"Having been raised at the knees of Caribbean and African women, sometimes I’m just in need of some soul food. I’ve often gone past Mullins and seen that it is busy, and looks bright, clean, warm and friendly. And it is. The decor works really well. Low-key, warm and welcoming. Music is a soothing stream of lilting Caribbean classics. The waiting staff are lovely. So friendly. And the menu looks great. There isn’t too much of it, and it is quite hard to choose because it all sounds amazing. Price points are really good. But. The food is genuinely terrible. I went for a Creole fish stew. I don’t know how you can make a stew without flavour. When you are cooking things slowly and together, flavour infuses flavour. But not here. This was a good sized portion of piping hot well presented food. But my God it tasted awful. Basically chopped potato surrounded by small lumps of bland unidentifiable white fish, half a dozen mussels, some of which were still closed, and therefore inedible, and three flavourless prawns in shells. There was a pinch of Samphire on the top, and this was the sum total of the vegetables I could find. It came in what I can only describe as a thick red sauce. If there was tomato in it, there was no flavour to it. It was highly salty, and this was the dominant flavour throughout. The fish had no flavour of fish, and it was intensely spiced in a lip plumping way. Essentially, it was all heat and salt. With a slight tang of gents toilets. I suspect this was from the mussels. I did raise the blandness twice with the waiter, and the strange unpleasant toilet flavour. He said he would tell chef. And that was that. No feedback on the dreadful flavour other than that it was all fresh. I ate the entirety of the meal because I had travelled a long way and had not eaten. I saw it simply as fuel. It was not enjoyable. I paid and left. Mullins is so close to getting everything right, but a restaurant is its food. I’m not going back."
Fish Soup
