All reader reviews by Rethinkfood

The Chilli Pickle

Is this the best Restaurant in Brighton? Well it must be up there and from my own point of view, after 15 years of trying to find the best food in Brighton, The Chilli Pickle' is the restaurant my family, friends and I have enjoyed the most over a sustained period.

A highlight dish that is so unbelievably excellent that I have forgone the other delights on offer for the last five visits is the Oxtail Madras. Sweet, sticky and generous, this exquisite dish would surely be a contender for 'last meal' of any death row gastronome.

If you can't get in, book and wait till your slot arrives, it's worth it.

Excellent staff, wine list and range of tempting consumables to add to the growing bill make this a great place. They are very good and taking your money but always send you away with a smile on your face.

The gift that keeps giving!

Monday, June 07, 2010
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7

Gars Chinese

This is a good looking restaurant with staff that operate with an amusing style that blends efficiency with mild but inoffensive rudeness - often the mark of a good chinese eating experience. While the initial impressions were favourable because of the frenetic sense of action, the great smells and the full house, the eventual dining experience was unbelievably disappointing and ultimately no better than the average take away. This is the obvious comparison one makes and on this occasion, for example, the crispy duck was below the standard I get from my regular Lee Gardens take away on Lewes Road. None of the family were impressed.

Style and good food make for a great experience but one without the other, as is the case with Gars, makes for a pretentious atmosphere that leaves you feeling well and truly ripped off and badly fed.

Monday, June 07, 2010
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1

Melrose

The only slight issue I have with this 'Fish Restaurant' is that they do not appear to know how to cook fish. This might seem unfair but if their 'house speciality' fresh fish platter is among their best dishes, they have set the bar as low as it can go. My family eat there today and the above dish featured a piece of Halibut that had the texture of carpet felt and a chunk of salmon that appeared to have been deep fried the previous day and left under heat lights thereafter. The only edible offering on this staggeringly poor 'speciality' dish were the classic nuggets of breaded scampi that one might normally expect on the shelves of Iceland or as the most average of bar snacks. I suspect all the pieces of fish on the plate had been dropped into a deep fryer with the frozen scampi. The second dish of little merit was the dressed whole crab, which had been boiled to death and clumsily dressed, resulting in a dry, tasteless experience with dentistry threatening 'crunch'. To give credit where due, my son had a properly cooked whole plaice in this otherwise totally unsatisfactory experience.

Our complaint was met with a patronising 'that's how halibut is', while the waitress prodded the fish with a fork.

Monday, June 07, 2010
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0