"Modern Israeli Cramped, Hurried, Rip Off Joint My partner and I are a laid-back, unfussy, not unfashionable, professional couple living in the heart of London (South Bank , who have been eating out in Central London regularly since we were students more than 20 years ago. The couple who joined us at Palomar earlier this week might be described similarly, save that they’re from North London. They also eat somewhat less than we do and are more into the catch-ups than the food. We usually go to places with a prix fixe menu at lunchtime. These are usually not so heavy on portions and calories, have nicely complimentary dishes, and quite often are something of a bargain. Our unpleasant experience of Palomar was as follows: on arrival on time for our 2:15pm late lunch we were nicely greeted, but rather heavily invited to cloakroom our coats etc, which we declined, to the evident bewilderment of the greeter, leaving us a little uncomfortable; we quickly understood the greeter’s reaction, however – the restaurant is largely a narrow corridor bar with bar stools, with a tiny dining area proper of half a dozen or so tables at the far end (think of a thermometer, and you’ll have the shape right , with no room to swing anything in the corridor or dining room; we very closely seated to another table, and had difficulty taking off our coats and indeed getting seated, despite none of us being more than medium framed and sized (so anybody who is any sense XL or beyond would be very uncomfortable ; we had hardly taken our seats when we were provided with the a la carte menu and offered still and sparkling water (which it later transpired was not free, if it wasn’t expensive ; we had to ask for the prix fixe menu, which made us feel a bit awkward; we ordered three inexpensive cocktails, recommended on the prix fixe menu; we had hardly received our cocktails, when we were asked to place our orders; upon doing so, we were informed that because one of us was eating off the a la carte menu, we all had to; we indicated there could be no justification for such a policy (implicitly other than to rip-off customers , only for one of the waiters (we had four during our time there! to say he did not make the rules and it was standard practice elsewhere, to which a few of us replied ‘rubbish’; I suggested we drink-up and move on, but as one of us wasn’t in the best of health, we had much to catch-up on, and none of us wanted unpleasantness, we ill-advisedly carried on, as all of us wish we hadn’t at the end; without invitation, another waiter attempted to make suggestions as to what we might order from the a la carte menu we were obliged to use, before we asked him to come back after we’d had time to think about our re-order; we ordered 3 starters (2 x baba ganoush etc, and 1 x anchovies , served without any bread (obliging us to order something to go with it, namely a bready cakey sweet thing at £7.00 recommended by the waiter, which wasn’t great , 2 very small chicken mains (which came totally unaccompanied too , and 3 sides our friends were happy to make do with; the house bottle of wine (at £33 arrived before we’d finished our cocktails, and our glasses were rather too quickly filled, almost after every sip, so that we had to stop drinking it for a while; a waiter told us at just before 3pm that the kitchen was closing for savoury dishes; at just before 4pm we were asked to vacate our table for the ‘evening’ service; and our bill of about £170 (less cocktails included a 15% service charge. Of course, had we been able to eat off the prix fixe menu we’d have ordered more food, a second bottle of wine, and spent a lot more money. So that’s some consolation. Needless to say, we won’t be back."
