Pizza Express Tonbridge is, well, alright....

Yesterday I did something I hardly ever do these days: I went out for lunch. Well actually my sister insisted on it as my Mum was staying with her and they were coming over for the day to visit. Against my better judgement we went to Pizza Express, as big sis had some vouchers. So I shouldn't really complain now should I as that might be looking a gift horse in the mouth. And I know that one or two of the regular commenters on this site are getting a little agitated whenever I have a go at local businesses; but anyway I can only tell it as it is and have absolutely no axe to grind with Pizza Express Tonbridge. In fact the prospect of going there was a nice one and, as it was another unseasonally warm sunshiney day, I had booked a table on the balcony overlooking the river. Sounds nice doesn't it but there was something missing and I was very close to requesting a change of table to just inside when I took a look at the table they'd reserved. It was a small wooden garden table which, quite frankly I wouldn't have allowed in my allotment (if indeed I had one) let alone in a restaurant. It was unsteady, stained with food, olive oil and wine and probably bird crap thrown in for good measure. The chairs were just too low for the table; that said our waitress was good enough to offer my mother, who's in her 80s, a higher chair from inside and the staff were, generally, very attentive and friendly. The floor on the balcony looked dirty like they had only just opened the area up for the season and hadn't quite got around to getting it ready in time. Judging by the dried up flowers they hadn't got around to prettying it up either. Without going in to too much detail about the food we had garlic breads, salads and, of course, a pizza. Guess what the pizza, only a Margarita, was pretty tasty as you might expect what with it being a pizza restaurant; I know this because my mum saved me a slice but I plumped for the Salad Nicoise. Actually that too was quite nice and my sister had a chicken salad, which was also not bad at all. We only had a bottle of water so I can't comment on the wine. The garlic bread was ok although wasn't the large round pizza sized one which we were expecting but more like large dough balls, so we had to order another one to go with the olives for nibbly starters. I say garlic bread but in fact I couldn't taste even a hint of garlic so it was really just buttered dough balls. I left feeling reasonably full and satisfied and we had had a nice talk the three of us and the sun had stayed shining throughout. So what, you may be thinking, am I complaining about? Well that's just it, I can't put my finger on it because, as I said, it was mostly quite nice. Maybe that's it I though it was hoping that it would be much better than just quite nice, ok, mediocre, so so, average, reasonable. I had hoped for something better but then maybe I'm hoping for too much from a chain restaurant who would obviously rather that everyone felt it was just alright rather than try to go that extra mile. Maybe next time I'll have a few glasses of wine with my meal so I'll be too mellowed to notice any shortcomings....