Hair and an upset stomach anyone?

Elena and I had planned a lovely day at the Design Museum, followed by mission to find a fab place to eat on Bermondsey then a spot of shopping.

All was going well until we got to the lunch part. Bermondsey is a lovely area with a horrific secret. Restaurants stop serving food from around 2:30 till 5:30pm. There is no consistency of what time they close as every where we walked into during our crawl had just closed. Disappointing.

We finally found this quaint looking Italian place called Ticino which was open and serving. We did question why but we were too hungry to go into CSI mode.

We sat down and before the Ticino waiter could leave we ordered olives and zucchini fritti. The olives for an Italian restaurant were horrific. Battered, tasteless and clearly from the cheapest wholesaler you can find. Our mood lifted when the zucchini fitti arrived. They were delicious, the best way to describe them are chips with a bit of batter around them. Elena gushed about how she would be making them at home herself, laughable.

Elena ordered a beef ragu and I ordered the tagliatelle with smoked salmon and dill. I know, I know, I have stated that this dish shouldn’t be made using smoked salmon but I thought I would try it, wish I hadn’t.

Our dishes arrived and we both started clicking away so you could all appreciate what we were eating at Ticino. Once we were done I looked at my dish a little closer and noticed a thick black hair wrapped around a piece of smoked salmon. I hope the picture shows you how rank it was. I called the waitress over and explained what I had found, she didn’t seem phased nor did she apologise. She simply took the dish away. Funny thing is I got a ‘fresh’ dish but it took under 5mins when the original wait time was 30mins.

We tucked in. Elena’s ragu was very meaty but lacked seasoning. My dish was heavy in dill which was nice but the smoked salmon was very salty so the dish was completely imbalanced. Starving, we ploughed through.

So the bill came and we decided not to discuss the issues we had had to see how the Ticino operates with regards to food contamination. WE WERE CHARGED FULL PRICE INCLUDING SERVICE. We painted a smile on our face and paid.

Now the real problems started as we got on the tube. I had started to get an upset stomach but thought nothing of it until Elena complained how she was feeling unwell. The only thing we had eaten together was at that Ticino and we could not believe that not only did we have to experience all of the above but we had also left with a parting gift of food poisoning. I am still suffering this morning. Oh Ticino.

Avoid this place like the plague. I really hate writing negative reviews but I would hate for anyone to waste a meal eating substandard food at a place where customer satisfaction is non existent.

Ticino
177 Bermondsey St, London SE13UW, England