No. 1 City Road
Somewhere around City Road & Worship Street
Not sure of phone number
Date of Last Visit: Monday, July 28
The Victim: Feathers
The Damage: £12 each?
The Background: I work down the street from a strip club. A "For Your Eyes Only." Sometimes we'll see the girls between shifts and what strikes me is that they all look SOOO very very young. Like 18 or younger. And they wear a lot of makeup. And they're very, very, very uniformly tan.
I can't remember what was on this strip of City Road before, but now there's a Travelodge and there's No. 1 City Road. And the strip club, of course. Which gets me wondering…will the girls take their clients out for steak at No. 1 and then repair to the Travelodge? (I know…not all strippers are well…you know what.) Or after a hard night of pole dancing, is a 16 oz sirloin exactly what a girl needs? (The double entendres can go on forever.)
So Feathers and I enter No. 1 City Road and about five people show us to our table. No. 1 is not short on wait-staff. They tell us they've been open for three days.
The Food: Feathers orders some sort of soup and rhapsodizes about it. It's hot out. I don't need soup. Plus, I don't believe in sharing soup. I get the chicken sandwich and she gets the Reuben. They're both good. The fries are better than I expected. (But remember I've spent the last week eating rice, so the fries are a welcome distraction.) In between, we're checked on a gazillion times while other servers stand in the distance, watching us eat. It's still pretty empty for lunchtime. (Plus it's a a Monday, which doesn't stop our servers from pushing the wine list on us. For the love of God…it's Monday! The liver must rest.)
The Verdict: No. 1 City Road has no soul. It's like eating in a hotel restaurant. My chicken sandwich was fine. There was nothing wrong with it. But It seemed pricey just the same. Oh and al those servers? They all disappeared when we wanted some ketchup. And when it was time to ask for the bill.
Now somewhere, I have a photo of No. 1, but I don't know about you, but my desk is covered with wires that belong to every little device. Every device except my camera phone.
