Cafe Rouge, Exchange Street

24 February 2007

It’s a lunchtime dilemma – it’s quarter to two, I’ve got the steak sandwich craving, but the missus fancies soup. Hot Fuzz starts in three quarters of an hour, so while there’s not an overabundance of time to digest said cow, there’s certainly sufficient by any reasonable bistro’s reasonable standard. Café Rouge is just around the corner and by now, one would think, the lunchtime rush will have passed its peak.

Of course, that would assume that the busy peak is due to an excess of customers, rather than efforts on the part of the staff to hold on to their dear clientele until they expire from want. When George Romero makes Lunchtime of the Dead, it will surely be in Café Rouge. Twenty minutes after ordering, our drinks finally arrive. The spring water is served with slice and ice. I fail to see the logic in making fresh water taste like dishwater, but come the revolution, the proprietors of Café Rouge won’t be the only restaurateurs up against the wall for hydrovillainy. Although they’ll probably be last to arrive.

Forty minutes after ordering our food arrives. Yep, that’s soup of the day and a steak sandwich; heaven help anyone who ordered the Dordogne duck confit served with orange liqueur sauce, French beans and dauphinoise potatoes or the braised rack of lamb in a rich red wine sauce served with fresh herb mash and French beans.

To be fair, the onion soup went down well, but it certainly wasn’t an eight quid sandwich. Perhaps one pays for the ambience? With the bill arriving some ten minutes after requesting it, there’s certainly time to gorge on the surroundings.

The longer one sits in Café Rouge, the more the contrived décor begins to grate – the deliberately mismatched lampshades, the faux-rustic doodlings on the walls, and so forth. It’s not so much a *design vision*, as the gallic shrug of a designer broken by a committee that can’t decide between chic metropolitan bistro or rough village café.

Twenty quid might not be an almighty sum to pay for lunch, but if it only buys dishwater and a dog’s dinner, is it really worth it? Cross the road and hit the tapas bar instead.

Keywords: je n’ai pas le temps
Eat here: or die trying