Jeffing Marvellous

Back in the summer I* was lucky enough to win a competition in the The News (Portsmouth’s daily paper) and received a £20 voucher towards a meal at the Lemon Sole – a well-known local seafood restaurant. Great, I thought; my girlfriend had just got a new job and what better way to celebrate than with a meal out.

As soon as we entered the restaurant though, I could instantly hear a rattle from my pocket as the building’s under-floor suction system started its job of extracting as much money from my wallet as possible. The Lemon Sole’s owner (Sunil Sood, to whom we’ll return later) sounded utterly charming when he called earlier in the day to confirm my booking. However, on arriving he seemed extremely put out by our presence, saying that if we had read the ‘small print’ on our prize we would have seen that the voucher was only valid on meals before 7pm.

Yep, you read that correctly. There was small print on our prize.

After Mr Sood had begrudgingly shown us to our table, my girlfriend and I sat down and told each other not to worry. Just keep an open mind, stay positive and enjoy the evening. Looking around the restaurant, there’s no denying that the place looks good; the building has a cosy feel to it, the decor is vibrant but tasteful and the waitresses (apparently all young women) were smiley and well-presented. But then my eyes were drawn to an A5 piece of laminated paper on the table, and suddenly things started to make sense.

I initially took this sheet to be the restaurant’s fire evacuation procedure. In fact, it was offering advice on how to order your food, bearing the slogan “If you’ve ever had fresh fish this good… welcome back!” A bold assertion, one that few restaurants would be brave [arrogant?] enough to make. It’s also a claim that gives the restaurant absolutely no margin for error and puts immense pressure on the staff to deliver. Anyway, as instructed we went up to the ‘fish counter’ to order our food, where the Ralph Lauren-clad Mr Sood was waiting to take our order. If any of you have been on the Lemon Sole’s website (not sure why you would, but nevermind) you’ll probably have read about the owner’s professional pedigree; he’s worked for some of the biggest retailers in the world, including Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and a number of prestigious Indian hotels. With this knowledge, you quickly understand what Mr Sood and his restaurant are all about: glossy exteriors and maximum profit.

We looked up at the menu board and decided that we would order from the ‘Classic Dishes’ menu; I chose the homemade fishcakes, my girlfriend the moules mariniere. At £15.95 a shot, these dishes are by no means a cheap option, but at least our £20 prize would soften the blow. It was at this point that Mr Sood chipped in again and informed us that, if we’d read the small print, we’d have seen that the prize was only valid for orders from the ‘Market Menu’ – the prices of which are based on the fish’s  weight – and must include a starter.

Ordering our food was more akin to negotiating a mobile phone contract

So, I reluctantly ordered the restaurant’s speciality dish – the lemon sole – and waited as Mr Sood selected the fish and slapped it on the scales. My jaw cracked a hole in the floor as £26 kerchinged onto the till display. The price of my girlfriend’s sea bream was every bit as eye-watering, and combined with starters and drinks, the bill was starting to push £80. Between each item ordered, Mr Sood proposed a number of extras including breadsticks and dips, olives, vegetables, salad – all of which came at an extra price. Ordering our food was more akin to negotiating a mobile phone contract, and at this point I decided enough was enough. I asked Mr Sood where exactly the ‘prize’ element of our prize was hiding, and explained that not many people would see paying the thick end of £100 as a reward. To this he responded, “I’m sorry sir but we have to make money too. We can’t give food away’.

The urge to pick up that piece of gold-plated fish and slap Mr Sood around the face with it was very nearly irresistible. However, the thought that he’d probably charge me for dry-cleaning his clothes quickly made me see sense. To cut our losses, my girlfriend and I decided that we would be better off not using our prize and simply ordering the cheapest dishes from the Classics menu. The word cheap, by the way, is a word that is used somewhat loosely in the context of this restaurant; our eventual choices of plain old fish ´n chips and a simple fish pie came to a total of £25.90. I’m sure Captain Birdseye would be turning in his grave.

The infamous 'fish counter'

Despite being a student on a self-effacingly modest budget, I have absolutely no problem paying over the odds for quality food if I’m made to feel genuinely welcome with good, honest service. But I can’t even say that the food was good; the fish pie was flavourless and sickly, the vegetables were overcooked and both my girlfriend and I agree that the fish and chips from Clarence Pier are infinitely superior to the flaccid offering served up by the Lemon Sole. After Mr Sood had amended the final insult of over-charging us for a drink, our bill came to £35 – an amount that would get you a full meal, dessert and Naval send-off in most other restaurants around the city.

A quick spot of Googling will show you that our experience is far from unique; a 1.5-star average from more than 20 reviews should tell you something. Why, then, does The News continue to support the Lemon Sole and leave their ‘prize winners’ out of pocket? Portsmouth is positively bulging with restaurants of real quality, so why not offer a genuine, no-strings-attached free meal in one of those instead? Well, none of that really matters now; I won’t be buying the paper for a while (read: a day or two) and I’ll never go near that restaurant again. I’m almost tempted to recommend that you go for a meal there, simply because it’s difficult to find words to express just how bad it is. But really, just trust me on this and stay well away. You, your taste buds and your pocket will thank me for it one day.

*If you know me and / or were in my maths class at school, it’s probably quite obvious that I didn’t do the prize-winning sudoku puzzle myself – I just put my name on the entry. All credit goes to Cashew and her mega brain for that one.

Edit: since I wrote this entry, the Lemon Sole has boarded up its windows and stopped trading. I am positive that this review had absolutely nothing to do with it, as it merely joined a queue of other rants that already stretched half-way around the city. It’s never nice to see anyone go out of business, but the Lemon Sole seemed to have no intention of listening to its customers or changing with the times.