Before I am accused of picking a soft target, I should say, in my defence, that it was not my idea to review the food at a nightclub in Romford. It was theirs, though I will admit that I was, in part, attracted to the idea by the charming and original punctuation, spelling and grammar in their press release. Clearly they were so enthusiastic in their desire to get me there, so keen, so desperate, that the small matter of the English language had gone by the board.
I simply could not resist visiting a place that was 'fast becoming the haven for celebrities disenfranchised at what the capital has to offer'. I was intrigued by the idea of a menu which 'was designed by former chef to the Rothschild family and encompasses simple yet esquite dishes'. I could not pass up an evening at a place whose 'interior designs draw upon Schrager influences with similarities of hotels such as the Sanderson or St Martins'.
Anyway, the point is that Pacific Edge had a 'sumptuous' restaurant, they wanted me to go to and I was willing to oblige. If there really is a food revolution under way in Britain, if it really is becoming easier to get a good meal, then it is to Romford nightclubs that I must look. Unfortunately, going there was easier said than done. The first time I called to book, they told me they were closing early that evening for staff training, much as they do at my local branch of Mothercare. I put off my trip. Next came the problem of finding someone with whom to go. Announce you have to review the new Gordon Ramsay place and they are queuing out the door; mention Romford and the rest is silence.
My wife announced, apologetically, that she had an emergency toenail-cutting session planned and couldn't possibly join me. A friend declared that he'd love to, really, but he had to stay in that night and stick pins in his eyes. I resigned myself to travelling alone. And then, all of a sudden my friend Robert, the restaurateur, declared that he thought it sounded like fun. Before I knew it, we were whizzing east down the A12 past the big sign that says 'Here Be Dragons'.
Pacific Edge sits at one end of the broad Market Place in Romford. Outside the door stood a large man in a black overcoat. 'A bad sign,' Robert said. 'One of my rules in life is never visit a restaurant that needs a bouncer.' Thankfully, the room he was guarding was more or less empty, save for the gut-churning thump of the music system. It was a clever and snazzy space, full of wavy walls and a wavy bar and carefully placed lighting. In other words, it was a modern nightclub. In Romford. I told the first waitress I saw that we had a booking for 8.15pm. 'Oh,' she said. 'We stop serving food at seven. We can only do the Mix and Match menu now.' This was never meant to be.
She went away to investigate and returned, apologetically, to tell us that a booking had indeed been taken by mistake, but that we were welcome to stay and have a drink on the house while we looked at the menu. It seemed to me that she handled the situation perfectly. Indeed, the service Clare gave us was brilliant throughout, a model of its kind. It is only a shame that the food she delivered to our table was not worthy of it.
The menu was what some might call eclectic and I would call a mess: a bit of Chinese, a bit of Mexican, a touch of Italy and a lot of the food science chemistry set. Robert took one look at it and made a low whimpering noise. Couldn't we just go home and find something to eat along the way, he asked? No, I said. We were here. We had our glasses of free house white wine. The grape might be unidentifiable but at least the wine was not poisonous. We would stay.
The first dish, a platter of nachos with microwave-melted cheese, was the best of the lot. They were triangles of crisp, flaky bread, like paratha, rather than something poured from a bag, and, although a little oily, they were pretty good. After that it was all downhill. A selection of Mediterranean tapas included a heap of tasteless hummus and one of the nastiest salamis it has ever been my misfortune to taste. Spare ribs were dry and chewy and came with a huge slick of undiluted hoi-sin sauce that made my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. The duck in the oriental duck pancakes was OK: the fat had been properly rendered; the skin was crisp. Then they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by serving it with stone-cold pancakes and an unpleasant plum sauce.
But that dish was a triumph compared to the stir-fried noodles with strips of smoked ham - lumps of the salami from the tapas. 'That dish should be outlawed under the Geneva Convention,' Robert said, gagging. It occurred to me that when they said the menu had been devised by a former chef to the Rothschild family they meant Irene and Derek Rothschild of Acacia Avenue.
So a nightclub in Romford serves bad food. No shock there then. I shouldn't have listened to the siren call of the press release and visited it. Mind you, they serve good-value bad food. No dish cost more than £3.95 and our bill, with a few more glasses of wine and a big tip for Clare's great efforts, came to £25 for two. After 45 minutes, we left. Back home I slumped into bed next to my wife. She turned over, sniffed me and said, 'Get to the other side of the bed. You smell of rancid spicy food.' Another reason for not eating at Pacific Edge: it might damage your marriage.
