Until recently, I'd always doubted Alan Bennett's claim to have overheard many of his most glorious lines ("That fool of a tortoise is out again") on the top decks of buses and in other public places. After lunch at Canteen, I'm less sceptical.
This newcomer to the hideously redeveloped Spitalfields Market is, as my friend noted when he arrived 30 minutes late, just what it says. "I'd expected an ironic, postmodern take on it," he sniffily observed, glancing at the Visible Pantry Line (the open-plan kitchen with service hatch), "something cool, like Roast. But it really is a canteen, isn't it?"
It certainly is, and the central aspect of its canteen-ness (apart from the pressure not to linger when it's busy) is the requirement to share tables with strangers, as I'd been doing for that half-hour. "You wouldn't believe all the banging the other night," was the first sentence I overhead, from a young woman in a stripy shirt. "Really violent, it was. Very, very loud."
"So what did you do?"
"I told him to get his arse out of bed, go outside and stop that estate agent's board swinging in the wind."
The counterstrike wasn't long delayed. "Honestly, I can barely hold him beneath me," retaliated a white blouse, "even though I've got really strong thighs." Subsequent mention of weights and bench pressing suggested a personal trainer anecdote from the gym, but when stripy shirt mentioned a problem with her boyfriend ("I'm not even sure how I met him - I was very drunk"), I became even more panicky. Another two minutes of this and I'd have to chip in with, "You're much too good for him, love. Tell the two-timing bastard to sling his hook."
It was only then, with the full voyeuristic horror of the solitary saddo reminding me why I seldom went to the canteen when I worked in an office, that my friend swept in, pulling faces at the drabness of a glass-encased room with unavoidable views over a hideous piazza.
The idea here is obviously to meld the utilitarian chic of the Japanese noodle bar with a voguishly traditional sub-Gary Rhodesian (Gary Zimbabwean for you modernists) menu, and I thought it does it pretty well. My friend is the nerviest of eaters, however, and he disliked the gutsy menu even more than the room. When he did reluctantly settle on a starter, it seemed entirely for the chance to reprise Woody Allen's classic stand-up routine about "my friend Eggs ... Eggs Benedict". In fact, the dish (£7) was excellent, the soft yolks having the deep orange hue of top organic eggs, the ham well smoked and the hollandaise immaculate.
My first starter, a portion of squidgy leeks with anchovies in a potent mustard vinaigrette (£6.50), ordered solely to give me something to focus on while listening in on the neighbours, was also good. As was my second starter, ordered for the same reason, a plump, ultra-fresh, hot buttered Arbroath smokie (£8).
A very sweet waitress from Melbourne, who'd pityingly sat down earlier to point out her fiancé Hamish garnishing something at the hatch, seemed so startled when I then ordered beef and mushroom pie (£9) that I muttered something about a tapeworm. Hamish let neither of us down with the pie, served with greens and mash, his pastry being impeccable and the gristle-free meat strongly tinged with beer. But my friend took umbrage at his (non-Hamish) fishcake (£8.50), which both my City girls had raved about earlier, but which he found much too oniony. "Did it say onion on the menu? Did I ask for onion? How about a fishcake made of nothing but fish, potato and breadcrumbs?"
As he consoled himself with a third glass of champagne, from a brief wine list with some cheeky mark-ups, the women left and I could finally rebuke him for the suffering caused by his lateness - the shameful earwigging and, worse, that nice Aussie waitress expressly doubting that I was waiting for anyone at all. "That's ridiculous," he said. "I mean, this place isn't great in company, but who on earth would want to come here on their own?"
It was at this point that the comedian Jimmy Carr, surely the most mystifyingly over-booked performer in television history, walked in and sat down in a determinedly solitary manner. "Ah yes," said my friend, "I see..." And with that we were gone.
Rating: 6/10
· Telephone: 0845 686 1122. Address: 2 Crispin Place, London E1. Open: All week, 8am-11pm (Sat & Sun, 9am). Price: Around £30-35 a head, including drinks. Wheelchair access and disabled WC.