nondescript), a fried fish sandwich and a reuben.

I don't want to waste a huge amount of energy on such a pathetic attempt at cuisine so I'll highlight the worst part, the reuben.

First of all it was TINY, and came on a plate with no garnish, crisps, chips, salads, anything except it's poor pathetic self. There was very little filling. It was tasteless, mostly saurkraut and very thick, bland slices of beef. No melty cheese, no Russian - or any kind of - dressing, the beef was dry, the bread really very dry and awful, and I've already mentioned the size. IT COST £15. Now, I know a LOT of places in London where £15 will buy you a decent enough sandwich and you suck up the price because it's London but this really took the biscuit.

The service was adequate but not particularly friendly or helpful. The environment I imagine gets good later in the day, but I can't give anywhere that charges so much for such shoddy food a genuine high mark for atmosphere because we left feeling confused, more than anything...