In the market for grub

Ahhh, Camden Market cuisine. The scent of spices and frying onions. The lingering whiff of grease. The sinus-clearing astringency of hot vinegar. The stall-holders exhorting you to buy as you stagger between the offerings of various continents. The world's peculiar and disaffected troughing day-glo orange gloop from tin-foil containers, trying not to get the fronds of foodstuff caught too inelegantly in their piercings. It's like a post-apocalyptic souk.

Now someone has had the brainwave of giving this most recherchè of target audiences their own bar and restaurant, slap bang in the middle of the Stables, the less commercialised, quirkier part of the whole sprawling Camden complex. And, in a fit of dyslexic madness, they've called it Mingling. Can you read this without seeing Minging? Nope, neither can I.

The menu, described on our invite as 'the very best in East meets West culinary expertise' reads like a collision-of all the foodstalls in what turns out to be something of a car crash.

You've got taramasalata and hummus; you've got peri-peri chicken. How about laksa? Or Singapore noodles? Or hamburger and chips or fish and chips? Each dish on the lengthy, Tower of Foodie Babel menu comes with an accompanying thumbnail photo. We didn't know whether to order them or click on them.

This kind of thing is always a worry, but we were lulled into a false sense of security by a bunch of stuff. There was the soignèe gorgeousness of the greeter (who later canoodled with a chap of such equal and unlikely gorgeousness that he looked as if he were about to strip off his suit and save the world). And there was the initial funkiness of the space: exposed brick, faux-Oriental backlit screens and a massive hanging lantern in the middle of the room. There's a vast version of those fabric-wafting lamp jobs that vaguely imitate flaming torches. Booths line one wall, a lengthy and well-stocked bar the other. I seem to remember it when it was part of the market, a shambolic mish-mash dominated by a full-sized fibreglass horse. I think this is an improvement.

And if that's not Camden enough for you, there's the 'Juice Boost' Bar. Forests-worth of fruit can be pulped for your pleasure. You want added guarana? Ginseng? For all I know, powdered unicorn horn? You got it.

Even the loos are loony, located outside the restaurant and looking like your high-school lavs after a Changing Rooms makeover. What appears to be an exotic baptismal font has a sign on it exhorting you to drop in 20p - a plea resoundingly ignored.

So, can the kitchen cope with this polyglot menu? Then answer's, well, no, actually.

The food is mostly pretty bad. But then, in my experience of lurking round Camden, most of the food is pretty bad. Mingling is no worse and not much more expensive than the stalls and at least you get a comfortable, buzzed-up atmosphere to eat in. Food is, at least, mostly edible and, in the case of my garlic chilli prawn starter, verging on the tolerable (lightly tempura-ed with toasty little chips of garlic and gullet-searing hot rocks of bird's-eye chilli). Also bearable were barbecued chicken wings and butterflied, breaded king prawns, both served with an identical dip.

Main courses were woeful: a swampy Thai green curry with the authentic addition of baby aubergines was the best; Singapore noodles tasted of brackish bean sprout and little else; and the Eraserhead horror of a grisly, shrunken poussin with flabby frozen chips and an alleged peri-peri sauce - tasting of ketchup, paint-stripper and incinerator - is best glossed over.

Having said all this and at the risk of sounding perverse, I think Mingling will do well. It's truly cheap - even with copious wine, we only spent about £20 a head - it's vibrant and it's a great people-watching opportunity. In fact, it's the perfect space for its place: essence of Camden.