Isn't this just like Pizza Express, my dear? (Ask Pizza & Pasta Restaurant (Canterbury))

Member Name: The Daz

Product:	Ask Pizza & Pasta Restaurant (Canterbury)
Date:	23/03/09 (214 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice food, cosy ambience.

Disadvantages: Troublesome access and lack of space.

It's not often I do reviews for Restaurants. I find it quite hard to wax eloquently, or even just make things up about what is basically a method of emptying your wallet in return for serving you something you could probably manage yourself if you weren't too lazy to cook, or have been nagged into visiting just because your partner's friend went last month and said it was really good, and we never go out enough do we....

Ask - part of the same chain as Pizza Express - is basically a bit like Pizza Express. They sell fewer Pizzas and more Pasta - but you're really just paying for the same semi-authentic Italian food, complete with oversized pepper grinders, the same incomprehensible staff, overly pretentious menu descriptions from the M&S school of advertising, and the same annoying pressure that you should tip people for doing their job slowly.

The branch of Ask in Canterbury is located on the cobbled High Street, about 50 yards from Pizza Express (perhaps all the food is cooked in one underground kitchen and sent between the buildings...), and close to other restaurants and pubs in the town centre. The building exterior is what you'd call charming if you were really stuck, with suitable amounts of draped ivy on the old brickwork. Entrance is easier said than done - the door isn't very wide, there's a step up to the inside (really handy for prams and wheelchairs), and the narrow hallway that leads to either of the 3 small seating rooms is perpendicular to the entrance, which means that groups waiting to be seated are forced to block the passageway from the kitchen to the eating rooms and the front door. So - charming, as I said...

Upon manoeuvring the pram into the hallway we waited for a table and were told that there was one left. Having briefly looked into the eating areas (I'm assuming the building was formerly a residence with several reception rooms), it did indeed appear quite easy to only have one spare table, as the multitude of staff that I saw squeezing past the kitchen door only had a maximum of 16 tables to service.

We were directed to a table next to the roaring fire - which would have been nice save for the need to avoid cooking our baby in her pram, and the fact that it was hardly a cold evening, and the other diners in the room were similarly sweltering. I asked if we could wait for another table, but the waitress, to her credit, turned the fire down with the damper (cast iron grate that covers the coals to regulate oxygen consumption - so there).

After ordering our overpriced drinks which seem to come in ever shrinking bottle sizes we perused the menu. After translating a few of the items into actual English by removing the pretentious adjectives (pan-fried, pan-seared, jus, parcels and gratinee being just a few), we were about to order when the waitress appeared with what appeared to be some maths homework scribbled hastily on a small chalkboard using the wrong hand. This was in fact the specials board, which was rapidly read out in halting English to us. Having decided against the pot luck option, we stuck to our choices.

It was at this point that I gleefully handed over my half-price main course voucher, printed out from a link on the Martin Lewis website (clever money saving chap). It was one of those offers that a restaurant chain will print for one week in a local gazette or three to constitute a national advertising campaign for special offers.

Our food did eventually arrive - perhaps a waiter took it accidentally to the nearby Pizza Express instead - and was rather nice. My Ravioli parcels were obviously undercooked - I believe Al Dente now means the pasta has a passing acquantaince with the boiling water rather than a brief fling - but the fishy filling was good. My Wife's Chicken and Mushroom Risotto had larger and more frequent pieces of the latter than the former, but was equally tasty. We also had a starter which amounted to 8 small prawns each the size of a 50p piece - labelled rather amusingly as King Prawns (British people who haven't ventured to a Spanish or French fresh fish store are being deluded here), in a spicy sauce, and 3 small pieces of dry bruschetta, with just enough salad to make the plate look full. Why it needed to come in a dish that had been placed into the heart of the Sun for 5 minutes was beyond me - perhaps they hoped the 10 minutes we waited for it to approach edible temperature would push us to buy another round of drinks.

Obviously the final bill, by virtue of the 2 for 1 main course offer was less than it should have been, but I wouldn't have gone there without the voucher as I don't think paying £10 a course for fancy pub food is a particularly edifying way to pass an evening, even with my lovely wife as company! I managed to avoid the tipping game - this involves the waiter circling the total line on the bill and adding their name and a giant X to the bottom of the paper as if to reinforce the amount of work required to hand deliver 3 plates of food and 2 drinks to the right table within 30 minutes - by not handing over a debit/credit card to be very slowly charged whilst the waiter coughs when you get to the 'Tip (optional)' line on the terminal. Instead I left the cash on the bill plate on the table and chuckled to myself as we left at how quickly the waitress shot back to our table to check how much tip we'd left. (Funny how quickly they move at the end, rather than when you actually require them for something!).

Overall - I should be fair. The restaurant is in a nice location, is well staffed and cosy enough. The food is certainly good, and the menu range more than adequate, but just remember to print off one of those spiffy vouchers!

Summary: Acceptable way to pass an evening.