July 2012 | Buenos Aires steak house

Our first fully booked event! 

That's right, steak fans, 2 goals were reached that night. First, we took over an entire restaurant for the first time! Brilliant! Second, every ticket to this event went just 24 hours after the event was published a month in advance!

About the restaurant

Buenos Aires is situated right on a cross roads in South End, Croydon. It's a cosy little venue with a nice feel about the place. It's size would maybe lend itself to a small cafe or a take away, so converting it to a proper sit down restaurant was a brave move. It really pays off though. There's not a lot worse than sitting in a cavernous, empty restaurant. In here, you'd never feel like that.

About the food

Overall the quality of the produce seemed to be pretty good. Unfortunately, a common theme among everyone was that their food was too cold. This is probably because they were getting through everyone's meal at the same time, rather than a more typical service.

The portions were a good size as part of our 3 course meal - there wasn't that unpleasantly full feeling at the end of the meal.

Service

Service was ok for the night, although it seemed that there were some communication barriers between us and our waitress. Often we had to repeat our orders and ask for clarification.

Afterwards we meandered down to the Half & Half bar just down the road, which stocks a really good selection of drinks.


Follow or tweet @CroydonDC for info about the evenings, to ask questions and to stay involved in an extraordinarily exciting social chapter of Croydon :)

New Facebook page

Over the weekend I met some lovely residents of Addiscombe who had Facebook but not Twitter. Whilst I'd originally intended to run Croydon Dinner Club just through Twitter, I thought it's unnecessarily inhibiting so the page is up!

Feel free to like the page and share photos, stories and whatever you like from the evenings.

Click here to visit the Facebook page.

June 2012 - Galicia's tapas restaurant & bar

The spread

Gargantuan meal at Galicia's

Galicia's restaurant has a light and airy feel inside with a large bar and tables dotted throughout the open plan restaurant. The staff were friendly and welcomed most of us with a door held open and a smile.

Galicia's is not an easy place to miss. It has a large presence on the high-street and it's frontage is light. They have certainly achieved that "Mediterranean" look throughout the restaurant. The place feels family run, although I'm not sure it is.

From the seating area of the restaurant you can see the kitchen and chefs working away. There are actually very few places that you can't see from anywhere in the restaurant - no tucked away bits. This is actually a good thing and provides quite a settled atmosphere. Certainly, if you were meeting people here you'd have no problem spotting them.

Ordering was pain free and the food started arriving very quickly - although not suspiciously quickly... and it kept on coming...  and coming... and coming... Then, just as we thought we were safe, more came. We certainly ordered too much as I think everyone was expecting the portions to be far less. As it happened, the portions were nearly main meal size. Certainly having 2 dishes would have been too much for 1 person (as you can see by the picture).

The food was delicious and the variety was good too. 

All in all, it was a really great night in a well oiled machine of a restaurant.

Reviews of the night (taken from twitter)

from @dave_heron - "Good time last night. Galicia followed by @MatthewsYard - great!"

from @TramFam - "I've had a fab evening with everyone at @CroydonDC Thank you to everyone who attended. What a great group of individuals with wit & humour."

from @Rups32 - "Thank you for organising! we Had lots of fun & loved meeting everyone! Looking forward to next time for sure! :0)"

from @Bienosa - "Thanks @ChristoPM for organising another great night @CroydonDC. I'm tapas-ed out! Good to see you"

from @AnneGiles - "Great time at Galicia tonight with @CroydonDC - took camera and forgot to take photos!"

May 2012 - Little Bay

The restaurant that left us wondering "What was more entertaining: the conversation or the decoration?"

The first thing that strikes you about this place when you walk in is the dramatically decorated interior. We were sat in the function room which overlooks the dining... stage? Well at least that's what it looked like! 

Tables were sat in individual booths around the main dining room and positioned to look like boxes you'd typically find at classical entertainment venues. Needless to say, the decoration really was a feast for the eyes which was good preparation for the feast awaiting our stomachs!

We'd been given a special 3 course menu for which the minimum number of guests was 12. It was looking like we may have to spend an extra few pennies until the 12th guest walked in to a cheer (which made them incredibly confused)...

Guest walks into the restaurantMe: "12!"
Everyone: "Whheeyyyy!!!"

God-like Profiteroles

From mussels to lamb to profiteroles (just what I had), all the courses were gorgeous and generously proportioned. The service was very attentive, friendly and possibly the best we've had so far. We were all in agreement that the night was really great and one to remember. All the reviewers have said it, but I cannot believe that the whole night only cost me £17 including 5 alcoholic drinks! Such a bargain cannot be ignored in Croydon.

PS - Of course the conversation was more entertaining :D

April 2012 - Albert's Table

Posh nosh in Croydon's restaurant quarter

Now, I'd never have imagined to find a place such as this in Croydon. Top quality produce fresh from the fields of Surrey farmers sat on a plate in front of me - and wow, did it taste good!

Albert's table is a place you might often walk past and wonder what's inside or maybe not even notice it. It's presence in the restaurant quarter is understated unlike so many of the other restaurants in the area. Once you're inside its décor is pretty nice. It's certainly ideal for a "trying to impress" first date or business lunch/dinner, or if you've got a large group and just can't decide which restaurant to take them to.

The menu was varied and for those among us who hadn't been so gastronomically adventurous, there were lots of new things to try. 

The staff were very accommodating and attentive which was great and the food was served in good time. 

The turn out too was brilliant! We had a whole half of the restaurant to ourselves and we were all sat at varying sized tables throughout the area. No pub afterwards this time as we ended up finishing quite late. 

All in all, a really nice night.

March 2012 - The Khyber

The first Croydon Dinner Club

For the first dinner we went to The Khyber in Croydon's South End / Restaurant quarter.

On arrival we were greeted by very courteous staff who offered to take out jackets, coats and everything else. We were sat in one area of the restaurant (the far end in the picture) on one long table. 

We were given a special 3 course menu to select from which was all pretty good. The standard of the food was very good and was commented on by everyone. 

The turn out was great too, with a total of 16 people braving the cold to take part in the 1st event. We had a great mixture of people from all walks of life and all parts of Croydon. Some with a keen interest in the politics of Croydon, others with a warm fuzzy feeling in their hearts when they think of the place, others with a "pinch of salt" view of Croydon.

The food was great, the service was great as was the drink. Once we'd paid up we headed over to the Green Dragon pub for a few.

The first night went down really well and given that it was really grown out of thin air I was so overwhelmed with the turn out. I'd expected maybe 3 or 4 of my local friends or regular interactee's on Twitter, but it was so much more than that. People I'd never met before, people I'd seen talking in the Croydon Twitter-sphere, people not even on Twitter. It was great!