The Scene, World End Distillery, 459 Kings Road, SW10 0LR - 0203 362 3362

Some of you might have some legitimate grievances with this Blog. It probably isn't due to the long winded anecdotes that introduce reviews or the substandard quality of writing but the fact that you fail to see the link between punk music and eating out. The answer is togetherness. When I finished university for the first time I was very fortunate that a large proportion of my mates moved to London to take jobs. As a result one of my dear friends, before he embarked in throwing himself off bikes and trying to collect every credit card like Panini football stickers, Bearded and I instigated this thing called the "Culinary Tour". Each week we would choose a nations cuisine and get all the uni crew together with their respective partners to go out and eat, drink and most of all laugh. This sense of togetherness and belonging is a similar feeling to when you're standing in the middle of a crowd at a punk gig where everyone comes out for a common goal, to raise their fist in the air and enjoy a damn good evening with like minded people. At the height of the "Culinary Tour" we were getting 20 people out each week. It was so populalr that we nearly caused the waiter at an Ethiopian restaurant in Oval to have a nervous breakdown as we all wanted to pay by card, however as the pressures of work and the inevitable girlfriends and babies got in the way the "Culinary Tour" subsided. Five years since its inception it has been reprised (sort of) as Bearded and myself have recruited our hard moisturising, Bollywood film star look alike friend, Shantilal, to hunt out the best Tex Mex restaurants we can find.

Shantilal, Bearded and I love ribs. It's a fact, we're a rib-a-holics. Shantilal admitted last night that he used to liberate ready cooked ribs from a famous supermarket that he used to work at, a Che Guevara rib freedom fighter if you will. In fact if Dickens had wrote the book "A Tale of Two Ribies" we would ensure that it was a best seller. Our latest quest for BBQ pork based perfection brought us to The Scene at the top of London's epicentre for yummy mummy's the Kings Road. The Scene occupies a bizarre location. it is dwarfed by the World's End Estate which has many of the problems that an inner city London conurbation suffers from (I worked in a school on the estate for 4 months) but across the road you have the Ferrari's and Rolls Royce's parked outside exclusive boutique shops and galleries. The Scene occupies the old site of the World's End Distillery a previously fairly rough pub and has converted itself into a three tier dining experience. The upstairs is called the Summerhouse and specialises in serving seafood in a setting that resembles a twee English seaside town, the impressive looking basement can be reserved for private parties, we ate at The Scene whose walls are decorated like an American cinema and a wide screen TV was showing the seminal Brat Pack classic The Breakfast Club. A real cool setting with some tables outside, ticking all the boxes so far.

Unfortunately The Scene let us down a little. We've been twice now and we were surprised that in a one month period the menu had changed. Gone were the hot and spicy chicken wings and the Chinese marinaded spare ribs that we had last time, both of which were packed full of flavour and replaced with a slightly substandard Tex Mex fair you could find in most chain restaurants. We ordered a round of BBQ chicken wings (£5.50) for the table, they were as described "deep fried and slathered in BBQ sauce" however the wings were a little skimpy with not much meat on them. The were served with the obligatory celery (which came out curly quite bizarrely) and the blue cheese dressing. Maybe it's my pallete but the combination of BBQ and blue cheese didn't quite work. We all then went for the BBQ baby back ribs (£13.50) which were served on a bed of coleslaw which turned the underside of the ribs all creamy. The ribs had been rubbed prior to cooking but like the wings they just didn't feel substantial and the smaller ribs at the end were overdone, bordering on burnt. For £13.50 a portion you would expect your ribs to have some starches with it but we had to order some home fries (squares of potatoes, deep fried topped with an interesting salt and coriander gremolata thing) and some well tasty onion rings both of which came in at £3.25 each. We all had the Chocolate Brownie at the end which was moist and warm but the ice crystals in the vanilla ice cream leads me to believe that it had been refrozen.

Maybe we just caught The Scene on a bad night? The first time we went the food was much better. The other stuff coming out of the kitchen did look really tasty especially the chicken cobb and BBQ bacon burger however we left a tad disappointed. The positives include a really great range of American beers, including the excellent Brooklyn Lager on tap (£3.90) and the delightfully hoppy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (£3.50) and for those who like the alcoholic and sweet combination a range of hard shakes.

All in all a cool place to drink but not so great to eat.

Food: 6/10
Service: 8/10
Value for money: 5/10
Why should I go?: Because the drinks are cool and it provides a good contrast with some of the areas other eateries.
http://www.theworldsend.co/