rocket diner, 556 Mile End Road, MileEnd, London E3 4PL

Rocket diner describes itself as an american restaurant. It sells Steaks,
TexMex food such as Enchiladas, Fajitas and Chili concarne, a few pasta
dishes, burgers and of course chicken!

I will try something from all categories more as a labour of love than
because of any deep yearning to go back to the restaurant. I have been
there twice and I would say the staff have been helpful. the music has
varied from modern R & B and rap to 80s and 90s rock. The music can be
quite loud so if you don't like the music playing at the time its no fun.

The food takes about 15 minutes to arrive in my experience, slightly less
sometimes but its obviously cooked fresh in the main which is good. It's
another halal place so no ribbs available as a starter unfortunately.

The first time I visited I decided to try a burger. I don't havfe burgers
very often but I've lived in the area for over 12 years now and I recognise
the burgers that a lot of these places buy in or at least the meat they use.
There's quite a high beef content I think but it's seasoned to hide the fact
that its not that tasty. The seasonings are quite subtle, just a touch of
mixed spice perhaps and probably salt but the result is quite uninspiring.
Stupidly I went for a topping that included cheese and I'm not a great lover
of processed chese I just didn't remember how processed the cheese would
probably be when ordering. The fries were totally unremarkable. they are
also sold in a lot of the local places and they are just cotton wool! The
salad included a bit of cabbage, lettuce tomatoes, onion, peppers and
cucumber. I also had to ask them not to cover it in mayo. It's fattening
and as far as I am concerned its bland and just unnecessary

That visit was friday and the next visit was Yesterday, the sunday. This
time I made my visit the main feed of the day and opted for Barbecue Chicken
Strips for starters, and an Enchilada with spicy rice as a main. i had a
diet coke to drink which came in a glass bottle. at £1.50 a pop its not
cheap compared to the food prices

The chicken was a real disappointment. It was cooked far too much, to the
point where the chicken was tuff and somehow dry even though it was
smothered in barbecue sauce which was actually nice with not too much
vinegar in it. The chicken was plentiful but nearly inedible. If this was
fresh meat they had cooked it far too long. I suspect it had been cooked
and warmed up more than once and I joked on facebook that it may have been
seagul. Some chav could end up gunning you down in anger if you serve that
rubbish too often!

The Enchilada and spicy rice was better and edible at least though again it
wins no prizes. the Enchilada is a filling with chilli sauce rolled up in
something like a flexible pancake. traditionally I believe they are made
from Corn. It was a foot long and as wide as a thin baggett. there was
loads of filling and I didn't really need the rice. The filling was mince
meat and a bit of salad and sauce and while it was plentiful and quite spicy
I couldn't have told you what the meat was. I suspect beef but that is more
by texture than taste. It could have been just tough old chicken!

The spicy rice was a little tangy and was full of bits of onion, and other
vegetable possibly carrot. It was spicy but not particularly subtle. I
ended up leaving a bit. I was quite full and certainly bored by the end.

Apart from the chicken I can't say the food I had was awful. It was just
uninspiring. I'm going to put the chicken strips down to a mistake but I
didn't really want to wait around while more were cooked.

Staff were very helpful on both visits . They were fine about leading me
to a table and seemed happy to read out the basics of the menu . They all
seemed to have reasonable enough english which is by no means always the
case!

So in short, food was a bit uninspiring but the staff were helpful so at the
moment I would give Rocket Diner 5 out of 10.

I don't know if I'll be able to do the pasta dishes. If its just Spag Bol
or Lasagne I just don't think I've got the heart or the resolve to plod my
way through something that will have probably come out of a cheap packet. I
will see what the steak is like next visit.

#End

The Clinton Arms, Maer Lane,Littleham Village, Exmouth, Devon EX8 2RL

This is a medium sized pub not far from the Sandy Village holiday complex
where many holiday makers visiting Exmouth stay.

While the Clinton does advertise locally to attract these people, it also
has a strong local trade and identity which is a combination rarely achieved
in seaside pubs. This is made possible in part by a number of separate
rooms. There is a restaurant where families can dine as well as a family
room and play area for children out the back and a more traditional bar area
where you get few if any young children.

This pub sold real ale in the form of Otter Ale and Courage Directors. I'm
not a great fan of Directors but the Otter was pleasant enough though
perhaps served 2 cold.
Myself and 2 friends ate at the Clinton last week. I had Garlic Mushrooms
in White Wine Sauce for starter which was very plentiful and it came with a
nice newly warmed crusty roll with plenty of butter. I would have liked the
sauce to be a bit more garlicky perhaps but that's just personal taste. My
friends did not have starters and judging by the size of the portions I
can't blame them. I had Swordfish in Cajun Butter as a main which came with
a choice of salad or veg and a choice of potatoes. My 2 friends had Gammon
and chips (known as hammy) and Liver and Bacon.

Again the portions were generous. my fish was well cooked with enough of
the Cajun butter to help enhance the flavour of the fish without ruining it.
The salad was quite varied. It contained Coleslaw, Raw cabbage, lettuce,
tomato, cucumber and peppers. I would have liked a little onion too. The
hammy came with peas and the liver with carrots, peas and cauliflower as
well as mash.

The only real complaint I have about my meal was the roast potatoes which
were a bit soggy and had a slightly burned taste as though they had been
cooked on an old grill with lots of stuff charred to it. they were nearly
inedible. The chips that came with the gammon were frozen rather than fresh
but of decent quality. The mash was good though perhaps a little
flavourless. My friend liked the liver but thought it was a bit dry as
their was not enough gravy.

