This is a review of As You Like It  from my cousin, Mary Leung, who went their with her parents and my parents for a birthday meal:

Restaurant is huge with 2 floors and love the cozy, home-y decor.  Very popular so luckily Susan had made reservations a couple of weeks in advance.  We were seated at a roundtable which seemed a bit tight for 10 of us but the manager assured us it designed to fit upto 10.  (It was fine to sit at but wish they had designed the crockery to suit the tables.  The 10 main course plates were a bit oversized for the table!)
 
Overall ambience was nice with soft lights and pleasant background music. But, they could have cranked up the AC when it started to get crowded.
 
Our waitress for the evening was a European girl, probably a student which English was definitely not her native tongue and took some time for me to understand.  She asked us if we would like some bread to start with and asked how many portions.  I asked her how many slices in one portion and she said about 4 but not specifying the size.  So I said let's start with 2 portions since there's 10 of us.  Then she said with butter or 'olive'.  I said both, assuming she meant olive oil.   She came back with one small slab of butter and a small plate of olive.  Luckily, me and Ken liked olives!  Maybe I've lived out of the UK too long but I'm used to getting complimentary bread at restaurants?
 
We ordered a few starters to share - the charcuterie platter and 2 portions of the crispy pork that Susan recommended.  The sauce with the pork was delicious but the meat was a little too fatty and the skin was really crunchy.  The cold cut platter was huge.  What we ordered was just right for us.
 
For drinks, they didn't have the house chenin blanc that I wanted so I switched to a large glass of the house shiraz instead.  Only other drinkers in the group was your dad and Gary who just had a pint of lager each.  I think Ken was still recovering from the weekend binge at your place!
 
For main course, I had the beef fillet and so did your dad.  A few people had the sausage, fish and chips and our mams had guess what - the grilled fish dishes, of course!  My niece and nephew, Josie and Joshua had the kids meal.
 
Beef was gorgeous but a bit too much pancetta with it, (bacon to your dad!)   I tried a bit of Susan's cod and chips.  Wonderful!  Proper chips made out of potatoes.  Batter was light and crisp but not too oily.  Much better than the we one we had a Poole!  Ken and Gary said the sausage was good.  Our mams seemed to like the fish since they cleaned their plates.  The kids were fine with their meals but made the mistake of ordering the cookies & cream smoothies which filled them up before the main course!
 
We didn't have time to arrange a birthday cake so we tried to get the manager to arrange a slice of cake with a candle at the last minute.  He was really helpful.  Said he would work on it but was having difficulty locating a candle for us!  We ordered a few desserts to share.  Luckily we did share as the portions were fairly big and all very yummy.  We had the apple crumble, creme brulee and sticky toffee pudding.  My favourite was the sticky toffee pudding but it was a little too sweet and sickly after too many spoonfuls.  I finished off the evening with an Irish coffee and Ken had a Baileys.  Not quite right as I don't think it was proper Irish whisky and could have been a bit more generous with their pour.
 
We got there for aound 6 to avoid the main dinner crowds after 7 when it started to get busy.  Service then slowed down a lot as they were clearly shortstaffed.  Our entire dinner lasted over 3 hours.
 
The food was great but the slow service put a damper on our evening.  We were going to get one of the waiters to take a group picture before we tuck into our main course but they were too busy so the photo does not have me in it!
 
Pricewise I thought it was reasonable.  About 185 quid for 10 of us.  They didn't charge us for my dad's slice of cake so we gave them a decent tip.
 
Would recommend the restaurant but would suggest they bring in some more staff to wait the many dining tables that they had.  Also seems like a nice place just for drinks.  They also advertise a late night supper menu for those who need a bite after 11 which I think is a great idea.  It's actually a good place for us cousins to hang out after the Shek meal in Feb!

Add a Comment
Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed. Just ensure to *Refresh* your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button. Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
Name:
E-mail
Homepage
Title:
Comment:
Code:*

Powered by AkoComment!