Banana Wharf - Hamble, Southampton

                              A sailing restaurant with prices like the waves (up and down!)
Nestled on the front of the Hamble waterfront is Banana Wharf, one of two in the Southampton area. This resaturant offers food to the sailing community as well as from the general public who tend to come down for the lovely views and al fresco experience in the summer time. Unfortunately, the weather did not reflect this for our visit, but Clair thought it a different place to explore with the old taste buds!

First look at the menu and the gang were shocked at the prices! It would indeed be a struggle for us to stick to 3 courses and remain in the £25 bracket, so it seemed that 2 courses were the way forward. It was surreal that the prices of the food were so varied! So it was straight to main courses for everyone this time round.

Clair opted for the vegetable pizza with a side order of mixed leaf salad. The quality of this was superb. It was tasty, crispy and full of flavour and she was very impressed with the dish. Pete also had a pizza, opting for the "Bear" pizza, which consisted of  pepperoni, chillies, asparagus and cheese. It was really nice, apart from the thin crust, which was a little overdone and burnt on the edges. Gemma had the chicken bacon burger and chips with a special salsa. It was lovely.  She really enjoyed it and felt it was a sensible portion for the price. Very filling and good quality of food in her opinion.

High expectations for the pricey desserts as the quality of food so far was superb. Clair and Dean shared a crepe filled with fresh fruit, although this had to be re ordered as we were served a fresh fruit platter instead!! It was delicious and again, of very high quality. Gemma had the lemon and sugar crepe. Again the prices had her feeling a little restricted and she was gobsmacked that whatever quality of ice cream they have it is not fair to charge the custoimer over £1.50 for a single scoop when we could see it came from an industrial sized tub!!  On that basis 4 customers would pay for the tub and the rest would be skimming profits! For that reason she chose not to have the single scoop and it was fine without (would have been perfect with!)

Pete had the banoffee pie. It was fantastic, with fresh whipped cream and a toffee sauce topped with a whole banana. The only issue was the price. At. £7.50, which he felt was a bit steep for what you get.

Our other main issue with the venue was the state of the toilets. They were not clean and had glass doors, meaning that people could see through the doors to the people in the cubicles. Even the frosted glass they used did not hide this enough!! The staff, although smart in appearance appeared distant and like they wanted to be elsewhere. No banter or many smiles here.

We were most disappointed that the quality of the food was not reflected in the staff attitude and state of the toilets. The irradic pricing also was not much to be desired.

Marks out of 10................................6.5 (Clair Maskell)