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Posted: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 05:59:02 GMT

AUSTRALIAN cuisine has, generally, gone down rather well in London.

No wonder really, given Britain’s capital is stuffed with about 100,000 Australians, all of whom likely crave an avo smash and a half decent long black.

Coffee shop Flat White, which opened in the heart of Soho in 2005, introduced Brits to the milky drink which is now ubiquitous in the motherland. While celeb chef Bill Granger’s casual dining destinations have seduced trendy Londoners.

But a hilariously awful evaluation of another Australian inspired eatery has shown that the love for all things Antipodean has its limit.

Farm Girl cafe will rue the day The Guardian’s Jay Rayner came for a feed. His excruciating review of the establishment, that describes itself as “a holistic yet comfortingly simple approach to Australian cafe culture,” will win it no new customers.

Rayner was so underwhelmed, he said a nearby Yorkshire terrier might be more appetising.

“We don’t stay for dessert, we’ve suffered enough,” he said.

The cafe cum restaurant’s website states that the original “Farm Girl” was called “Rose”. Her “childhood spent on an Australian farm means she’s hardier than she looks and appreciates simple country living.”

The menu isn’t so simple though. It includes such delicacies as jack fruit tacos, coconut bacon (actually “smoked and seasoned coconut flesh”) and kale salad which can be sprinkled with “superfood” extras like bee pollen and chlorophyll. Wash it all down with turmeric or activated charcoal latte.

Pete Evans would love this place. Rayner did not.

The menu didn’t help. “There’s V for Vegan. There’s GF for Gluten Free. There’s DF for Dairy Free. I think they’re missing a few. There should be TF for Taste Free and JF for Joy Free and AAHYWEH for Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here,” he wrote.

Farm Girl is situated in Chelsea, one of London’s poshest suburbs, think Paddington in both Sydney and Brisbane, or Toorak in Melbourne.

“It fills quickly on a cold winter’s evening with blonde-tressed Chelsea women just bubbling with intolerances,” he said.

You can already tell it’s not going well. Then the food arrives. Every course is, more or less, a disaster.

A globe artichoke has been “boiled until it as soft and rank as Grandma’s cabbage, only with less glamour”. A bowl of “Market Veggies” has a “carrot hummus” smear that looks, “like someone had an intimate accident and decided to close the loo door and run away”.

Surely, you can’t go wrong with a schnitzel? Guess again. “The meat is overcooked and has the texture of something Timpson’s (a shoe shop) might one day think about using to resole my brogues.” Unforgivably, the breadcrumbs are soggy.

Then a vegetable curry. “It would be regarded as an utter, shameful travesty by many in South-East Asia, but it’s not actively unpleasant,” The Guardian reviewer wrote, damning the joint with the faintest of praise.

“It’s not just the dismal cooking that pains me here. It’s the squandering of ingredients and of people’s time and the tiresome narrative of ‘wellness’ with which it’s been flogged.

“I find myself eyeing the Yorkshire terrier, greedily. Just hand him over, give me access to the grill, and five minutes.”

It’s by no means the first time Rayner has done such an elegant job of eviscerating a restaurant, seemingly taking great joy in dumping its disgorged reputation on the footpath on the way out.

Last year, he tore into Paris’ La Cinq, a restaurant with three Michelin stars and a rating of 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor.

Diners pay through the nose for the privilege of eating in its high-ceiling dining room, which Rayner described as “the scene of the crime” where thick carpets “muffle the screams”.

Dishes cost between $70 to $200 each.

While in his Observer review, Rayner did attempt to compliment some aspects of the meal, a “compelling flaky brioche” for instance, the rest he found risible.

He described a canape that consisted of a transparent ball on a spoon, as looking like a “Barbie-sized silicone breast implant”, which released stale air when eaten.

Another amuse-bouche filled with passionfruit and watercress puree was so bitter, “My lips purse, like a cat’s arse that’s brushed against nettles”.

Frozen mousse cigars wrapped in tuile which had an elastic flap of mild skin draped over it, was “like something that’s fallen off a burns victim”.

As for his review of the Australian cafe in London, Rayner said he headed straight off to the nearest burger restaurant for some proper food.

His latest target, however, seemed unperturbed by the carve-up.

Replying to a Facebook post on Farm Girl’s page pointing to the review, founder Rose Mann hinted she had taken it in good humour.

“We think it’s a very entertaining piece and rather enjoyed reading it,” she wrote.

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