Strada Restaurants.

Time for a little outing for me (at last!!), so we decided to go out for lunch into Reading.

The Oracle offers many restaurants to the discerning foodie, and Mark and I thought it time we re-visited a one time favourite - Strada.

We ventured out fairly late on in the day, and by the time we had walked into town it was approaching 2 pm.  Strada is located on the far side of the Oracle, on the riverside. 

I think we were probably only the 4th couple in there at that time, so we had plenty of places to sit.  We picked a nice table which was probably intended for 3 people in the corner of the restaurant.

We were left with the menus to peruse.

Now, when Strada first opened which I think must have been getting on for 5 years ago, as soon as you sat down you were offered fresh cold filtered tap water.  Sadly this practice seems to have stopped nowadays.  We had to choose diet coke (neither of us were particularly keen to be knocking back more alcohol at lunch time).  Personally I think the coke was over priced, at £2.25 for a very small glass.  Oh well, at least it was cold.

Now on to the food choice.  I fancied soup; but having found out the soup of the day was tomato, opted for the clam soup.  Lovely, with a dash of chili - lots of clams in their shells at the bottom of the bowl.  Mark chose the tricolore salad - and was presented with what can only be described as a very mean portion - about 3 slices of avocado and 3 slices of tomato - I think this cost about £4.25 - excessive for such a dish.

My main course was Saltimbocca, (pan fried pork fillet, covered with parma ham) and accompanied with mash potatoes and green beans.  It was ok, nothing special - again portion sizes not fantastic, and it is a good job that my appetite is not huge.  Mark opted for the four seasons pizza, the base was cooked very well, but the topping was extremely mean, hardly good value for a total cost of £10.45.  I think it was marketed as 'four pizzas in one' which was a bit of a joke, as I don't think you could have got one pizza's topping out of what was on offer on this one!

The service wasn't good, we asked to look at the dessert menu, and were left for about 20 minutes before I finally managed to get the waitress to come back to the table.  In the end, we decided against any more food as we had spent quite enough time in the restaurant.

My score out of 5:-

Would be 3.5 - ok (ish) but certainly gone down hill since they first opened. Not enough choice on the menu.