• Added: 26th of April 2008
• Area: Newcastle Upon Tyne
• Category: Restaurants

Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 2HF
0191 260 3506

skipchris said
Promises so much...
I announced to Mim that we were off to the "Silk Room" for a friend's birthday; she sought assurances that we were indeed headed to a restaurant, not one of Newcastle's rapidly breeding strip bars. Dejectedly, I had to explain 'no' - this one of Newcastle's Coolest New Spots. After the meal, I dejectedly realised that the whole problem had been Silk Room's commonality with a strip club... Tempting you, tantalising you, but ultimately unrewarding, leaving you to go home feeling a bit used and dejected...

The menu sounds fabulous, offering a tempting and often exotic range of pizza, pasta, chicken, meat and fish, along with 'delicacies' such as Kobe burger and Crocodile Tail steak. The decor was pleasant: lots of mood lighting tassles, Laura Ashley-style prints and dark wood... You assume you're about to have a great meal, you're already eating that Kobe burger with your eyes, reclining on the leather couch...

...But then it all starts to go wrong. The service was stunningly bad. We were seated for ages before drinks were offered. The offered drinks (a lemonade and two beers) took an age to arrive (in a none-too-busy restaurant). Orders were taken fairly promptly, but food (we forewent starters) was slow to arrive. (Unlike drinks, this is forgivable, if the chef is busy or working on something truly special).

The food was where it really all went wrong though. Mim's seafood pasta was poor. My £9 pizza was OK, but no better than a £5 pizza from any of Newcastle's identikit italian places. If I'm paying £9 for a pizza, it should be delicious.

Three of our party had the famed Kobe burger. It was tasty-looking and well presented on a hefty slab of wood, but there was no clear consensus whether Kobe beef, when minced into a burger and sold for £18 is substantially better than Aberdeen Angus minced into a burger and sold for £12.

We mainly had dessert. I forgot to get the lowdown on my chums', but my mango sorbet was poor. It had clearly been melted and re-frozen, and as such was full of ice crystals.

The staff were, for the most part, pleasant and friendly, but completely inattentive. We almost resorted to rugby-tackling a waiter to order our wine; the bill was brought unasked for (big sin), yet I had to get up and take the cash and my card to the bar because the staff were occupied talking to eachother and some friends that had walked in.

A 10% service charge had been added to the bill. This is becoming common practice, but it's still completely deplorable and reeks of cash-grabbing desparation. It's all the more awkward when gratuities were going to be in short supply from our party due to the staff's indifference.

When paying by card, I was asked the customary "Was everything alright, sir". I wanted to grab him, sit him down, pour him some tea, and explain it all - explain why everything was wrong, and how he could maybe make it better... But I just looked at my shoes and answered "Yeah, fine"... Because that's truthfully what it was. Other than the poor pasta and sorbet, all seven of us had decent enough meals. We just spent a lot on them and weren't made to feel particularly welcome for doing so. We could've saved a couple of pennies and gone to Pizza Express.

Ultimately, to stretch an analogy to breaking point, if Silk Room is a strip bar, Newcastle offers a host of full-on brothels, albeit some disguised as massage parlours. And more importantly, a host of lovely, good looking girls you could take home to meet your mum.

• Added: 26th of April 2008
• Area: Manchester
• Category: Hotels and Travel

Manchester M3 4LQ
0161 870 1600

skipchris said
Costly and Curt
Every cloud, however dark, has a silver lining. Take for instance the "global credit crunch" (and leave your cynicism about whether the effects of the 'crunch' have been amplified by hyterical media reporting at the door).

If there is indeed a crunch, it's no doubt going to be pretty joyless in some respects. But one silver lining I'm hoping for is a reduction in the credit-fuelled-footballers-wife-aspirant lifestyle so currently prevalent, which values venue-namedropping above service, quality, and, above all, fun. The name for this culture, coined, right now, by me, is Costly and Curt. I may be pissing into the wind, but the campaign for the banishment of Costly and Curt starts right here. Join me, and let's start a tearoom together...

Epitomising "Costly and Curt" is the Hilton Manchester Deansgate. I was there for the North East Swot Awards on Thursday (I didn't win). I hate chain hotels at the best of times. However obsequious the marketing, however soft-focus the photography, it always glares through to me that I am not a guest; I am potential profit. The chain hotel's mission in life is to sell me as many things as possible at as high a price as they dare, whilst spending the bare minimum on doing this selling, for example in staff training, or simple goods quality.

The meal was fine. Nothing wrong with it, standard C&B fare. My creme bruleé was actually pretty good. The Deansgate suite is a pleasant enough C&B room. The 'spiral staircase' atrium is actually fairly cool. The staff asking each of my colleagues in turn to order drinks at our table felt more like begging than hospitality. The bar staff were badly trained and rude. Other than that, there was very little wrong with the night, but very little right. The whole function could've been held in a Travelodge, it would've been none the worse off in terms of service and quality, but my wallet would've left been a hell of a lot better off. Let's get back to cheap and cheerful.

• Added: 26th of April 2008
• Area: Manchester
• Category: Hotels and Travel

Manchester M1 6FT
0161 233 5100

skipchris said
Not arf bad
The palace hotel does an odd sort of 'faded glamour'. I'm not an expert, or even half-qualified to discuss architecture, but from check-in to check-out I was completely taken with this place's quirks.

The lobby is massive and grand: columns, marble, well lit vaulted ceiling, lots of mahogany, it's a suitably awe-inspiring welcome to the hotel. Similarly impressive was my room: feeling about three stories high, curtains so heavy and tall I could barely draw them. The bathroom was larger than my own dear bathroom at home.

So, the Palace is spacious. We didn't stay for dinner, but my full english breakfast in the tasteful, refurbished bar and restaurant was super. The service in the bar was also intelligent and attentive enough: bonus points to the young man who advised us "not to bother" with the hotel booking us a taxi, we'd be better off with one from the rank outside Sainsbury's (he was right).

The Palace wasn't perfect though. Whilst I admired its quirky architecture and intelligent, polite staff, some of its quirks let it down (or at least could do, depending on what you want from your hotel...)

I've heard varying quotes that between £8-10 million is being spent on renovating the Palace. This seems all well and good for Lobby and Bar, the Palace's blue-eyed firstborns; but Rooms, the Palace's ginger-haired stepchild could do with seeing more of this inheritance. Slightly "mended" carpets, slightly "knacked" fixtures and fittings, slightly "tiny and slow" lift... In fact, the lift began to nark me so much, I sought out the stairs, which were a whole new world of interesting.

Ultimately though, it depends what you're after: Are you a couple on honeymoon? (In Manchester??) or are you on business or leisure, looking for for somewhere to stay which won't bore you to death with bland decor and identikit, untrained staff? I was after the former (and so you should be too), and I'd head straight back to the Palace next time I was passing through Madchester...