Bite

A famous rugby player whom I follow on Twitter recently tweeted about Bite giving away lobster burgers and claimed they were "ridiculously good". My curiosity had also been piqued a few weeks earlier after our dinner at Dunne & Crescenzi and seeing that Bite across had a nice resto buzz with a tempting menu. The famed lobster burgers are only available on a Friday and Saturday so I did try to nab a table for dinner the week before. Ringing on a Thursday night, I was told they were fully booked for the following 2 nights and it was best to reserve a week ahead of when we wanted to dine. Surely enough, a week later and we secured a table for Friday night.

We were seated in the "front room" of the resto (having read other blogs since, apparently, there are a number of other rooms within the building). Even though we were dining early, the place was already heaving with diners. Bite USP is "fish and chips with cocktails". I was tempted to have a cocktail with my meal but after perusing the menu, found the cocktail list to be pretty pedestrian and didn't bother. Food was OK but not fantastic; service from the waiting staff was competent. What was really annoying was seeing what looked like the 3 owners of the place lurking in the alcove (direct view from our table) and doing SFA whilst:

• getting in the way of the other waiters
• blocking the entrance to the disabled toilet
• blocking dishes coming out from the kitchen
• being a waste of space 

If you insist on being in your own resto to supervise, do it at a less busy time rather than your busiest time and wreaking havoc in a non-ergonomically friendly resto??!! If you insist on coming at a busy time, at least give the impression you are getting your hands dirty and roping in to ensure a perfect service rather gloat over your vanity project.....

Overall, Bite looks like the type of place where it is more important to "be seen" in rather than for the fundamentals of enjoying your food and having a great service - unlikely, we will be back....

Complimentary popcorn to start - a nice touch

Starter of baby squid with feta, chorizo and romesco sauce - the flavours tasted nice but my dish arrived lukewarm. Yes, some of the components of a romesco sauce were there but slapping diced tomatoes, garlic, some almonds and bits of stale bread together hardly constitutes and smacks of laziness (with "deconstruction aspirations").

Lobster burger (which comes on a burger bun, lettuce, tomato, pickled cucumber, raclette cheese, pancetta, crispy onions and truffle aioli and a side of truffle and parmesan skinny fries). The lobster was excellent and fresh and did not need the million accompanying ingredients. Personally, I would've preferred if the half was served grilled in the shell, perhaps with some sauce and perfectly cooked fried rather than this elaborate artery clogger. Fries were soggy too.   

JD plumped for the lobster linguine - overall, it was tasty but he spent the majority of his time picking up slivers of garlic. This is what his plate looked like a third of the way in......

 .....maybe 3-4 cloves of garlic in one pasta main? Completely unacceptable.