Is there a rich and varied restaurant-scene around Canary Wharf which visitors never get to see? Do the denizens of the Isle of Dogs keep all the best places to themselves? We want to know.
But where to start? Our own guide now lists a few places, but we still live in fear of just rounding up the more obvious suspects. How about one of those un-moderated user-review websites? From one of them, here’s a likely-looking place: an Indian, just a few minutes’ walk from Canary Wharf, which seems to attract many excited reports. Off we go then. Zaika, Tamarind, Chutney Mary’ get ready to eat your hearts out.
Hmm. Perhaps guide books do still have some point after all. Not that Bengal Quay isn’t to some extent worth knowing about, you understand, just that skimming the user-submitted reports didn’t really work in painting the picture of what we actually found. This is a large, rather gloomy and unhappily-decorated modern room, with no character and vile Musak. The staff extend no welcome, and, with no apology, spilt vivid red wine on the white cloth, leaving me to lunch in full view of a mini-Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The consolations turn out to be the food, which is satisfying (in a totally ‘traditional’ vein), and in the bill which is gratifyingly low.
The search continues. If you’re keeping a gem on the Isle of Dogs to yourself, don’t: email us at mail@hardens.com. A bottle of Rémy Martin Fine Champagne Cognac to the first person to recommend somewhere we go on to review.
