Wetherspoons at the Tally Ho!, North Finchley: good food but uneven service

12th November
For a change we wanted to try out a local cheap pub restaurant. I have reviewed J D Wetherspoon before, and as the menus are national, I had not intended to mention it again.
However, on this occasion, I scaled back from the large mixed grill to the normal size one (good idea). What was not good was the fact that it took one hour from placing our order for it to arrive, and it was of mixed hotness (7.6-8.5). There was some weak excuse about the chef having cut his finger. However other diners did not experience the delay we suffered. The staff said that we should have shouted for the main course once we had finished the starter.
This was actually a great shame, as the food was great, and was very competitively priced for the quality. I would like to try it again, but next time, I will be very clear to the staff about the fact that normally it is expected that if stater and main course are ordered, it is a reasonable expectation for one to follow the other in fairly quick order. As you have to pay up front, there was little that could be done. Although there was a trace of apology (mainly trying to tell us it was our own fault for not coming and asking for the food to be served) there was not even an offer of a compensatory sundae. There is an argument for not going back there again, but I am not one to cut my nose off to spite my face.

Le Querce: Sardinian restaurant, no where near the Tube

10th November
Another trip south of the River for a family meal. This time in picturesque Brockley/Forest Hill borders.
In an totally unassuming row of local shops, next to a greasy spoon cafe is a focus of Italian sophistication. There is a fairly upbeat and comprehensive web site at http://lequerce.co.uk/ .
What it does not tell you is that this appears to be a family orientate restaurant serving very Italian tasting food that is something different. The menu is supplemented by a huge specials list, and they seem very keen to offer something slightly out of the ordinary and likely to make people come back.
I had a fairly boring meal. For starter, I had a pasta:

Tagliolini al Ragú

This as you can see is a ribbon style pasta with a meat ragu sauce. The thing is that this actually tasted like the food did in Italy in September. It was hot scoring an 8.5 on the CHOF scale and extremely tasty.

For main course I had

Costolette di Agnello

I asked for this to be medium and it was probably the high end of medium but in no way overcooked, and also scored about an 8 to 8.5 on the CHOF scale. I had accompanying french fries.

I had a fairly boring house special tiramasu for desert

but the house attraction was the home made ice cream in a variety of bizarre flavours which included
Pepperoncino (Chilli Pepper) Caffé (Coffee) Rabarbaro (Rhubarb) Mirto e era (Myrtleberry and Pear) Banana, Cardamomo e Zenzero (Banana, Cardamom and Ginger)Banana e semi di senape (Banana and mustard seeds) Agilo o Cipolla (Onion or Garlic) Zucca e Amaretto (Pumpkin and Amaretto) Melanzana (Aubergine) Zafferano (Saffron)

I tried the chilli the garlic and the banana cardamon and ginger. These were 'interesting' and it was probably for the best that portion sizes were not huge.

Without wine, the bill came to about £25 per head, so it was not cheap, but was a good repeat worthy experience with hot food.

Il Tocca d'Artista, North Finchley. Popular suburban Italian

Saturday, 2nd November
Our moving dinner friends' outing was to this small trattoria like restaurant just south of North Finchley. It had been test driven by two of our group, and has lots of positive opinions on TripAdvisor. There is no web presence.
Saturday night was busy, and waiting staff seemed to be a bit overwhelmed. In fact our main course order appeared to have been lost, and the waitress came out to confirm what we thought we had ordered. I think they had lost the order.
The menu is quite short and with old favourites. There are specials and many of the diners were tucking into large bowls of mussels, which I never eat.
I had squid in a sauce for starter.

For a starter portion, it was quite expensive, being the same price as main course pasta. In fact most of the starters were a bit on the expensive side compared to the costs of the main courses. Whilst I have seen lemon with squid before, I have never had it with orange, and did not try to make the combination. Whilst attractive and hot ( a nine on the CHOF scale), the squid was a bit rubbery. I checked with the cold squid that my wife had in her seafood salad, and I seemed to have drawn the short straw here. 

For main course, I had the veal in mushroom and cream sauce.

They obviously had a few spare oranges going. However, this was a decent portion, also a 9 on the CHOF scale and lived up to expectations, additional vegetables were a plate of spinach and fried courgettes, and sautee potatoes. With four bottles of house wine between six (someone must have had my share), the bill came to just under £30 each, which was probably a bit on the expensive side, as there was no desert. I noted that there was a cover charge, and given that there was no bread and no table cloth, and one bowl of olives between six, that was pushing their luck.

I would say that this is probably best for pizza and pasta judging by what other diners were eating. Service was very slow and best that you don't go there expecting to leave soon. A nice touch is leaving a bottle of limoncello on the table which patrons can help themselves to. Makes one feel a bit better in several ways including the fact that hot food was served hot..