Second chances undeserved - Centro still SUCKS

The other night I went back to Centro.

It's been nearly two years since I was last there, so I thought there was a chance it might have got its act together a bit.

Well, the waiting staff are all new since my last visit, mostly very tall girls. They do a pretty decent job, and most of them seem to speak some English. That's a big step forward from before.

But that is the only sign of progress. The layout of the room is still abysmal. The acoustics are still awful (with just a few dozen people there, the hubbub becomes deafening). It is still impossible to get served at the bar. The bar staff are still agonisingly slow. The drinks are still watered down (and/or served with far too much ice). And the prices are more outrageous than ever (I was charged £5 for a gin & tonic with no discernible gin in it.... that's 6 times as expensive as it is at the Haiku Bar - where you can definitely taste the gin!!). The Choirboy was telling me the other day that he once sent back a martini no fewer than 4 times, until they finally gave him one with full-strength gin. The place is an outrageous rip-off.

Ah, yes, and the pièce de résistance, the climax of an unlovely evening, came when we were unceremoniously thrown off our table at 8pm because it was ostensibly 'reserved'. I was unaware it was possible to reserve tables. There was nothing on the table to indicate that it was reserved. Nobody had told us it was reserved when we sat down. I was inclined to refuse to move, but I was part of a big group and thus not calling the shots. So, a hard-drinking party of 8 was offended and alienated..... to accommodate a couple of Chinese would-be big shots, who were apparently only drinking soft drinks.

I think it will be at least another couple of years before I go back there again.

And it does rather discourage me from squandering 'second chances' on any of the places that I've conceived a violent prejudice against. My gut instincts about matters like this are almost always very sound. And bad bars seldom if ever redeem themselves. Most of the time, they just get worse and worse.