Gordon Ramsey at the London West Hollywood
I had the chance to stay at the London West Hollywood in Los Angeles last week for a couple of days. I was in LA for the Academy Awards visual effects Bake offs.
I arrived late, around 10.30pm and I was quite hungry. When the guy at the reception told me that the Room service was handled by Gordon Ramsey’s kitchen I was quite excited and told to myself that even the usual burger that I order in every room service of every hotel I’m staying at would be quite special coming from the Michelin-starred chef’s kitchen. As soon as I got to my room (which was beautiful by the way) I grabbed a menu, found my burger and ordered. I added to that a selection of cheeses and a pot of coffee with some soya milk. After thirty minutes the food arrived, my first surprise was the bill, which was 20 dollars more than I expected as they add a whole bunch of extra taxes to the initial price, but hey, you wouldn’t think that it would be cheap, I just wish it was clearly stated on the menu. But let’s focus on the food. Presentation was nice, and it looked very good. I started with the burger.
Even the Tomatoes that usually I don’t enjoy whole (don’t like the seeds) were appetizing. The cheeses selection was equally nicely presented.
I started with the burger, I ordered it medium and it was cooked to perfection and was extremely tasty, the oven roasted tomatoes changed my views on whole tomatoes. Approximately 25 seconds later I finished the burger and was ready for the cheeses. I’m French and I take my cheese very seriously. Don’t mess with cheese! That’s when things started to go wrong, first the waiter wasn’t able to give me the names of the various cheeses on the plate and the menu just stated “a selection of local and international cheeses” I started with a weird looking one (bottom right corner on the picture) it tasted foul. Don’t get me wrong I like my cheese strong and smelly. A Camembert is not good if you can’t smell it through the fridge door, but there it tasted rotten. Even before trying it I had doubt about the colour, a weird brownish tint with brownish coloured mold, but I thought “you never know” In my life I had my share of weird looking cheeses that tasted amazing. Not that time! I jumped on the other cheese to try and wash out the taste of the first one but I could get rid of it. I poured myself a cup of coffee add some soya milk and noticed to my surprise that the milk was curdling in the black beverage.
That was it! I grabbed the phone and called room service to complain about the milk which was off. The nice guy on the phone was very sorry and took on himself to send up another pot of coffee and fresher milk. After a few minutes it arrived. “Sir, is there a problem with your milk” said the guy at the door (Maybe I was lying), he was very surprised. “indeed there is” and I showed him my cup with the curdled milk floating on top. After various appology he served me a new cup of coffee and poured the fresher milk. It curdled again! The waiter was baffled and didn’t know what to say. I decided that I was done with soy and asked the guy to bring me some run of the mill cow milk. Which he did as well as comping the coffee from the check. During the whole thing I still had the foul taste of the cheese in my mouth – that didn’t go away by itself, nothing less than chewing on toothpaste worked to loose it.
All and all I was very disapointed by the experience, it is just burger and cheese but it was enough for me to have all my next meal outside the hotel. Gordon you need to sort things out over there.
English
French
Yeah..from the photo, we can definitely see the rotten cheese. That is clearly an old Blue Cheese, too old obviously.