Gordon Ramsay's The London West Hollywood - Lunch

New thing today, went to Gordon Ramsay's The London West Hollywood for lunch on Saturday. Took the family out for Christmas and their lunch menu looked interesting. Sounds like it's seasonal, so they may or may not have the same items when you go, but here's what I thought. 

Overall the hotel is SWANKY! Very posh, very modern, sophisticated, elegant and cool. It wasn't busy for lunch, but we did have a celebrity siting, someone from the TV show LOST was there :) So it was really neat. That might be a first, seeing THAT celebrity at the restaurant.

Anyway, the ambiance was great, service was a little lack luster - I assume from the holidays or we didn't look important enough to wait on appropriately. I asked for a window seat and they said they were booked up with reservations for tables by the window (even though I made reservations in advance, and the entire time the restaurant was mostly empty). Anyway all through our lunch, we saw maybe 3 tables empty by the windows where we could have been seated, but we didn't get to, so that was poor on their part.

Brocoli Soup - with cheddar croutons. Winner winner! This was an amazing soup! Flavorful! A little salty at the end, but the croutons were amazing. They softened up over time and it was a very good soup - everyone enjoyed it. 

Steak Tartare and French Fries. I've always wanted to try steak tartare and this was a first! It had good flavor and the texture of the french fries (more like potato strings) was a good mix for the dish. I thought it was a lot of tartare though for the appetizer, but it was good. I expected the dish to taste a lot more like cooked steak or ribeye, but instead had the texture and flavor more of sashimi. 

Chicken Shnitzel. Disappointed! Very oily and a bit dry inside. Also I like mustard but there was a lot of mustard with every bite as it was plated on the mustard mix, and it was just too much. I probably should have sent it back, but ugh, I hated this and no one else at the table seemed to like it either. 

Miso Marinated Black Cod with bok choy and shiitake mushrooms. This was amazing! The fish was cooked perfectly and the rest of the dish was so good. This was the best entree at the table!

Ramen Noodles with Pork Belly, Egg & Swiss Chard. This was good. It was a soup you had to mix the egg into. Overall quite tasty and if you're in the mood for ramen noodles is descent. I thought it was a little bland, but it was still pretty good. 

Black Angus Burger. This was just alright. A burger, perhaps above average, but not amazing either?

English Sticky Toffee Pudding - Game Changer! This was by far the best dish we had. It was insanely good. I'm not even a dessert fan and I was in love with this dish. Would gladly go back just for coffee and this.

So in the end, the food had a range from amazing (pudding, cod and soup) to disappointing (chicken shnitzel & burger), but I did get to try a new dish - steak tartare which was good. Service was below par, and if I'm paying this much money for the restaurant, I'd hope it would be better. I've had better burgers and service at other restaurants for a lot less money. There was a celebrity siting so that was sorta of neat, and the ambiance was very very cool. I would go back and try other things, the other people I went with, don't know if they liked it that much to ever go back. The service was a definite *ugh to the whole thing. Oh well.