Bamboo Grove, CR0 1BE
- 33 South End
Bamboo Grove was a Caribbean restaurant in Croydon. It closed some time in summer 2009, and as of September 2009 the site is occupied by a new business called Aqua Brasserie.
The information below is retained for people who want to know what it used to be like.
bob, elvum, Martin, Claire, and Northern Steve visited on a Thursday evening in January 2009. We had booked a table but this probably wasn't necessary.
The menu is small but covers all the interesting Caribbean foodstuffs. All of the dishes were presented very well, which since the restaurant describes itself as serving "Caribbean nouvelle cuisine" is only to be expected.
We started with two starter platters (£14.70) along with creole duck empanadas (£5.70). The empanadas were pretty good. The prawns on the platters were large and succulent, though the platters as a whole were deemed merely OK.
For mains, Martin and bob had the goat curry (£12.70), which was served in a filo pastry tube. It was certainly tasty, although perhaps lacking the kick it normally has. It was also notable for being boneless without losing any flavour. Northern Steve and Claire had the jerk chicken (£12.75) which was certainly spicy. elvum had the braised oxtail (£12.90). Sides were about £3 and were fine; the fried dumplings were particularly good. They had run out of spicy rice though.
Among the desserts, lime cheesecake (£4.90) was quite good, with a lot of lime. The chocolate terrine was less impressive though — not much chocolate flavour.
The house red was a rather bland and inoffensive temperanillo at £13.50 a bottle. We also ordered a Cotes du Rhone which they had run out of so they offered us a better Cotes du Rhone for the same price (£16.50). We had to ask twice to get a jug of tap water, but we suspect one of the staff may have been new and merely forgot.
They had also run out of the imported Guinness, and about half of the selection of rums included on the menu. The other two beers available were Budweiser and a lime-flavoured lager the brand of which we forget, which would have been good in the sun during the summer, but not for a meal midwinter.
Overall, elvum thought that the food was good quality but not exemplary Caribbean cooking, well-presented, but probably slightly over-priced.
Accessibility: There's an accessible toilet.
See also: