Go on, make me feel wanted

The fact that I hadn't been to The Cinnamon Club surprised a couple of my more socially active friends. Has anyone not been? "What's it like?" I asked them. "Am I going to enjoy it?" "Well," replied one friend, pausing, "see what you think." "You mean it's over-hyped?" From my straw poll of three, that seemed to be the consensus.

Booking was no more encouraging. I made two calls and both times was told I was being put on hold, the first time for an eternity. I heard every promotion available. To be made to feel warmly wanted goes a long way, it's part of the restaurant experience, but obviously I didn't have the vocal clout or notoriety to merit it.

I had to keep repeating my name and then was asked, coolly, if I had been there before - I suppose for the purposes of some tick in a database box - but it didn't add up to a feeling of being "stroked". What a difference it was with Salt Yard, the other restaurant I was to visit.

We were three at lunch at The Cinnamon Club, two of us guinea pigs. I rushed in and the first thing to hit me was the taste-bud-stirring spicy smell - pervasive but not overpowering. The next hit was Iqbal Wahhab's inspired use of the Old Westminster Library, a Grade II-listed building.

Books, probably not original stock, adorn the upstairs gallery walls and there is an air of Victorian solidarity suitably reminiscent of the Raj. With its indoor banana tree, parquet floors and panelling, it felt civilised and unhurried.

Unfortunately, the service took unhurried to extremes. One of my guests had to be at the Foreign Office so, after more than half an hour of good-humoured chat with one small, spicy amuse-bouche but no first course to sustain us, I did gently remonstrate. Just five minutes, we were promised; there had been a small problem.

Perhaps a diversionary tactic was thought a good wheeze, but a small shower suddenly wetted my right arm and the left suit-sleeve of my neighbour at the next table.

My friends explained that a waiter en route for the kitchens had jerked the bottle in his hands and shot out water like a spouting whale. The soaked neighbour was briefly cross but quickly mollified; we agreed it was, after all, only water. To be fair, our froideur had, by this stage, been clocked and there were attempts to make amends for the delay; the drinks would be complimentary.

The first course arrived. I had suggested my rushed friend's main course should come at the same time. He began with tomato-and-green-mango soup, adorned with lemon-grass jelly and salad. "Gazpacho," he said succinctly and moved on.

I sampled the salad, which was deliciously dressed, but the lemongrass jelly tasted insipid. He pronounced his main course, Malai Kafla, cottage cheese dumplings with cashew nut sauce, fine, but had to dash, leaving most of it uneaten. The dumplings were beetroot-red in the middle and reasonably tasty.