{"id":46,"date":"2004-08-01T12:55:21","date_gmt":"2004-08-01T12:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/applecrumble.wordpress.com\/2004\/08\/01\/moody-restaurant\/"},"modified":"2017-09-20T11:35:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T11:35:11","slug":"moody-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/08\/01\/moody-restaurant\/","title":{"rendered":"Moody restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='e-content'>On Friday I had the misfortune to dine at an absolutely <a href=\"http:\/\/www.london-eating.co.uk\/2820.htm\" title=\"London Eating's page on 'Break For The Border'\">awful restaurant<\/a> &#8211; <i>Border<\/i> in Argyll Street.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nI met up with my girlfriend and a load of her friends from work for a couple of beers before we went in there.  When we arrived, things started to look a little dubious; waiters were walking around dishing out some kind of shot drink at &pound;3 a time and the place seemed to be completely full of stag and hen parties.<\/p>\n<p>Although the menu didn&#8217;t have that much on it for vegetarians, I didn&#8217;t really mind &#8211; the grilled vegetable fajitas in a pesto sauce sounded quite good.  When our food finally arrived, I wasn&#8217;t the only disappointed one &#8211; two of the dishes were cold, two were non-existent and one &#8211; massive mushrooms coated in a blanket of melted cheese &#8211; was something that we hadn&#8217;t ordered.  All of this is fine and has happened before &#8211; everyone makes mistakes.  However, when one of us told the waitress that we hadn&#8217;t ordered the dish and that we were waiting for two vegetarian fajitas, she walked to the other side of the table and presented it as one of the missing dishes!  We had to argue with her that it wasn&#8217;t our order!<\/p>\n<p>When it finally came, the food was pretty moody &#8211; the massive slices of courgette and aubergine had never been near a jar of pesto in their lives.<\/p>\n<p>A couple more slaps in the face came when the bill was put on the table before we had even finished eating and we were told that we had to vacate our table as it became part of the &#8216;VIP area&#8217;. Honestly.<\/p>\n<p>We ended up complaining to the manager and I told him that we weren&#8217;t prepared to pay any service charge, which he accepted&#8230;and then didn&#8217;t bring us any change.<\/p>\n<p>Our organiser did a brilliant job of arranging a night out for everyone and we did have a great time &#8211; it&#8217;s just a shame when restaurants seem to go out of their way in trying to spoil your evening.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span hidden class=\"__iawmlf-post-loop-links\" data-iawmlf-links=\"[{&quot;id&quot;:6879,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.london-eating.co.uk\\\/2820.htm&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/08\/01\/moody-restaurant\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Moody restaurant\"><div class='e-content p-summary'>On Friday I had the misfortune to dine at an absolutely awful restaurant &#8211; Border in Argyll Street.<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-london","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9296,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2022\/08\/15\/weeknotes-181-tesekkur-ederim\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":0},"title":"Weeknotes #181 \u2014 Te\u015fekk\u00fcr ederim","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"15 August 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We spent the entire week in T\u00fcrkiye at the Voyage Sorgun hotel with my parents, my brothers and all of our families for a long-planned and much-delayed group holiday. We hadn\u2019t spent this much time together since we all lived under the same roof in the 1990s. It was wonderful.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-4.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-4.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-4.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-4.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2005\/10\/09\/turkish-holiday\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":1},"title":"Turkish holiday","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"9 October 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just come back from a week in Turkey as recommended by Will in response to an earlier post. My brother, his girlfriend, my wife and I rented the beautiful 'Jasmine J' villa in Hisaronu, a town in a mountain valley located very near to Fethiye and Oludeniz, the latter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sunset at the White Dolphin restaurant, Oludeniz, Turkey","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/50514357_fd44c32351_t.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11492,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2025\/01\/03\/weeknotes-305-orale\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":2},"title":"Weeknotes #305 \u2014 \u00a1\u00d3rale!","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"3 January 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"View of the beach from The Fives Hotel, Playa del Carmen, Mexico We\u2019ve just come back from a wonderful holiday in Playa del Carmen, a short drive south of Canc\u00fan in Mexico. There were 14 of us \u2014 my two brothers and I, our families, plus our parents. Back in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A beach scene at sunrise. The sky is blue with some cloud. 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We stayed at the Ocean Blue villa, hosted by the lovely Lucy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weeknotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-14-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-14-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-14-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-14-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-14-1.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/DraggedImage-14-1.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3977,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/02\/16\/3977\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":5},"title":"TV on. Nigel Slater just\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"16 February 2018","format":"status","excerpt":"TV on. 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