Please note that since writing this blog post, Scarlett has closed down
Last night I went to Scarlett for dinner with an overpaid Shell engineer who happened to be in town. It’s hard to tell why the establishment would call itself Scarlett, when there is nothing resembling red in the décor, it’s not in the red light district and the Italian inspired food is… well, food-coloured. We sat down at the extremely small neutral-hued table and were, unsurprisingly, presented with a wine list. We both had a look, and I plumped for the Italian Tempranillo, which I proceeded to order in my best restaurant Dutch. Two minutes later, the same waiter who took our wine order appeared with a bottle of the aforementioned red and presented it to my (male) dining companion, before pouring it out and waiting while my uncouth kiwi friend attempted to swirl the wine professionally in his glass. And failed. This is one of my absolute pet hates. Not the fact that uncouth kiwis can’t swirl wine properly (I’ll forgive him that) but that some wine waiters insist on allowing the man to taste the wine when in fact it was the woman who ordered it. Surely logic would dictate that the person who ordered the wine might want to taste it? Apparently not.
After this inauspicious start, the food was actually quite good, if rather slow in appearing. The gambas that I had as a starter, and the brunette as a main course, were plump and fresh. The so-called ‘spinach soufflé’ was actually more of a gratin than a soufflé, but I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that this was actually a translation error rather than a culinary one. My salmon was decently cooked and came with rosemary-roasted potatoes and not quite enough lemony sauce. But all in all, wine excepted, it was perfectly edible. Next time, I’ll go with a female friend and find out what the hapless wine waiter does then. Offer it to the man on the next table perhaps? It would make little less sense.