I have a general rule of never going to Cowley solely for a meal. Pleasant though many of the restaurants east of the Cherwell are, it’s just bit of a trek, and I’m not that dedicated as a reviewer. No meal is worth a thirty minute walk, or even a cycle ride that’s almost entirely uphill from Magdelen roundabout onwards. But a friend wanted to try Carne, and like the selfless, generous fellow that I am, I relented and agreed to make the arduous journey across the wilds of east Oxford. This was a mistake.
Carne advertises itself as ‘the best steak house, BBQ bar in Oxford.’ I have no idea what a ‘BBQ bar’ is, but Carne is an all-you-can-eat place. There’s a buffet, with a variety of salady-things along with some potatoes, pasta and the like. Once you’re back at your table, the waiters come around every five minutes or so with a lump of meat on a skewer, from which they carve. In theory, this goes on for the entire evening, and you can eat and eat until your chair collapses. Now, most all-you-can-eat places have some devious method of preventing you from eating them into bankruptcy. Pizza places spray extra oil onto their buffet food, to make you feel fuller more quickly. Some Chinese buffets add artificial appetite-suppressants to their food. Carne has a different method: it just makes the food utterly, retch-inducingly disgusting.
The buffet offerings looked like they had been sitting there, under their heat lamps all day. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were unchanged from the lunchtime produce. One offering of ‘fish [of indeterminate species] a la Brazialiana’ was looked particularly vile, sodden lumps of white flesh bobbing apologetically in a vat of pale yellowish liquid, which had formed a thick skin on the surface which came away with Ruth’s spoon. ‘That fish looks like the waste products of a particularly major liposuction operation have been deposited in a vat of heavily congealed semen,’ I observed. ‘It does, but you can’t say that in the paper,’ she replied.
The meat that they brought to our table was a little better, but not much. Pork was dry as a bone, a lump of beef was indifferent, some lamb was ok while chicken hearts are a perfect demonstration of why everyone else serves leg or breast. The waiter was quite sweet though.
We ordered a cocktail: a pitcher of ‘Amazon Sunshine’ made with ‘a tropical berry called aceola that contains ten time more vitamin c than orange, plus cachaca fresh lime juice, sugar and mint leaves.’ I have no idea what alcohol they put in it, but whatever it was they clearly emptied most of a bottle; the final mixture was so strong that it was basically undrinkable. I took one sip and came very close to spraying it all over my pork (which, to be honest, could have used the flavour). Neither of us finished our first glass, let alone the whole pitcher. It cost £20 – £20! – which is more than they charge you at Bridge. Someone promised to bring us a jug of water, but it never came. There were two other tables occupied in the whole room, which was dark, cavernous, and featured orange plastic chairs and a football game playing on a projector screen on the wall. No-one appeared watching.
Carne epitomises everything that is wrong with restaurants today. It represents the triumph of quantity over quality: the idea that you can have a good time just by stuffing your face with ridiculous quantities of cheap meat really grates in an era when people are becoming more and more aware of the health and environmental consequences of excessive meat consumption. The food might be cheap, but they do a fine job of making it back on the drink prices. Above all, Carne is indicative of management who just don’t care: about food, décor, service, the environment, or the simple business of giving customers a good time. Avoid.
Rating: 1/5
In short: No-one is carnivorous enough for this
