Hundreds Seafood Restaurant, Southend-on-Sea: Review

I had a couple of hours to kill in Southend, so decided to treat myself to lunch. I drove along the seafront and saw the Hundreds Seafood Restaurant. I love seafood and assumed that the best place to indulge my cravings was at the seaside. Also, the Hundreds restaurant is a small shack, with the diners sitting in an awning complete with heat lamps. This place looked both quaint and a mess, so I thought that it must be a Southend institution, otherwise the council would have told them to smarten up, right? Afterall, this place is on the beach, just up the road from the rather posh Thorpe Bay. Maybe the food is so good, they don't have to look smart; the diners come back so often, this business hardly need try.

My assumptions were wrong.

I went in and saw that the last two diners were just leaving. I was in this place by myself. I found the waitress rather rude. She seemed to find it a terrible inconvenience that a customer was wanting some grub.

Their lunch menu consists of filled ciabattas, tapas and 8 meals. I didn't fancy a ciabatta, tapas are not ideal for a single diner, so I opted for the sea bass. The waitress abruptly told me that there was no seabass. Or mackerel. There didn't seem to be much fish on the premises really. I opted for the ham, eggs and chips, ordered a cappuccino and took a seat. My cappuccino arrived in a latte glass, and didn't taste very good. It was luke warm and not particularly coffee-like.

I was most disappointed with my meal. This restaurant is not cheap. At £7.95 for a simple meal of ham, eggs and chips, I had high expectations. As soon as the waitress gave me the food I knew I'd made a mistake. The eggs were not fried. They were poached in oil, where the white has no crispiness, colour or bubbles. These are not fried eggs! The ham was very wet and not nice. The bread and butter was a pointless addition to a heavy meal. The chips tasted of oil that needed to be changed.

It tasted like a meal I would have expected in a cheapo greasy spoon or naff chain pub. It tasted like it should have cost £5. It was not a meal I would have expected to be eating at a prime location on the Essex coast.

I will not be visiting again. I will try the chippy opposite.