"Very average food, poor service, overpriced"

A review of The Three Monkeys by Anonymous written on Saturday 12th of May 2007

I recently visited this restaurant on a Friday night with my girlfriend. Neither of us had been before but we were familiar with the quality of the other restaurants in Herne Hill and decided to give it a go.

On arrival my first impression was the smell of cooking meat and smoke from the grill. Ordinarily I like the smell of grilled meat and fish but this was to the point where you could actually see it in the air.

We ordered drinks. When the wine came the waiter seemed to take and age to get the cork out of the bottle and when it was poured he couldn't seem to get it in the rather dirty glasses without also spilling it all over the table. The table cloth was also dirty.

I ordered the "drunken prawns" for starter and the mixed kebab platter (a selection of meat and fish from the grill) for my main. My girlfriend ordered crispy soft shell crab for her starter and scallops for her main.

My starter of drunken prawns were described as prawns marinated in rum and then deep fried in batter with ginger. What arrived was a nondescipt tomato, pepper and chille puree with very small tough tastless prawns hiding in it. No batter in sight, and I couldn't taste ginger or rum only overpowering tomato and chille. My girlfriend's soft shell crab was average - not particularly fresh. The salad garnish on both dishes was lifeless and old looking and very unappealing.

On to the mains...My mixed kebab platter was cold when it arrived. The lamb shish kebabs were completely tastless and stone cold and weren't really seasoned at all. The salmon was so over seasoned and salty I couldn't eat it. One of the pieces of chicken was rather good, the other piece tastless and the lamb chop was cold and tastless. The paratha was very nice as was the rice. The salad garnish again looked like it had been sat in the bottom of the fridge for a week. None of the ingredients seemed particularly fresh or of a good quality.

We then had to sit and wait for around 20 minutes after we had finished eating for them to clear away our plates.

The food and service weren't good but the experience was made worse by the prices charged. The bill came to £80 for 2 courses and a bottle of wine. We won't be returning..

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