Henry's Cafe Bar

On first impressions Henrys bar (Convent Garden) kind of looks like a Wetherspoons clone pub, and unfortunately the similarities don’t stop at the door.
We were shown to our table (we had pre-booked a ‘Meal and Theatre ticket’ deal on LastMinute.com) by a very friendly member of staff, she pointed out our options and we ordered our food.
Before I describe the food, I should say that the service at Henrys was really excellent, much better than a lot of places that I’ve been to recently – they understood that we were off to the theatre and checked to make sure that we were ‘on time’ and OK. Unfortunately even the great service could not hide the poor food.
I’ve read loads of reviews which say that Henrys is a great place for cocktails, after work drinks and also pre-theatre drinks. Maybe sticking to the drinks menu is the best thing to do.
We had ordered chicken Tempura and potato wedges for starters. The chicken had no substance – I hate to think how much water had been pumped into the chicken meat as there was nothing there, the tempera batter was more like something you would find at your local fish and chip shop, thick and heavy and greasy – just the opposite of what tempura should be. The potato wedges were also disappointing as the ‘straight from the freezer’ taste and texture was still lingering.
For the Main course I had a ‘corn fed chicken on a bed of mash’ which turned out to be a piece of reasonable chicken sitting on a lake of greasy, oily, melted cheese covered powdered mash. In a word - disgusting. The other main course were salmon and crab fish cakes, these too had been made using the powdered potato mix, and were more like a cloying, tasteless, hard to swallow mess.
Not really the type of food that leaves you feeling as though you want more, as I shudder to think of the amount of fat and grease that was in each portion.
The only redeeming point to the visit was the staff, very friendly and very helpful.

I would return again, but only to have a pint or cocktail and a bag of crisps, and I certainly wont be eating from the menu, unless there is an ambulance outside ready and waiting to take me to hospital for the inevitable cardiac arrest!