A Simp-ly mediocre experience

I had rather been looking forward to my visit, and had prepared myself by spending a very English day. I met my friend the Count, fresh back from his German homelands after a week's schloss-hopping. We repaired, as usual, to our favourite meeting place, Mark's Club on Charles Street, for a small meal. I love Mark's Club; it is perhaps the most civilised place in the world and never fails to put me in a good mood.

After our honest, wholesome repast (gulls' eggs, potted shrimps and grilled plaice), we then tottered across Berkeley Square, Partagas Shorts clamped in our jaws, to Jack Barclay to survey the Bentley and Rolls-Royce motor cars on offer. Ever since I test-drove the new convertible Corniche, I have hankered after one, albeit one from the Seventies.

Having frittered away an afternoon so pleasantly but so pointlessly - it is a very long time before I will be able to afford a Rolls - it was time to prepare for dinner at Simpson's. I had elected to take as my guest the second most English person I know, the Chairman, whose old-fashioned views on almost every subject are a delight to listen to. I found him settled in the first-floor bar, nursing a Cohiba and a glass of red wine. He looked up contentedly and said that Simpson's seemed agreeably unmessed about with. I had to agree. The place has been tarted up recently but still retains its fuddy-duddy character.

It was also rammed, which rather proves that you don't need state-of-the-art, 21st-century design to pull in the punters. The look is reminiscent of a public school or Oxbridge college dining hall. And although the food surpasses the less than rigorous gastronomic standards I associate with my education, no one who lives in London and knows much about restaurants would set foot in the place unless perhaps chaperoning a party of tourists from Yokohama or Toronto. Tourists have to eat somewhere and better here than at the rapaciously priced hot-dog trolleys, kebab vans and hamburger stands that are almost as much a part of our national gastro-heritage as Simpson's. Simpson's is several cuts above what might be termed British street food. But it is not as good as it should be: pricing is decidedly West End, while the cooking languishes somewhere near what one might experience at the hands of the banqueting operation of a four-star hotel in the Midlands.

I have to admit to being biased. The grilled Dover sole was off - never news I take at all well - and that put me in a foul mood. My first course, poached egg with smoked haddock, glazed with a cheese sauce, was fine, but the Chairman, uttering his one gastronomic judgment of the evening, declared his potted shrimps to be inferior to those to be had at Mark's Club.

We both ordered the grilled halibut served with buttered spinach, creamed onions and capers. It was all right, but looked as though it had taken its time making the journey from the kitchen to the table. Ever mindful of my weight and fragile health, I ordered a tomato salad while the Chairman called for spuds. He then, not unreasonably, cut one of them in half and found it had a blue-black core; he repeated the exercise and found the centre of his second spud similarly coloured; the third was merely a very pale grey and that he ate. Now I don't pretend to be an expert on root crops, but Simpson's-in-the-Strand really ought to make up its mind: either it is serving up potatoes that are blue-black in the middle or it is serving up those of a more traditional hue. To mix the colour of one's spuds is to cause consternation and the Chairman prides himself on having a volatile heart condition. The shock of the new might prove just that little bit too exciting.

Doubtless in order to try and cope with the shock, he tried to order a glass of Beaujolais Villages he claimed he had been enjoying upstairs. I say 'claimed' because the wine waiter said that it would be impossible to get, as he did not communicate with the upstairs bar, nevertheless he would try his best. To judge by the non-appearance of the wine he did not prove successful or perhaps died in the attempt. So we flagged down another waiter and got a glass of Chilean red, which arrived just after our main course had been cleared away. I toyed with the notion of a pudding but opted instead for mint tea and cigar, which I had taken the precaution of bringing with me.

It is a shame that I did not have a better time, but then maybe Simpson's always was this mediocre, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. But as I paid the bill, I could not help thinking what a more enjoyable and only slightly more expensive time I would have had if I had gone back to Mark's Club.

Simpson's-In-The-Strand
Strand, London, WC2R 0EW