
I was expecting a dip of piperade to go with the ‘brioche’ but got a vast tub of the stuff: a mountain of sodden vegetables. It felt clumsy, oversized and indelicate. Then came vegan caviar: some clever boffin managing to spherify kelp seaweed. All kind and compassionate, right? But not as magnificently spoiling as actual caviar and not as luxuriously salty and seashore-fresh.
As well as heavy blinis, it came with a solid thud of something called ‘cremata’, which is not cream. We had ‘V-tuna’ rolls too. God knows what the ‘tuna’ was (compressed tomato?) but it wasn’t as pure and tasty as tuna, and a ‘dragon roll’ was a messy splodge of avocado and other carby effects, sauces and crunch.
Happy relief was a dish of coriander houmous, a refreshing and clever mix served with a pile of little pineapple chunks, but then came ‘graffiti aubergine’. The skin and mixed flesh of the aubergine was so burnt it was a carcinogenic hazard that called for a cordon, a police presence and hazmat suits. Finally, a huge bowl of lettuce, wrecked by a drizzle of acrid and gloopy yellow sauce.
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