Rebecca's review of The Commander

Hmmm – The Commander – Well, you know it is never a good start when one enters a new restaurant full of excitement and anticipation, only to be told that “No – we cant fit you in because we have a large booking coming soon and the kitchen will be too busy” . Also – it was particularly irritating when one could see several spare tables. So – after negotiation with staff far friendlier than the Maitre'd – perhaps it was her first opening? We managed to secure a table for two. Perhaps we should have left while we could! The starter, described a salmon and dill terrine – was essentially remoulade from the supermarket shelf – then after asking for some brown or soda bread to go with it – was told that there was none available, and after three different people had been to see about it, eventually the chef came out and said that he would prefer not to give us yesterday’s bread. Ok – well perhaps some more of the small white pieces of bread that were offered with the table then? Anyway – some semi fresh brown bread eventually turned up.

On to the mains and the first one was pork belly – which had nice and crisp roast potatoes and braised cabbage – but the main attraction – sadly undercooked I’m afraid! And the other main – touted as prawn and monkfish brochettes – what arrived was a tiny 10p size piece of monkfish and two prawns (in their shells!) and some unadvertised tuna. By this stage, we were afraid to try desert and opted for another glass of wine – the only high point of the meal – a nice white rioja at a very reasonable price, in fact, the wine list overall represented good value.

Most of the above was probably attributable to new opening trials and tribulations – however these hiccups were not helped by generally rude and uninformed staff – perhaps the owners should have been on hand to ensure a smooth opening – well to at least ensure locals to the area return – as unfortunately we wont be!