Apatura

hubby and I decided to have a quick dinner before meeting a friend for drinks. Popped in to Apatura. Wow! Service, food and management amazing. The food was impeccable. Sublime! During the meal I discovered there was a shisha bar in their garden. Awesome. Will definitely be back. Cocktails, food and shisha = perfect!

Everyone keeps telling us to go to South Croydon for a decent place to eat dinner. So we finally heading to the Restaurant Quarter to find that at 12:15 on a Saturday, very few looked open and ready for business.
We noted this place that also had a sign for Conchitas Mexican Grill — excited, I thought maybe the Apatura (whatever that was) had been replaced by a good Mexi joint. But we walked in to find a rather bland version of what qualifies for a «nice restaurant» (e.g., white linen tableclothes, leather arm chairs in the bar area, and an overall mid-​90s sheen).
The menu had mains that hovered in the £9−15 area, a bar menu and a lunch menu, which had a bit of a personality disorder. There was a Tex-​Mex section, there were fish and chips on the menu, meze sharing platters, rib-​eye steaks … what the hell is going on here?
Whatever, that’s their thing, so we rolled with it. I got a Medi sharing platter and a small caesar salad. Husband got the steak and calamari. Both starters were excellent, though my salad had almost nothing about it that would qualify it for a traditional caesar, including the signature dressing. The calamari were fresh and crispy, nicely breaded not greasy or crumb-​y.
Then we waited … and waited and waited for our mains to come out. We got refills. We put more money in the parking meter. Then we waited some more. Finally they emerged, my husband’s steak got a thumbs up (should do for what it cost) and my platter was ok, though it seemed to be a variant of what was on the menu. Whatever, just happy to get some food and be on our way.
Overall it was OK. They do happy hour and that would be a good way to check it out.