The people have spoken




Here's a cautionary tale. Last night we decided to eat out. The best Indian restaurant in South London* is currently being refurbished so we cast our net wider and I found one on a London restaurants website in Putney, with great reviews from customers. A big fan of customer reviews (very useful when booking hotels), I looked the place up on a second website, as a kind of control experiment, and the customer reviews were equally effusive. Here is a sample:

9 out of 10
The best Indian meal I have ever experienced. The originality, presentation and taste of each dish was highly commendable. Well worth a visit! ... The food was fantastic - with real real flavour not just heavily spiced foods ... The ambience and service were first class and I am looking forward already to our next visit. Flavour, soft spices, and lovely atmosphere.

10 out of 10
A real gem of a place ... A very different Indian restaurant ... soft use of spices and a great atmosphere. I do believe this is the future of Indian dining in the UK - fashionable, great music, superb food at very good prices. Do try it!

8 out of 10
The food is as good as I have tried in London ... Best Indian food south of the river!

10 out of 10
The best Indian restaurant in London.

First, it was a Sunday evening, often a slow night for restaurants, but that said, when we arrived at about 7.45pm, "the best Indian restaurant in London" was empty. It was also very bright. Too bright for my taste, but we went in anyway. After all, "flavour, soft spices, and lovely atmosphere." It's a canteen-style set-up (bench seats etc.), again, not to my taste, but it was clean and stylish and the welcome was warm. The food, however, was no more than fine. The papadoms were actually cold and a bit stale-tasting. The chutneys - only three instead of the traditonal four - were in tiny bowls. The main courses were nice, although there was way too much rice in a single portion, and the food was decidedly salty. Four other diners arrived during our stay, which didn't exactly whip up the atmosphere. At one stage, the lights were promisingly dimmed, then un-dimmed, then dimmed again, then un-dimmed, almost as if it were a light show. They ended up pretty much the same. The food came quite quickly, the staff seemed slightly disconnected from the place, as if perhaps they were minding the shop for someone else, but at least the music was loud enough to cover up the lack of merry laughter, clinking glasses and hubbub.

I'm giving it 6 out of 10. I don't know why I'm being so coy as to not name the place. It's a modern Indian canteen-style restaurant that opened last year and is very bright. It's in Putney. I don't want this to be an assassination of the place. It's not. It's a cautionary tale about so-called democratic customer-reviewed websites. How can we trust these people? Who are they? Have they actually tasted all the Indian food in London before they made their judgement? Were they sober when they posted their reviews? ("They", of course, being "us".) It's just a perfectly serviceable Indian that fancies itself a bit. I certainly prefer a more straightforward curry house. And I wish the actual restaurant that serves the "best Indian food south of the river" would hurry up and reopen!

*This is an ironic joke.

I have posted a version of this review on the second website. I hope it at least makes the expectations of future diners more realistic, that's all. Democracy in action. There is a box after the form where you write your review asking if you own or work in the restaurant you are reviewing. All you have to do is tick the box if you do. You don't even have to give a real email address to post a review. You are entirely anonymous. I'm saying nothing.

It's not a scandal. We ate some reasonable Indian food. We came home. We watched The West Wing.