The Island
I had many a pint in The Island when I moved to London 16 years ago, as it was the closest reasonable pub. I don't remember haven eaten there, but having walked past more recently, I suggested it for a Friday Night Dinner.
On a rainy evening we headed to this pub in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. It was already buzzing outside, with people hiding away from the rain under the awnings, smoking away. My wife could also unfortunately smell this cigarette smoke when seated inside, close to a window, which put her off the food.
For our starter, we picked a scotch egg to share. It was nicely flavoured with a runny yolk, and was served with a sweet curry sauce. For my main I choose the slow roast free-range pork belly, served with white beans, winter kale, salsa verde. The skin wasn't particularly very crackly, and a little chewy at times. The white beans were OK, but could have been a bit softer too. My wife had the onglet steak, which was served with gentleman's relish and fries. The fries were nicely cooked and crispy, but the steak was cooked medium to well-done, rather than the ordered medium rare.
But what left down the meal, and the Island experience generally was the haphazard service. Upon arrival, it was speedy, although my wife, who arrived first, had to wait quite some time for the table to be prepared. We felt left to our own devices after our mains. It took a very long time for the dessert menu to show up, and then a significant amount of time before we could request, and then receive the bill.
One of my personal pet peeves in restaurants is that when the bill is presented, the waiting staff often do not have the payment terminal with them, and have to go and fetch it separately. This is a waste of everyone's time especially as we'd like to get going, and I'm sure the restaurant would like to fill the table with some more paying guests. In this case with the meal being mediocre it was more annoying than usual.
Unfortunately The Island didn't live up to my memories, nor our expectations, and it seems unlikely we'll be back for a meal or drinks.
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