ROCK LOBSTA at MAHIKI

On Tuesday night the boy and I went to Carl Clarke’s new venture, Rock Lobsta at Mahiki, near Green Park. Mahiki is not somewhere I would normally choose to spend my evenings, but stick one of my favourite chefs in there, cooking up a seafood feast, and I was there like a shot!! The last time I ate Carl’s food was in a beach hut on top of a roof in East London, on what was meant to be a sunny evening last summer, when in fact, it poured rain all night, and rather than enjoy the food as I should’ve done, I sat shuddering from the rain and cold in the corner of the roof top hut. However, Tuesday night was a much warmer, more enjoyable experience.

We booked in for the 2^nd night of the restaurant’s soft launch. A soft launch is normally done by restaurants in the days or weeks leading up to the official opening, and it gives the restaurant the chance to tweak any details that need changing, and to get feedback from customers who only have to pay 50% of the price of food. Quite often soft launches can be a bit chaotic and leave you wondering how they will actually run a restaurant so soon. Not Rock Lobsta though. I was so impressed by not only the quality and taste of the food, but the truly excellent service and attention to detail that it made it feel like a regular night at a fully established restaurant.

We arrived slightly early so headed downstairs into the actual club. So that we wouldn’t get forgotten we were given a flashing, vibrating lobster, that they would call us on when our table was ready. And no sooner than we had ordered a bottle of wine at the bar, did our little plastic crustacean light up and start vibrating, much to everyone's amusement!

So back upstairs we headed, to the appropriately decorated paradise bar where Rock Lobsta has taken residency. The décor of the room is great, and so in keeping with the theme of the food – light shades were made from scallop shells and the sinks in the toilets were giant conches.

We were seated in a little cubby hole table, just for the 2 of us, and given a menu that I honestly could've worked my way through and eaten one of everything from!

In the end we went for fried beer cheese, lobster corndogs and soft shell crab to start. It was actually a bit of a deep fry overdose but that was my fault for choosing 3 deep fried options! It didn't matter though as they were all so good. The fried beer cheese was a revelation and the gooseberry ketchup served with it cut right through the fats. The soft shell crab was tasty and moreish, and dipped in the chilli vinegar, was elevated to a whole new level. Lobster corndogs tasted so much of lobster (a delicate flavour that can sometimes get overpowered), and were also served with the wonderful chilli vinegar.

For mains we decided to share half a lobster, and a 40 day aged Dexter ribeye steak. Both were really fantastically cooked - the beef literally melted in my mouth. The taste between dry aged and wet aged meat really is like tasting two different foods. The dry aged meat used by top end restaurants and available in good, local butchers just tastes a million times better than the vacu-packed stuff you get in the supermarkets. The photo I took of our steak doesn't do it justice, so I'm not even going to show you! I think you should go to Rock Lobsta and see and try it for yourself!

The lobster was also delicious, with a parsley garlic butter that was just the right balance to go with the shellfish. And those little white twirly bits are lobster flavoured crispy bits that were a nice addition of texture to the plate.

One of the things that particularly impressed me about Rock Lobsta at Mahiki, apart from the amazing food, and the fact that the kitchen catered for the boy's allergy to chilli, was the music. Summery dub reggae and rare grove tunes played at just the perfect volume all night, loud enough to hear and feel, but not too loud that I was shouting across the table at the boy! The music really added to the feeling that, surrounded by shells, and eating amazing seafood, I could’ve been in a shack near a beach filling my tummy with all that’s good! The service was also brilliant at Rock Lobsta, kind and attentive without being annoying - their head of front of house has just come from the very popular but now closed Roganic restaurant. The only thing I didn't like was the funny little culotte type, aubergine colour playsuits that the poor waitresses had to wear!!

Rock Lobsta officially opens this Friday, and you can book a table via their website - http://www.mahiki.com/rocklobsta/ or by calling them on 020 7493 9529. I highly recommend a visit!