Jimmy's in Brighton

Well, here's a new experience.  I've had good food and bad food in restaurants, and I've heard good and bad news in them too, but I've never before had a restaurant meal that made me cross.  I'm still cross, nearly two weeks later.

Even my cathartic angry Tripadvisor review hasn't made me feel any better.

Jimmy's isn't somewhere we'd normally eat, but we wanted to go to the cinema (Avengers: Age of Ultron, a fun actiony explosiony film with a bit more character development and a lot more heart than usual, but the usual waffer-thin plot) which entails going to one of those complexes on the edge of town that has nothing but chains.

We went to Jimmy's because we'd been to all of the other chains before and thought it might offer something different.

I won't repeat my review here, except to say that the food was far and away the worst thing I've put in mouth... well, ever, actually.  Worse than the canteen at work.  Worse than supermarket ready meals.  Worse than anything you'd find on a station concourse.

Until now I had two amusing bad-meal stories: the most disappointing meal I'd ever had was in a pub in Whitstable where I ordered moules marinieres because I could see the harbour with all the fish suppliers along it, and it came out still frozen in one-half of the dish.  The worst meal I'd ever had was a breakfast in the Wetherspoons in Brighton (to be fair to 'spoons they are quite variable and the Bright Helm is a dive) which came out stone cold and when I sent it back the same breakfast reappeared a few minutes later having spent some time in the microwave.  Do you know what a fried egg looks like when it's gone cold and been re-heated?  Or what happens to brown sauce when you nuke it?

This was worse.

But why am I still cross about it?  I'm generally quite a laid-back sort of person so I thought it was worth examining.

This must be about more than just bad food: I've had bad food elsewhere and not got angry about it.

The aforementioned canteen at work has some shockers, but it's quite easily navigated: avoid all the bought in gack (pies, pasties, burgers etc) and eat what's been made in-house - the salad bar, the sandwiches, the excellent haloumi burgers and the curries, chillis and pasta bakes.  This doesn't make me angry: it's a small team of dedicated and friendly people doing their best on the minimum wage with crap raw materials and equipment.  I salute them, and I'm very happy to eat haloumi and portabello mushroom in a bun with salad, coleslaw and chips for £3.50.

We went to a gig recently at a venue in Southampton where the only food within walking distance was a McDonalds.  The restaurant experience is a bit nasty with the queuing, the noise, the bright lights and the uncomfortable chairs, but we needed food and it did the job without being actively horrible.  The worst thing I can say about McDonalds is that it makes me sad: the place has stood completely still since my 'teens in the '90s at the very least while the general standard of food in the UK has got better and better.  Look objectively at your town: I guarantee there's somewhere you can get a better burger than McDonalds.  No, I can't be angry about a place that sells lunch with no real nutritional value but an all-right-I-suppose flavour for a fiver.

Last time I serviced the car, the national chain of garages I chose ballsed up my booking so rather than spending a pleasant afternoon in Brighton with its wide range of dog-friendly eateries and strolling opportunities I found myself on a trading estate in Newhaven.  My dog isn't allowed in the McDonalds or the KFC on the trading estate, so it was a mile-long walk around the harbour for us, to the nearest pub.  I had a chicken burger which was a bit rubbish.  It all seemed to have come from Tesco: a breaded chicken breast in a cheapo white bap with oven chips and some limp salad on the side.  Still, it was cheap and I liked watching the boats come and go.  The pub was done up nicely and the chairs were comfy too.  No, I can't be angry at a pub in an out-of-the-way corner of a fairly run-down town where the food isn't up to my high standards.  I was probably the first person who'd eaten there all week: what would be the point of paying a top-end chef?

So.  Jimmy's.  What have you done to earn my wrath?

Last time we went to the pictures it hadn't opened.  It looked very exciting though: it's all glazed and the windows had been filled with really exciting images of food and slogans.  It looked like an exciting, up and coming sort of place.  There were fliers.  They had an online presence.  There was buzz.

So, onto our recent cinema trip.  The place looked great from the outside, and inside.  It's big, but it's done up nicely.  There are serving staff everywhere and they're obviously well-trained as they're very efficient despite being uniformly very young. It looks like a slick new restaurant.

And there it is.  That's the root of my anger.  It feels like we were lied to.

Most places telegraph their intentions.  I know, for example, never to go into a pub with a Sky Sports banner strung across it.  I know that no matter where I am in the world the Golden Arches mean an unhealthy but not-horrible meal for not much money and a clean toilet to use afterwards.

Jimmy's wrote cheques its food couldn't cash.  It ran an effective local advertising campaign, fitted out a big but lovely-looking room, trained its waiting staff to perfection... I was even excited by the "how Jimmy's works" stuff on the paper placemats.

Then we were punched in the face with the worst food we've ever had.

Then we paid a bill which was about twice what it would have been in the neighbouring Nandos or Wetherspoons.

More fool you, you might say: surely a buffet restaurant is never going to be any good!  Not so.  We've eaten at Zsa Zsa Bazaar in Bristol which was quite impressive.  It's a noisy barn of a place and you're on a time limit but the food is pretty good.  Not somewhere for a special occasion, but reasonably priced for quite decent food.

If you ask yourself "How can I make the most money out of my customers for the least outlay?" you wend your way along a road which probably starts with Russell Norman's Polpo brand (London locations, high end food, all the numbers are worked out well in advance - and good luck to him for that) via Nandos (one sort of food done really quite well with a nod at ethical sourcing) then your burger joints.  Finally, at the very end of that road, after its gone through some gates and become a rutted track you find Jimmy's: a chain that claims to appeal to even the most fractious and divided family, or to offer everything to the most adventurous foodie, while actually just peddling schlock that's a bit worse than the supermarket value ranges.