RIP OFF!!! DON'T BOTHER!! (Inamo (London))

Member Name: MrsLim

Product:	Inamo (London)
Date:	07/08/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No advantages - in fact, I want to rate this 0 stars!!

Disadvantages: Everything - price, so dark you need night vision, bad staff etc

www.inamo-restaurant.com

Address: 134 Wardour Street
London, W1F 8ZR

Tel: 020 7851 7051

Nearest station: Leicester Square, Oxford Street or Tottenham Court Road

This place is SO overrated! I'm only writing this review because I don't want anyone to go here! 10 of us decided to try this place out as a great get together opportunity. I was particularly excited because I was keen to see the interactive table which I spied on an episode of the Gadget Show on Channel 5. How disappointed was I!

The Restaurant:

The Restaurant is located on the overly restaurant populated and subscribed Wardour Street in the West End of London. It is easy to miss especially with the funeral parlour-esque black front. Some say this is chic, I say it is too dark! And how right was I! You almost have to have night vision to eat at this place. I soon found out where the lights were turned down so low.

Upon entering the restaurant we noticed that all the tables were grouped in twos or fours, which meant our group of 10 was an awkward size. Although were sat next to each other, the tables were just that bit too far apart to hold discussions and so we all ended up having to swap seats every so often to ensure we were doing the rounds of talking to everyone. Very annoying!

A waitress came over and explained that the entire restaurant was slave to the interactive table, and left us to it(!) Although, their "interactive" table was not as interactive as I had hoped. The tables are all touch sensitive and white, and a projector from above your head, projects the image onto the table. Very quirky, not as innovative as I had hoped and I had my answer for why the restaurant was so damn dark!

The idea is you order your own food and drinks, you press a button to call a waiter over to complain/chase up the food (we did both by the way!), and you play games with the person sitting opposite you (battleships etc). Great but unfortunately, this quirkiness does NOTHING for social interaction. Everyone spent the first 10 minutes looking down onto their tables playing with their menu etc. Either that or you attempt to talk to your friend and risk not processing your food order and not eating. Here comes the major problem with this restaurant!

Because of the interactive table, food is ordered at different times. How the kitchen copes, god knows, but the problem lies in the placing the order and then the eating. If, as did happen to us, people place their food at different times, the food comes at different times, people start eating (or not eating because they are polite and want to wait) at different times, finish at different times and slowly get bored of looking the slow coaches that are still eating at different times. It is utter chaos!! You cannot hold a decent conversation because of this!

Worse, my meal didn't come at all (despite being one of the first to place an order - I suspect the problem the kitchen in reality copes really badly with customers placing order at different times) and I was left to just look at everyone's meals! And yes, this is despite me pressing the "Call Waiter" button about 6 times to ask what was going on! When my meal did eventually turn up, it came when everyone had finished and was starting up conversations minus me! Not a good experience!

Food:

Food was OK. This restaurant is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY overpriced for what is in fact a really dark over-stylised canteen!
I had the wagyu beef with rice and a side of endamame beans. Bit on the salty side and considering I waited over an hour for my meal, my 3 pieces of beef could have done with some complimentary bulking up to say 10 pieces!!

Didn't bother with desert - we all decided to hop it and find a bar so we could socialise (that being the operative mission of the evening!)

Overall:

Awful horrendous experience! Paying the bill was a joke! Can you believe this restaurant charges service charge!? Yes, even though you have to order the food (and potentially cook it) yourself!! After the manager took the service charge off, the bill came to approx £250 (this included 3 bottles of wine) - remember no desert!!

Really, do not bother with this place. Don't even bother to go check it out because we did that and we all feel thoroughly ripped off!

Summary: AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!