3a Baker Street
W1U 8EE
Tel: 020 7935 3030
Date of Last Visit: Thursday, March 9, 2006
The Victims: Richard, Dev, Yusef, Joel (special guest), Matt, Jose, Al, Rutton, Haithem. Yes, I was the only female in attendance.
Joel was in town from NY so Richard and Rutton arranged dinner. Rutton had been raving about Entrecote forever, so that was our chosen location.
Now, walking there from Oxford Street was a bit confusing, so let me tell you. The restaurant is on Baker Street, which you should be able to get to from Oxford Street by Selfridge's, but the only street there is Orchard Street. That's correct. Don't let the map fool you.
I arrived. The boys were in place. Mostly. They had already drank one bottle of burgundy. Richard wasn't pleased with it. I thought it was just okay. So we later moved to Pinot.
The crowd arrived. There were many of us. And boys being boys, they told many scandalous stories. I could not believe some of them. I will not repeat them here. But they were quite amusing and equally unbelievable.
So the whole concept of Entrecote is quite brilliant from a cost perspective. Serve one dish and serve it well and make a special cult following out of it. This dish is steak. And the cult aspect is the special sauce they marinate the steak in. All for 16.95 with a green salad and some frites. Not bad.
But well, the green salad was just okay. Nothing special. I think they should throw in a few little special touches and make it even more special. Perhaps some hearts of palm? I love HoP!
The steak was perfectly cooked and served sliced over a hot flame. Note, however, that if you order medium rare, after about 5 minutes on the flame, you're at medium. So Dev and I blew our flame out real quick.
The steak was also served in their special mystery sauce, to which they won't divulge the recipe. Well, I can tell you what it is. Butter. Garlic. And parsley. Mystery solved. Maybe they throw in a little bit of white wine for fun.
The frites were what everyone raves about, and personally, I thought they were below average. They make this huge deal about them being hand cut, but honey, they are so not hand cut. They be coming out of a machine.
We ordered espresso and it took forever. That sucked. Oh yes, and then there was that moment when Richard dumped the water all over me. That was fun. But the eight bottles of wine served among 10 people meant that none of this really mattered.
Afterwards, I was taken to this place called Kaberet Prophesy, where my posse picked up three 22 year olds who used us for our liquor and then left the boys high and dry for the (admittedly very attractive) table next door.
The Verdict: I like the concept. The execution was good. Not great, but good. But that's only because I am such a food snob.
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