Village East
171-173 Bermondsey Street
SE1 3UW
Tel: 020 7357 6082
Date of Last Visit: 30 November 2007
The Victim: Andrew
The Damage: Unknown! Andrew paid.
The Background: Andrew suggested meeting up at Village East for dinner. I have never been to the end of Bermondsey High Street–I've stepped no farther than The Garrison–and I am intrigued. A look at the Village East Web site has me even more intrigued. This place looks cavernous…many different lounging areas. That's the floor plan from the Web site in the image. I love floorplans.
I arrive a little late and am relieved that I am no later than Andrew. I hate being late. (You probably know this already.) I get a glass of something white and French and settle in at the White Bar by the entrance. I can see that the Lounge Bar is packed to the gills. Andrew arrives shortly thereafter and does the gentlemanly thing and swaps out my card for his on the tab. Only thing is…when they give me back my card, it is SO NOT my card. Funny. I get a little worried about credit card fraud.
So let me tell you about the atmosphere at Village East. It isn't as big as the floor plan online makes it seem..it's cozier somehow. It's very Scandinavian warehouse. There is a lot of wood and interesting lights and Danish furniture. You might know that I am a sucker for Danish modern, so I like the look of Village East off the bat.
We are shown to our table in the back and I am surprised…the front of Village East is packed. Not so the back. It's maybe half-full, although later on in the evening, all the tables do perk up.
The Service and The Starters: Our server is great. She is knowledgeable and smart. It kinda seemed like she was in the wrong line of work, and I wondered if she had an aptitude for finance. That being said, I was trying to decide between the scallops & chorizo or the pumpkin soup and she suggested the pumpkin soup because it was so dreadful outside. The pumpkin soup–which seemed to have some spinach ravioli at the bottom of it?–was really nice, but it just wasn't for me. Oh, and it also arrived about three minutes after we ordered it, which was weird. I felt a little rushed. Our server apologized for that…it wasn't her fault, it was the kitchen's.
The Mains: For mains, I chose the sea bass and it came with asparagus (out of season, but nice just the same) and slices of orange and grapefruit. I accidentally ate a slice of grapefruit and it was so so so very bitter, it was awful. I choked up on it. Weirdly, I had some problems with the cutlery…I don't know if my plate was on an angle or if there was just no lip on the plate, but as I would cut into the dish, my fork would fly across the plate and land in my lap. This was weird.
The Dessert: Dessert was lemon tart and it was nice. But just nice. It came with a scoop of ice cream and the ice cream was MELTED which was odd. Why would they serve melted ice cream? That's no fun.
All this was washed down with a bottle of something white and French that I fear was dreadfully expensive. Hmmm.
The Verdict: The food was nice. Lots of people would like it. If I were going out with a group of single girlfriends, or maybe some NYers, I would consider taking them here. I probably wouldn't go out of my way though.
