brilliant restaurant/bar (Crazy Bear Group (England))

Member Name: sambo1984

Product:	Crazy Bear Group (England)
Date:	22/09/08 (755 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant food and atmosphere

Disadvantages: can be expensive but worth it

I went here the other day in Beaconsfield and it was wonderful! The main building has huge wooden doors big enough to fit a carriage through (to uphold the buildings history i presume with beaconsfield being a town where they would change the horses over on long journeys). There is a man dressed in a very smart grey suit with a top hat who lets you in if you have a booking. Immediately inside there are curtains surrounding the reception area then you go out into a pretty bar area, we were sat downstairs in the crystal room as upstairs was full so i will talk about that. the whole room down there is covered in mirrors and the floor is leather. the chairs are trimmed with white rabbit fur (i think, it felt like that anyway). It is very pretty down there although i did prefer upstairs.

They were short on drinks menus as they have only just opened (which i found wierd) so we had to share one between 6 of us which was a little annoying. The staff are all told a list of clothes they are allowed to buy so no uniforms but all smart clothes, floaty dresses for the women and smart clothes for men. apparently they had a list of 6 shops they were allowed to shop at.

The drinks are quite expensive, they said the glasses they serve the wine in are worth £200 each as they are hand carved in italy,
I think our wine was about £32 a bottle and was a mid priced one, not to my taste but then that wasnt the one i would of ordered if given the choice anyway.

They also have a list of cocktails and champagnes and spirits, cocktails start from £8.50

They have 2 restaurants here an English one and a Thai one, the english one has white leather floor to ceiling booths covered in huge diamonte jewels (sounds wierd but go see it, its hard to describe) and has a great atmosphere. the Thai restaurant (which we went to) you have to go outside and walk down the road (very odd design i think) to get to it. once inside its very pretty, the bannister is made of python skin which i thought was awesome, the chairs upstairs made of crocodile skin, they have lovely flocked wallpaper and its a really nice and intermate atmosphere.

For my meal i had mixed seafood (prawns, scallops, muscles and squid) which only cost £15 which i thought was really reasonable, it was really tasty too, my sister had black cod which was also very tasty, the beef massaman curry was amazing and the tuna was good too. i think the massaman and the mixed sea food was best (i cant remember what the other two had) rice starts from £2.50 for plain rice and goes up to £9 for prawn rice which is really nice. they also have noodles as a side, we had pad thai which was amazing and about £9 is i remember correctly. you also have to order vegetables separately too. so it can work out expensive depending on what you order as there are a range of prices for everything.

for dessert I had the mango with coconut sticky rice as i had this when i was in thailand and i adored it over there so thought i would try it here. it was a massive dissapointment though. The sticky rice was cold and far too sticky, not like it should tradtionally be and didnt taste of coconut at all. the mango was nice but not worth paying the price for just the mango, someone else had the lemongrass desert (i forget what it was with, i think it was a brulee) and that was nice but not amazing

I would stay stick to the mains and avoid the desserts here, they werent very good but the main meals were yummy so definitly worth a try.

The toilets are stupidly hard to find if you dont know where they are in the thai restaurant as they are downstairs in the wood panneled area but there are no signs for male or female, you just have to know where to press the wall which is a bit confusing but i do actually like it, the toilets are really dark though and i dont like the overuse of mirrors inside the bathroom

Apparently in a few months you will be able to come in for just a drink but at the moment you have to be going to the restaurant to get into the bar as its so busy.

overall, I totally recomend it.

Summary: check it out