A Rainforest In a Room (Rainforest cafe)

Member Name: sarashaw100

Product:	Rainforest cafe
Date:	07/01/02 (1038 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: entertaining surroundings, Original, Great for the kids

Disadvantages: london prices, slow service

My friend Katie suggested just over a week ago that a group of friends should go to London, which is about 30 miles from where we live, and go shopping in the January sales. Being a woman I love shopping especially when prices are reduced so I and two other friends agreed. They wanted to go to the rainforest café for lunch, a place I had never heard of.

We checked the menu on the Internet, and decided what we wanted, sadly the prices weren’t on there but at least we knew what food there was. But I’m not here to talk about the web page so I’ll move on.

We arrived at the restaurant at 12.15, which was 15 minutes after it opened. The restaurant in London (which took as a while to find) is near Piccadilly Circus tube station off a little road off Regent Street. The outside was a dimmed window with animal toys making a display.

We stepped inside to fin ourselves in a toyshop (parents be where) that you have to walk through to get to the restaurant. The shop is full of memorabilia like toys and t-shirts. Walking through you come to a little booth (we had to queue to get to this) where you give your first name and you are told what time a table will be ready. You can book in advance but not in school holidays. You are issued a ticket and then are free to go where you like until your given time, ours was 1pm, so we went shopping for a little while.

While we were queuing we were entertained with wonderful facts about the rainforest by a talking tree, did you know cocoa came from the rainforest originally?

We came back at our given time and went down a flight of stairs. It was very busy, mainly full of families, not a bunch of sixteen year olds. We handed in our ticket and were told to get a drink from the counter.

There was no orderly queue and only two people were serving. In the end we managed to get a seat at the bar and get served. The seats were the bottom halves of animals, mine was a Zebra. The
drinks were no cheap but had original and themed names. I ended up with a diet Pepsi setting me back £1.70 but it had unlimited refills which I used (once, I couldn’t face the queue after that). We waited a while before our group name was called out (group Katie of four) and we were taken to our seats that were in a corner… keep the teenagers out of site.

We were given our menus and had a look what was on offer. There are vegetarian meals and also a children’s menu for those who can’t manage so much. Three of us had a Thai wok which had chicken in it but if requested could be cooked without. It came with complimentary garlic bread but at £9.95 I would expect so… it is London though.

My meal was wonderful although I could of done with a bit more, but then that means that I could go out and buy a donut or cookie later or if I wanted. The portions were a nice size though and tasted wonderful.

So what was the restaurant like to be called the rainforest café? Well there ceiling is covered with vines, as is the wall to make it look like there is a canopy of leaves above you from trees. There are electronic animals around that occasionally move. Near our table we had an elephant and a giant butterfly. Near the toilets there were monkeys and by the entrance there was an alligator that moved when you threw a penny at it.

Every now and then there are tropical storms. Lights start flashing to symbolise lightening and there is the sound of thunder. Luckily we are spared from rain falling down on us.

The toilets didn’t keep up the toilet theme apart from that they smell of rhino dung; I was really looking forward to animal print toilet seats as well.

The service was not too fast but this meant you could take in the atmosphere slowly instead of being rushed and chucked out for your table, however I really did want to go shopping was this wasn’t perfect for me.

The place was l
ittered with children and parents who seemed to be enjoying themselves. If you have children then I recommend you go there for a treat some time. I have to say that at sixteen I still loved it but when I told my boyfriend afterwards he laughed at me, so be careful before you take your ‘grown up’ son’s long with you.

Well that’s all I have to say. There are lots of branches of the café around as it is originally American, so look for one near you. More information go to

http://www.rainforestcafe.com

Love Sara

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