Hate over Eight

No matter what anyone might think, it depresses me to see a lack of stars twinkling at the top of these pieces. It's evidence of mediocrity. Sadly, it would seem that, as punters, we just can't get enough of it.

Take Eight Over Eight. The latest in Will Ricker's fabulously fashionable bijou chain - Cicada, The Great Eastern Dining Room, celeb-magnet e&o - it's already bulging with moneyed, glamorous diners. Already, they're table-turning: our 7.30pm spot was needed back at 9.30pm. Already, a week after opening, a roaring success. So it's good, then? No, actually, it's not.

It's got all the surface stuff: great location (the cool-bar-deprived, loaded-local-rich King's Road) and chic good looks (pared-down wood panelling, leather booths, some funky light-fittings). The bar's well stocked with both premium spirits and knowledgeable bartenders; there's a gratifying amount of eyecandy of both genders. But scratch the surface and it all goes tits up.

First off, they would have had a hard time implementing their twohour imperative: it took several hours to get most of the food we ordered. Some of us - me - had our starter and main courses served at the same time, which, understandably, did neither any favours; others had no main course at all at pudding stage. Efficiency wise, the place is a shambles. Our waiter was sweet and helpful, but simply unable to do anything about the kitchen's cock-ups.

Then there was the food. It's not up to much. Initial irritation: that 'would you like some edamame while you're waiting' thing that infests the sister restaurants. This is not a kindness, it's an upselling opportunity: the salty bean pods appear on your bill at £3 a pop. I hate that sort of pushy approach.

Then everything we ate was ridiculously over-seasoned with soy and, since there were seven of us, we ate lots. Among the better dishes were open crab wontons, looking more like deconstructed green pasta ravioli and packed with good, sparky crab; a generous amount of light lemon sole tempura served in a spooky-looking basket of its own skeleton with citrus/soy ponzu; and a soft-shell crab salad where the crab had been perfectly fried, accessorised by lacy fried lotus root and a welljudged salad packed with the flavours of tamarind, coriander and chilli.

Otherwise, pretty dismal. Lobster had been over-stirfried into fibrousness, its accompanying thick, flubbery, udon-style noodles were positively toxic with soy. This was a mouth-puckeringly bad number at a laughable £26. Drunken langoustines was one of those arch dishes that comes with added palaver: we were instructed to dunk the shellfish into their dip for 30 seconds before sprinkling with the spiced salt. Quick, Blanche, where's my stopwatch? Didn't stop them from being mealy, though. More overcooking in 'steamed' ginger scallops, which appeared to have been anything but - bit tempura-ed, bit grilled, even a bit breaded - and lost the will to live as a consequence. Too tough, too much soy. A vegetarian green curry with aubergine and butternut squash was dense, swampy and salty: too much nam pla this time, by way of a wee change. Saltassaulted at this point, we were drinking like fishes; perhaps that's the idea.

I'm aware that the gilded and the minted will still pile into Will Ricker's gaffs under the 'isn't that Dannii Minogue over there?' principle. The menu's very similar to e&o, which is still hanging on to its see-and-be-seen status despite having been open for, ooh, quite a few months. They'll very probably get some kind of vicarious thrill from the possibility of proximity to a celeb or It person; what they won't get, on this showing, is a great meal or value for money - £10 for a deeply-average pad thai, £16 for the small portion of crispy-skin duck with plum sauce. Depressing, isn't it?