Little Cosmo, Newcastle-
We thought we would try Little Cosmo before attending a concert as we missed the old Za Za Bazzar in The Gate and hoped that we might enjoy having another world buffet to eat at. How wrong we were!
We had booked ahead and were greeted by a poor girl who looked absolutely indifferent and sick of her life. She seated us and said that someone would come and take our drinks order and payment. This took ages, leaving us just sitting there looking at each other and wondering if anyone was going to bother. Eventually a Chinese girl came over and though she clearly had almost zero English, managed to take our order with some pointing at her screen.
Finally I could go and look at this supposed 'world buffet' which turned out to be a row of supposedly Indian dishes on one side, and Chinese on the other. There were other bits and pieces around, but little of it appealed. Being a curry fan, I went for the Indian and started with a 'chicken masala'.
The chicken was quite hard, meaning that it was overcooked, old, or both, and the sauce was barely there- think of the juice from a can of tomatoes tipped over some rubbery chicken and you won't be far off. Whatever it tasted of, it wasn't 'curry'.
Next I tried a lamb dish, though it was unlabelled. This turned out to be random lumps of mutton, some extremely chewy, in virtually no sauce at all. This felt 'wrong' as I went on, so I left the rest of it. With nothing else appealing to me I went back to the 'chicken masala' as it had been freshly replenished, but this was still the same very poor quality.
I had one dish of dessert- a couple of little squares of cake and some ice-cream. This is just from one of those whippy machines and as we were sat near it we saw endless people struggle to get anything out of it at all. I avoided the chocolate fountain- there were too many children playing with it and the dishes of Haribo type sweets.
My partner had chosen primarily chinese, and commented that the 'chicken' in the sweet and sour was very poor- it 'tasted funny'.
Overall the place was very noisy, too- between that and the ticking clock from when they seat you, there's no relaxation here at all. It is a meat market of noise and activity.
With our time up(!) and not feeling great we headed on our way towards our venue, cutting through Eldon Square; passing the toilets I knew where my unsettled feeling was heading and sure enough, the whole lot came back out again in one huge hit. I have a very solid constitution and really can eat anything, so for me to throw it all back up was very telling. Fortunately, that was that and there were no further ill effects.
So, to sum up- poor staff, very expensive, noisy surroundings, and most fundamental of all, incredibly poor quality tasteless food that immediately made me ill.
Avoid at all costs!
