Work While Drunk

I’m sad to say that my meal at the Green and Red Bar and Cantina was one of my most disappointing meals in quite a while.

On arriving the 10 of us were greeted in a friendly way, sat straight down and ordered 2 buckets of beer as part of the happy hour. Seemed like a good start. The décor was OK, although slightly hard to tell as they were overdoing the mood lighting a tad. The menu is very limited – 8 starters and 6 main courses. Still, I thought, its quality not quantity, right? Well unfortunately the quality wasn’t there either. The food wasn’t bad per se, but it wasn’t great either. It didn’t help that it was lukewarm and the portions were relatively small. The side dishes weren’t good either. The pre-made guacamole was poor, the refried beans equally disappointing, and they only gave us 2 small flour tortillas each. When we pointed out that wasn’t enough they brought us 3 more. There were 10 of us. It took them 15 mins to do this by which time the food was cold and they even charged us for the extra tortillas. I was the most cursed that evening, as the waiter got my order wrong and I had to wait 20 mins (was told 5) for it to arrive, but at least they gave me a free beer for that bit of trouble.

One of my companions rates Mexican restaurants on the quality of their Margaritas. Considering this place is a Bar and Cantina, and they do indeed have a very good selection of Tequila, we’d hoped that would at least be good – unfortunately again, it wasn’t a particularly impressive Margarita, and it wasn’t cheap. So overall: the staff are friendly but very slow and unresponsive, the food would have been average if it was hot, the menu is unexciting but mostly tries to be authentic and if you want a good drink you’re going to have to pay for a premium one.

My rating: a very disappointing 2.5 out of 10.

(This review was also posted to London-Eating.co.uk)