Acoustic Cafe

fiat500

15th July 2009

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I would suggest to go to another place, their kitchen must have rats everywhere as its so dirty, the breakfast with microwaved beans, and sausages that sit in metal trays all day, then slapped onto the grill to warm up is a no no.

There is so many hidden things that we dont see, but that I have seen first hand and its not nice, all is frozen food, and defrosted to serve especially the hand cut chips, that are allready made by the suppliers.

trust me I know this place.

stantoncarlisle

Warm and welcoming 12th April 2009

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Tucked in the curvy nook of Poets Road with an pulsing orange front and a screed of aluminum tables outside. This buzzing and hip place goes the Deux Maggots Parisian route via Hoxton - existenial foam and froth a-goo-go. If you like life namby pamby, ambi-sexual and with a groovy poovey edge - you'll totally squeal with delight. On the plus side the Staff are friendly. Food is good( and a little pricey) with a bit too much spicy noise going on - trying hard to give your palate a night to remember and coming on like a freaky girlfriend - all mouth and no real taste. A totally great place for the area just below the soggy end of Green Lanes! Worth nose-diving into or seeking out. Definitely a grower.

andybrown

A pooh stick? No. That's just silly 16th December 2008

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Sometimes I can't cook. It's not for lack of ingredients, ability or time, I don't have much money to go out to eat and I'm very picky... but from time to time, I just can't be arsed with using my hands and chopping and ovens and washing up and bla bla bla. Okay I very rarely wash up. But that's not the point. I wanted to go out and eat something. I know of a few places near me that are decent, but my girlfriend's flatmate told me about Acoustic which, she assured me, was cheap, delicious and friendly. This all sounded far too good to be true, so on one of those days when I find myself lacking the wherewithal to move items of food around in hot and cold places until they coalesce into some form of meal, I wandered down to Newington Green, home of the recently defunct and entirely unmourned Relish, to try my luck.

It was a big ask - sufficiently low on blood sugar that I was barely able to read the menu, I went for pumpkin soup and a steak sandwich. The prices seemed reasonable. Suspicious, I took in the warmth and slightly kitsch surroundings, the gentle musical accompaniment, and I waited.

Pumpkin soup. A vast, deep, opaque ocean of gently steaming quasi-spiritual goodness, with toasted bread and pickles. Steak sandwich, not a desultory sliver of leather in a bap, but generous, accompanied with properly handcut chips and a good amount of salad. Admittedly not the best I've ever had, but I've had a LOT of steak and if it was that good, it couldn't be that cheap. Tea. Assam. Loose leaf. In a glass pot. In all ways excellent.

So that was the first time. And that was okay. It was 3 or 4 stars, I might go again, nothing had been bad. So we went again, on another of those days when sharp knives and hot pans and scrubbing are off the agenda. This time, I was really really impressed. Not just with the service, which had been friendly but was now very nearly familial (there was a good ten minutes worth of delighted discussion about the waiter's choice of DVD, packaging, etc) nor the price, which was just as competitive, barely exceeding £20 for two large courses for two of us.

No, this time it was the food. The incomparable pleasure of a really well-made lasagne, and a chicken lasagne, and the word salad being taken seriously and literally so that there was a bowl of it for each of us and not a desultory leaf, and the unmitigated joy of proper desserts and a really big pot of tea. I slept. I couldn't help it. In the corner booth, warm and full as a contented baby, I dozed off. They didn't seem to mind.
I haven't said enough about the desserts, or more specifically the crumble. Apple crumble is not a dish to be taken lightly, not to be (excuse me) trifled with. Apple crumble with ice cream is deceptively complex, teetering on the brink of stodge, dipping a toe in sourness, walking a fine line between hot and cold. This apple crumble was an epic, managing to be both the odyssey and the homecoming. I could have cried.

But as I say, I was already asleep.