Wok Around the World, Ramada Encore London West, Gypsy Corner/A40, London W3 (0870 0667 123). Meal for two, £40
I have measured out my life in journeys down the A40. When I was a kid my grandparents lived in Paddington, London, and every other weekend we drove eastwards along it from our house in Harrow to see them. Now that I am a parent, my children make the same journey back the other way to see their grandparents. I have sat in traffic jams on the A40. I have been shouted at by bored children on the A40. I have been done for speeding on the A40. Acton and Park Royal, Hanger Lane and White City: these are my stations of the cross.
Recently a new hotel, the Ramada Encore, opened at Gypsy Corner on the A40. I noticed that, on the first floor, raised up so as to give a great view of the road, is a noodle bar. Well, of course, I had to go. What better aid to my digestion could there be than the sight of the A40 in all its hardened-arterial glory?
Although I have driven along the A40 a frightening number of times I had never before attempted to stop on it. Driving westwards I was forced to go all the way to the gyratory system at Hanger Lane and turn around, only to discover that there was nowhere to stop here either. So I pulled into a housing estate half a mile down the road and walked back.
The restaurant, an extension of the open-plan reception area, is modestly well designed: light and airy from the plate-glass windows and the view of the thundering traffic, a few communal tables with underlit frosted glass, some smaller tables by the windows and, in the corner, an open kitchen. The staff are cheery and friendly, which is a victory of sorts. Because everything else here is indescribably awful.
Let us start with the concept. It's called Wok Around the World, though in this instance, the world is only that bit over in southeast Asia. The menu - around £5 for starters, £7 for mains - includes dishes which, it claims, come from China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Japan, though I think the good peoples of these countries have grounds upon which to sue for defamation. It's like a menu including one dish each from Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal and Scotland on the grounds that, hell, it's all Europe. How different can they be?
Perhaps we should ask, in this case, how nasty can they be? Ooh, very nasty indeed. I started with Vietnamese fried chilli squid which, the menu said, contained deep-fried squid in a black pepper and sea salt crust with a sweet chilli sauce. The curled-up pieces of squid had no crust at all and looked like someone - or more likely something - had been at them with a blade. The surface of each was so minutely scored they looked furry, and they sat in a nasty gloopy sugar-sweet gunge that made my teeth ache, surrounded by raw pieces of red pepper.
I followed that with what they called a prawn laksa and I will call a travesty. I know a bit about laksas. A laksa should boast an intense broth of layered flavours with a grand chilli lift at the end. This looked like ditch water - grey green and littered with floating detritus - and tasted of almost nothing. The lumps of fish it held had been boiled to buggery. Only the noodles were inoffensive.
As I began to eat this nightmare, a man outside started cleaning the plate-glass windows, presumably so I could get a better view of the traffic on the A40. And for once I wished I was a part of it, driving away to anywhere but here.
