The Good Egg @eat 17 — Restaurant in London

Ok so it was a bit weird, but the food was nice. We were greeted by a lovely lady outside who took us inside and explained what we had to do in order to be allowed to eat a burger in this particular room. Fine, everywhere is different with this stuff. I filled out the online forms (some parts of which were slightly illogical but they’re written by insurance companies and not medics I guess) and then once you have read the menu, you have to go and stand in a small vegetable shop. While queuing at the counter, people in front of you are buying takeaway coffee and maybe a pound of onions and things like that. Once you’ve got to the front of the queue, you order your food and drink, and a total is announced to you. Does this include a tip? Who knows, for no printed bill is presented. I assumed so. You also have to show them your phone to prove that you got top marks on the Covid test. You pay the bill and work your way back through the vegetable shop to your table where later on people bring the drinks and food. Bizarrely it seems to be quite possible to order more drinks without going back to the vegetable shop, which is good because frankly you’re not going to go through the whole ‘watching people buying their groceries’ thing in order to get a pint of beer, are you. We had chicken wings, a steak sandwich and a chicken burger. All of it was excellent, although the menu seems to have gone from what I remember in previous visits to pretty much ‘hot things in buns’, presumably this is a Covid thing, like standing in a vegetable shop. Well, it’s as logical as making people wear dirty face masks on the Tube I suppose.

Once you finish, you go back to the vegetable shop and settle the rest of the bill and if you leave through the wrong door, you find that you are in Spar, where you can buy a souvenir tin of cat food or something to take home. It was weird, not like eating in a restaurant or a cafe but the food was good and everyone seemed eager to please. And to sell...

I was really excited about going here, but from the moment I walked in I felt like I didn't receive the best customer service. They had written the wrong name down and I explained that this had happened because I had to correct the person on the phone several times, but they didn't listen. Also as I didnt know the name entered they kept saying there was no booking under my name. Eventually, we were sat down once I gave them my number. They were rude and abrupt the whole time they were finding my name despite it being a fault of their own. Not once did they apologise, which should have warned me instantly.

The restaurant is nice and trendy. I liked the decor and it was very busy. Food was ok. I was expecting something amazing as it was so busy. I had a sticky beetroot and burrata starter, which had no flavour or anything exciting to it. I also had the buffalo wings and crab linguine. The wings were the only exciting thing out of the starters that we had ordered. The linguine was ok, nothing to rave about.

I was looking forward to the mains as I got the t bone steak. Unfortunately, I spent most of my time battling with it as the knives were blunt. Athough I was told by a member of staff, they couldn't be blunt because they had been sharpened the other day so they weren't sure why I was struggling. The steak wasn't very enjoyable. The garlic butter it had been cooked in didn't add any flavour. The best part of the meal were the chips and cheesy mash.

What made it worse was that I had heard the ladies working there talking about a customer and mocking her. I get that you may have this banter, but they were talking so loudly and really mocking her that it made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

When it came to the bill, they did say they had taken off one of the steaks, which was very decent of them. However, they had added extra drinks to our bill. I definitely will not go back there. It is over priced for the food you receive and the customer service...

I booked table online. Upon arriving we waited for 5 minutes at the entrance but were repeatedly ignored by the Maitre d' and his staff. I was required to go inside to the till area in order to inform the staff of our arrival and to request we be shown our table. This type of incident can be forgiven if the restaurant was acutely busy but from my observations it was at best only 10% occupied at the time of our arrival.

We ordered a watermelon salad, which at £10 consisted of 1/8 of a small watermelon, tiny splashes of feta and some baked peppers. It was as tasty as semi fresh chunks of watermelon and feta can be. The basque cheesecake itself was acceptable but sadly it was absolutely tiny and furthermore was covered in lashings of sickly sweet cherry compote. Due to the relative volumes, the cherry compote massively overpowered the cheesecake. This dessert clearly lacked refinement and/or any artisanal flair. It was an insult to the £7.50 requested.

Upon asking for the bill it was delivered first with an incorrect amount. In order to correct said mistake, the staff required a further 10 minutes. I then requested further that the service charge be taken off the bill. To my puzzlement, the Maitre d just took the service charge off but didn't ask me for what reason I was unwilling to pay the service charge. It was again left to me to inform him of the litany of issues with the service during our visit.

The ambiance was lovely however, the restaurant occupied a prime location on the main section of the Walthamstow village street. I found the outside tables a little too close together, conversations are not private here.

The prices at this restaurant cannot be justified as they allude to a standard of refinement and service that is simply not present. I will not be returning...