26th October 2007
Pretty damn good for the price and a stunning view
... to boot.
I don't like eating in chain restaurants; it makes me feel like a fat American, heading off the freeway exit and having dinner at a tacky restaurant like TGIFridays. Not my vibe.
But some friends were taking the train in from Surbiton for a Sunday night dinner, and we had to find somewhere affordable, decent, that was going to be open on a Sunday night, in the Waterloo/London Bridge area. I literally spent all of Sunday afternoon reading restaurant reviews, and the only place I could come up with that ticked all of the requirements, was Strada.
While Strada is never adventurous, all of the benefits you receive from eating at a chain, are apparent here: good table service, easy for making reservations, a clean venue, and good food. My only complaint is that the manager really needs to learn how to use his food service terminal; these computers are incredibly easy to use and you have to be a complete and total jackass to tell me that you don't know how to do a re-print of the bill; nor would he let me walk him through the procedure on how to do it. Some people need to check their egos at the door, because I will post about it on TrustedPlaces, and other people will (hopefully) laugh at his expense, because it doesn't pay to be stupid.
Anyway - the bill came to 100 pounds for 4 people, including 2 good and cheap bottles of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, 2 starters, 4 mains, 3 coffees, and a dessert. Cheap for London, and no one left a crumb on their plate.
I would have no problem coming here again if it weren't for the manager's blatant stupidity, yet I feel that the restaurant deserves 4 stars because the food was, at the end of the day, pretty damn good, and looking through the vast windows of the restaurant out at the twinkling London Bridge and seeing the city's skyline reflecting off of the Thames, under the cover of darkness, was incredibly enjoyable.