I was in Jamie's Italian in White City with a hot lady the other day. I'll cut to the chase and tell you I was disappointed. Now I know there are people out there who like to knock Jamie, for his fat tongue, his made up mockney words and his activism. Not me, I don't have a problem with those things and think he seems like a nice guy.
So I managed to get a lady to agree to dinner with me (using no mockney Danny Dyer-isms from the East London ghetto, I'm proud to say). We both agreed on Jamie's because we're fans of the guy, and I've tried a few recipe's of his from the net and I have to say they taste great.
So we started off with some wine, we were told we'd have to wait about twenty minutes but we could have a drink at the bar. No problem here, it's bound to be popular given the profile of the owner. We got some wine and sat at the bar. We were given a table in ten.
Next we had a cheery waiter who cracked witty asides, all good so far. We ordered our food: The game pipe for me, the meatball carbonara for the lady. The meals were served at the same time but unfortunately the meatball carbonara came with no meatballs. We had to send it back to get that sorted. A waitress came and took it, and was very polite and apologetic about the whole thing.
It took ages for her meal to come back, so long that if I hadn't ate mine it would have went cold. When the meatball carbonara came back (this time with meatballs) they weren't the nice hearty chunky meatballs that you'd expect. They were instead, measly like garden pea sized things that looked like they were picked off an Iceland Meat-Feast pizza. The carbonara itself tasted stinking.
We sent the dish back and said we weren't happy with it. The waiter send down the manager, who was nice about everything, she said the chef had tasted the carbonara and all the flavours were there. This was the same chef though, who sent out meatball carbonara with no meatballs.
The manager gave us free deserts which were really nice, considering the other problem of us not being able to eat our main courses together. I don't like to make a fuss but if you read my previous post about having to do crap jobs to scrape a few pennies together you'll know that I don't have the cash to take someone out on a date very often so when I do, I want it to go well.
At this stage we had a nice enough experience. I'd been a gentleman and gave my good lady some of my food while she waited on hers, we'd got free deserts and the whole disappointment had been largely averted. That was until we asked for our bill. Now, I was prepared to give a tip, because the mistakes had been no fault of the waiter, and the service had been good. Up until the previously friendly funny waiter stomped over with a sour face and our bill and didn't even stop to see if he was getting a tip or not. He just dumped the card machine sulkily on the table and walked off.
Fuck him, I thought, you've just grumped your way out of a tip.
Basically his asshole attitude made me and my date feel very uncomfortable as we left. I think Jamie should get down to the restaurant and kick a smile out of the dickhead waiter's arse.
I've worked as a waiter too, and I've had to put up with all sorts of asshole customers. I've also worked for a tip and watched people walk out without giving it. So I think I'm justified in saying that I would definitely go for again to a Jamie's restaurant, maybe even that one, as long as that sourfaced ballbag wasn't working there.
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