Dinner at the Hotel Du Vin

Hotel du Vin on Trumpington Street has been on our list of Cambridge restaurants to visit for some time now. It's been around for some time now and can probably be regarded as 'established' rather than 'new'. We had been planning to go ever since it opened but for various reasons hadn't quite got round to it. The more time that passed, the greater my expectations became. By now there was little doubt in my mind that we were about to experience delights comparable to Midsummer House.

It was reassuringly fully booked up between 7 and 9 pm, pretty impressive for a Tuesday evening, so we opted for an early 6:30 sitting. Although we didn't turn up early, we were the first customers to arrive and our entrance disrupted the pre-service pep talk. Settled at our table we were presented with a daunting wine list, a vertitable encyclopaedia of beverages fitting of the venue's name. As usual I let Arti decide. I'm really indicisive so I picked the colour and Arti did the rest and we quickly settled for what turned out to be decent Valpolicella. I started with a delicious seared pigeon with polenta, rocket and plum tomato whereas Arti ended up with a bizarre (disappointingly so) tuna carpaccio encrusted with various Indian herbs. I couldn't help but choose the rib-eye steak with garlic butter and pomme frites as my main, as it's rare (pun intended) to find a decent steak in Cambridge. Although it wasn't overdone, which is in the UK a feat in itself, it didn't blow me away and I quickly regretted not having opted for my first choice, the black bream with a plum tomato tart, olive and basil. Maybe next time. Arti enjoyed the venison and beetroot mash but didn't seem wholly enamoured with the sauce. Arti's extremely sweet sticky toffee pudding and my licorice-flavoured Mascarpone Mouse were ordinary, and very unusually for us we didn't clean our plates. I guess that the portions were a little too generous, but had they been truly breathtaking we would surely have made more of an effort. Overall it was a good meal, but given the upmarket feel and the prices to match (£100 for two, with one bottle of wine, plus 10% service charge), I was left ever so slightly disappointed, not because it wasn't good, but I just hoped it would be better. My fault really - had I not bigged it up in my mind, I'm sure I would have been quite content.

Tipping
A 10% service charge was added to the bill. Does this mean that the tip is already spoken for, or are they expecting a tip top up if the service deserves more? Confusingly, there was a space for a gratuity alongside the total on the credit card slip, which I imagine would be used if they enabled a tip to be optionally added before I confirm the amount on the hand-held credit card readers. I don't normally consider this 'problem' for long. Unless the quality of the service, food and general enjoyment of the evening is a disaster I generally don't give it a second thought and just go for 15%, give or take. So I'm wondering whether I need to leave an additional £5 on the table, which to a distant onlooker would look a big stingy? Or are they secretly hoping that I hadn't notice the build-in service charge and donate an additional £15? I opt to put five pound coins on the table, but eventually backtrack and return it to my wallet. Because they had confused me to the extent that I had put more far more thought into this than is sensible, I decide that although the service had been good, the food didn't match my expectations, so I figure that the £10 they had awarded themselves was more fitting. Maybe they knew it too.