Joyce's review of The Modern Pantry

My boyfriend took me to this restaurant as a Valentines Day surprise, and it sure was…for all the wrong reasons. I had read so many great reviews of this restaurant my expectations were pretty high.

Firstly I’d like to say that the staff are very friendly and the space looks elegant without being intimidating. But as soon as I put food in my mouth I was mortified. I have written this, my first review ever, as a reaction to the starter. I ordered their tuna ceviche. This dish is disgusting! Seriously, they should take it off their menu entirely, never mind the cheek of charging money for the misery of eating it. Each revolting mouthful was forced down with the added pain of pretending it was edible so as not to offend my boyfriend. It was pure torture.

The tuna was warm and mushy like it had been sitting on the dash of a car parked in the sun. This really is not a pleasant thought to enter my head whilst consuming raw fish. But it wasn’t merely the freshness of the fish that worried me, the flavour of it was just all wrong. What a mess. It was drowned in an overwhelming amount of sweet lime, topped with a wasabi tobiko which made me think of a fishmongers boot.

Horrible.

If it hadn’t been a special occasion I would have sent it back. I’m hoping someone from the restaurant will read this review and please take that dish off the menu. Ok, I might have just been unlucky enough to have ordered the wrong dish on the one day the fish delivery didn’t turn up and the fridge thermostat packed it in, or maybe it’s just too sophisticated and interesting for my humble palate. I am just an unknown reviewer after all. But I seriously hope they do some sort of quality assurance audit of that dish, because I’m so unhappy about it I’m still stressed enough to complain about it weeks later.

To be honest I can't remember what the main was like, as I was so cross about the starter.

Incidentally, I took my boyfriend out to the Gaucho restaurant down the road by Smithfields market and had a mixed ceviche starter platter which was really like 3 nuances of food heaven.