revisit - caribbean scene restaurant jerry raffles square stratford london

This is a restaurant in Jerry Raffles Square in Stratford, East London very near to where the main events of the Olympics will take place.  Unsurprisingly therefore this part of Stratford is the nearest we get to the cultural district.

 

As any watchers of this blog may know I first visited this restaurant in July 2008.  then I rated it as being quite decent with a good range of food and helpful friendly staff.

 

I therefore decided to revisit this restaurant on my birthday earlier this month with a friend.  I have to say that we were disappointed and both felt that this restaurant has gone down hill.

 

I had a salt fish fritter and a beef pati for starter and was dismayed to find that they had both been microwaved.  at £2.75 I would expect something a bit fresher.  \the salt fish fritter came swimming in a spicy sauce which was ok but this meant you had no choice whether or not to have the sauce.  My friend had festival which is a kind of fried bread flavoured with vanilla and she said it was reasonably acceptably fresh.  My friend had Oxtail as her main with white rice and I chose \ackee and salt fish with rice and peas.  My friend is Caribbean herself and suggested we tried Hard Food which is a combination of yam, green banana and dumpling.  I wasn't that keen on the green banana but my friend said it was fine.  The problem was that the Hard Food was brought to the table cold.  I wouldn't have known but my friend pointed out that this should be hot.  The Hard Food was therefore taken away and microwaved but no apology was given. I'm glad we went for the Hard Food by the way as though it was not quite my cup of tea the size of the other portions was pitiful and I would have needed to buy something more on the way home.

 

We also had 2 Guinness punches which were nice though they put a load of ice in the first one which means of course they get away with putting less in the glass.

 

My over all impression of the staff was that they seemed a bit overstretched and demoralised.  They were in general polite but not that friendly.  I feel that this restaurant is quite expensive, we paid £26 each and I have had better food from take aways.  I would ignore this place because of poor quality and small portion size.  I give it 3.5 out of ten but my friend who found the service with the cold Hard Food particularly poor could only find it in her heart to give the Caribbean Scene a 1 out of ten.

 

If you want Caribbean food in Stratford and it is before half 9 in the evening give Caribbean Flavours inside the theatre royal a go.  portions are cheaper, bigger and more importantly better quality.