The Genting Club
“oh” I thought to myself as I received the invitation, “is this somewhere new?” I wondered as I read the blurb about the Genting Club. It turns out that no, it isn’t, in fact it’s been open five years and I’ve never heard about it before. This probably wasn’t a good sign, l consider myself (rightly or wrongly?) to be fairly well-informed about Liverpool restaurants, one managing to be open for this long without me hearing about it cannot be a good thing, can it?
Truthfully told, this wasn’t great, the standard bar and grill effort lumped in with a casino, and a menu I’ve seen a hundred times before and available in so many other places. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but it would have to be very well cooked and great value to really stand out in such a well populated restaurant concept.
To give an accurate description of this restaurant, my approach to writing this review says it all. Two days after eating there, when I sat down to start typing this up I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d eaten. Sometimes this happens for a course or two, but for me I couldn’t remember a thing, apart from my friends half decent steak. I reached for my trusty iphone, to help relive what wasn’t memorable at all.
Starters of seared scallop salad and leak and potato soup were OK, a reasonable soup at £4.50 served with the usual mass-produced bread. Scallops were well cooked, but lacked much flavour. My lamb rump main from the specials was a bit dry and over cooked, the flavours were ok except the oil coated green beans, a concept continued with a side of seasonal veg. I’m not sure why you’d do this, OK a nice knob of butter in with some veg is good but a coating of general cooking oil? It makes them look shiny but smothers any flavour, they were left uneaten. My friends fillet steak was cooked well, lovely and pink and quite tasty, although accompanying chips pleasing appearance belied their sogginess.
Puds had the usual suspects on board, so we chose chocolate fondant and cream brulee, the fondant being quite good, gooey and lovely in the centre and rich deep chocolate flavours. The brulee was nice once we’d hammered through the heavy and very burnt crust. The fondant was probably the best dish of the night.
All through the evening the service was friendly and helpful and really quite good, even if the dishes were quite slow coming out of the kitchen. The cooking and style of food was average at best, it is not that it’s bad it’s just that it’s very run of the mill. This is reasonably priced average food, thus it is competing with so many other places it will never stand out. Will I return? Probably not, as I doubt I’ll remember it.
This was an invited review, I did not pay for my meal. I apologise for the photographs, it was quite dark in there.
