Not so craic-ing cuisine

A friend is convinced that he has seen flower posters identical to those that grace the walls of the King Sitric restaurant on a recent visit to a swish modern hotel in Thailand.

Certainly, the gloomy lighting, dark wood panelling and glossy floor, along with the rows of empty tables and the goldfish-bowl kitchen behind large glass windows, all seem to have come from a prop box marked 'rather modern, nearly chic hotel dining room'.

According to the notes at the front of the menu, in 1751 this stretch of Cricklewood Broadway was home to a hostelry called The Crown. In 1998 it was taken over by Tom Moran, who restored The Crown and built a modern hotel next door, on the site of what had once been a brewery.

On the face of it there's no reason why there should not be a crisply modern hotel in Cricklewood Broadway, but it still comes as a bit of a surprise. It is obvious that travelling businessmen find it a good deal less stressful to stay in a four-star hotel in Cricklewood than to make the schlep into the centre of town, and the Crown Moran also has Irishness in its favour.

Cheerful staff, an excellent pint of Guinness fetched from The Crown, and the lingering promise of good 'craic' go a long way to banishing the dreaded hotel-dining-room atmosphere.

But not quite far enough. The cuisine here is billed as 'modern Irish', and there's a good-value set menu - two courses for £15.95 and three for £19.50. The menu changes monthly. As a signal of intent, the chef sends out an amuse guele - a solid filo parcel with a prawn inside and set upon some tinned sweetcorn. Why sweetcorn?

Onwards to the starters. They include a green-pea, ham-hock and parsley soup with thyme scones, a decent enough bowl of soup but without discernible parsley and the promised thyme scones. Another option is the 'duck liver, chicken and mushroom terrine laced with Bushmills whiskey and served with spiced potato chutney'.

It comprised two small, thin, dry slices, not a sniff of Bushmills and very strange chutney made up of small cubes of boiled spud in a fruity, vinegary sauce, rather like HP. The warm goats' cheese and sun-blushed tomato tart looks a better bet.

For the main course, 'grilled rib-eye steak, Cashel blue sauce and scallion champ' attracts a £3 supplement. The steak is a good - but rather small - piece of meat, accurately cooked. The champ lacks oomph and character. The sauce is dire - a blue-cheese sauce shouldn't arrive at table as a thick, dark-brown, gooey dollop

that tastes of old gravy. Or there's 'deep-fried fillet of salmon in Guinness batter with peas pudding and chunky chips'. Salmon is not first choice for frying because it is such an oily fish. The Guinness batter is thick, heavy and greasy.