croquette | THE LIST

49 Old Street / Tube: Old Street, Farringdon

Price: £11

Food:

Beef & Chorizo Croquette
Chicken, Ham & Pea Croquette
Side Salad (Potato Salad, Red Cabbage, Chickpea and Cauliflower

What we thought

As some of you may know, there is a strong theme running throughout this coffee shop, and that is cycling. You may think that this is nothing to shout about? Bicycles and coffee shops tend to come hand in hand nowadays, and you wouldn’t be wrong to think this. Look Mum No Hands should not be associated with these shops though, and i’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate it either. These guys are completely dedicated to cycling and the cliental proves this. You’ve never seen so many cyclists sitting down for lunch, this place always seems to be busy.

It had been a long day of failed trips to a number of eateries and coffee shops for our usual Sunday brunch, we had always said we should make the trip to Look Mum No Hands and it seemed to be the only place still serving food. The walls are covered in huge photographs of famous cyclists with wheels hanging from the ceiling, it’s a large space and they have used it well, there is also outside seating away from the busy main road and plenty of space to lock up your bike.

We weren’t looking for our usual breakfast items as we had planned to have a big dinner in the evening, so we were looking for a light snack. Being huge fans of the Croquette we couldn’t resist trying theirs, we went for the chicken, ham & pea and the beef & chorizo, along with this we paid a little extra to get a side salad. We went and took our seat and waited for our lunch, it was immediately clear that the service lacked structure and organisation. There was one guy preparing all of the food, and i say preparing lightly. Our food arrived and we were pointed in the direction of the cutlery, and water, i’m hoping this wasn’t their regular service and that they were just understaffed. We bought this lunch to share, half a croquette each, this proved a little difficult though as one plate was twice the size of the other. The croquettes were soft and had obviously been warmed up in the microwave, taking all of the texture away from that lovely golden breadcrumb crust. The beef & chorizo was lacking seasoning and sadly chorizo, we cant understand how such a big flavour could be lost? The the chicken and ham was also very disappointing, the problem within both croquettes was the balance of flavour ingredients to mashed potato, every bite left a coating of potato on the roof of your mouth which was rather unpleasant. The salad was average, the cauliflower and chickpeas looked anaemic and lacked any flavour at all. Overall we found that the potato salad was probably the highlight, which after paying £11 was a pretty disappointing.

We understand that this place has it’s great qualities, highly regarded for coffee, according to the London Coffee Guide anyway, and somewhere for cycling enthusiasts to rest their aching limbs, but when looking for great food, this won’t be a pitstop we will be making again anytime soon.