The food at the Clinton is not bad but when you pay 8 or 9 pounds for a main
you should expect the quality of the food to be high and consistent. These
are after all heading towards restaurant prices and this is well outside
London so food should be cheaper. while portion sizes are good, I am a
little concerned about overall consistency.

Staff were generally quite helpful and over all I give the Clinton Arms a
mark of 6 out of 10.

Café Isha, 115A Roman Road, London E2 0QN

This is a restaurant offering lebanese and bangladeshi food under one roof.
I visited there yesterday.

My friend had Salmon and I had what was supposed to be beef steak made with
chef special sauce. both dishes came with rice, lebanese bread, corn on
the cob and Coleslaw. Chips came on a plate on the side. The quantity was
very plentiful and I would say I got over half a pound of steak.

The member of staff who served us started off very quiet and hesitant and i
thouggt she may have trouble understanding what we wanted but that turned
out not to be a problem.

The chips were also good and crispy. Service was also quite prompt.

The positives stop here though I am afraid. My friend's salmon was half raw
and had to be sent back. to be fair, the staff did not question this but
they did not apologise either.

My steak was really tough. It may have seen some spicy marinade in its
youth but it had been very well cooked since then and I was having trouble
cutting it. i did not finish all the steak as it gave me jaw ache! I
cannot recommend these house grills on the basis of what we ate. it really
was 2 extremes. Fish was almost raw and steak was massively overdone and
tough.

So, while staff were friendly and the stuff that came with the grill was
good, the meat and fish themselves were poor.

I therefore give the Cafe Isha 4 out of 10 due mainly to poor food.

The Grove, The Esplanade, Exmouth, Devon EX8 1BJ

The grove is a Young's pub in Exmouth which sells most of the Young's beers
and a changing range of local cask ales too. Myself and 2 friends went
there yesterday for lunch. The beer seemed to be generally kept well so no
complaints there!

This pub was recommended by a number of people but over all I was not that
impressed though I would not object strongly if I had to go there for a work
do or something similar.

The only starters were a soup of the day and a bread selection to share.
This seemed ridiculously limited to me. My friends had a roast turkey and a
roast beef dinner and I had a Guineafowl schnitzel which consisted of
guineafowl marinated in lemon and time then cooked in breadcrumbs. It was
served with sweet potato wedges and a salad garnish.

The schnitzel was well cooked and fresh. I got less than a handful of
sweet potato wedges. The wedges were well cooked and using sweet potatoes
was a nice twist but I would have liked more for what I paid. The salad
garnish of a small sprig of parsley, a few shredded leaves one segment of
tomato and a couple of small slivers of cucumber in a mustard dressing was
acceptable but uninspiring. I feel a more varied salad might have been
more appropriate.

One of my friends left some of her roast so I got a chance to try it. The
potatoes were quite well cooked. they were reasonably crispy and nice and
soft in the middle. The vegetables were a real highlight and they were
gorgeous. There were leaks, Carrots and red cabbage in a slightly tangy
white sauce and the vegetables were not too over cooked. The turkey also
came with home made stuffing which tasted as though it had sausage meat in
it. This was also very pleasant and went well with the meat.

The meat itself was a real disappointment. The turkey was cut very thin and
I am told the beef was little better. We got in the pub for half 1 and had
booked our table for 2. we actually ordered slightly earlier than this and
people who got served 5 minutes after us were told there were no roasts
left. I don't know if they sliced the meat very thin because of this or if
they always slice the meat that thin but I don't care. for the price we
paid, £8.95 this practice is unacceptable. If there was not enough meat
left we should have been told when we ordered and offered an alternative.
I have rarely had meat this wafer thin since I was at school!

Two of us had the cheese selection for pudding. Again, this was slightly
disappointing. We got some stilton, some mature cheddar and some Brie
cheese with a pile of water biscuits, celery and grapes with real ale
chutney. This sounds quite a feast and there was indeed about quarter of a
pound of cheese. this was almost bigger than the main meal and it should
have been listed in the platters section of the menu rather than the dessert
section as 2 people could have easily shared it. There was the choice of
buying a dessert for a pound if you chose to eat the roast but the cheese
selection was not included so I don't believe it belonged in the dessert
section at all.

The cheese selection should have come with butter for the biscuits. There
should have been a range of biscuits included, not just one variety of water
biscuits and though there was a lot of cheese it was unadventurous and it
was all cut into similar sized triangles suggesting that perhaps it came in
a preprepared pack.

It took us 3 quarters of an our to get our meals and we were not warned of
the delay. I know it was Easter and I know it was busy but surely this is
to be expected. I will probably give this pub the benefit of the doubt and
try it again on a quieter Sunday but in a seaside town like Exmouth any
Sunday can be busy if the weather is good.

In short, the vegetables that came with the roast and the stuffing were real
highlights of the food we ate. Main courses were small for what we paid and
the portions of the meat served with the roast dinners were miserly. The
cheese selection was uninspiring and in the wrong part of the menu.

Staff were courteous but the food was a little over priced and the service
was slow. The Guineafowl cost £11.50. the roast dinners were £8.95 and the
cheese selection cost £5.95

I therefore give this pub 6 out of 10. I paid London gastro pub prices but
the food was not good value for money though everything was quite edible.