"We came to Room43 after reading lots of positive reviews, and found the food descriptions particularly appealing. Our first impression was positive, as it felt quite cosy inside, and one particular waiter was very energetic. This waiter made us some cocktails which were delicious. That said, things went downhill from there. It took quite a while before the other waiter decided to take our food order. We ordered eight dishes between the two of us, as these are small plates. Eight was slightly too many I'd suggest 3 dishes per person should be enough. Our main issue was the flavours of the dishes, which were severely lacking. The salmon and the chicken had seemingly no herbs or spices on them as they tasted like plain baked salmon and chicken. The okra and lamb stews, and the smoked aubergine starter all tasted like tinned tomatoes and nothing else. The calamari was decently crispy but, again, lacked flavour and the pieces of actual seafood were quite small in comparison to the amount of batter. The lentil and mango salad had too many lentils and too little else once the mango was gone, we were eating plain lentils with no dressing or flavour. Finally, we are pretty sure the vine leaves are in fact the Asda vine leaves, which taste fine, but the mark up was quite substantial. Overall, we were expecting a flavour explosion based on the menu descriptions, but we in fact just had a disappointingly bland meal. My boyfriend also thought the music was a touch too loud for a dinnertime slot maybe a post dinner performance, from say 9pm, would be more appropriate, or a pre dinner cocktail performance from 5 7pm. In any case, don't have loud music on when people are trying to converse over dinner. We also found it a little odd to have a jazz band there as the ambiance and decor in the restaurant do not feel suited to a jazz band it's not a very opulent venue."
