Sticky Fingers - Kensington!

It has been 6 months since my last visit, forgive me not for glutton but for my absence.

Sticky Fingers has been a planned event - event due to the prolonged salivation over the bourbon ribs - for over 6 months now. Now that he who will be name Mr.C has graced us with his presence after 6 months of travelling, me, Mr.C and Mr.D caught up on home and international goings on in between mouthfulls.

Sticky Fingers is located in Phillimore Gardens just off High Street Kensington, it is an American style restaurant owned by the one and only Bill Wyman from The Rolling Stones. See, it's got your attention already, good! More attention needed? Get a taste london card (2 week - 3 month free trials available) and you get 2 for 1 on everything but drinks Mon-Thurs. Well worth it, like me you will probably spend full price but have double the food!

Bill Wyman opened this restaurant in 1989 and named it after one of The Stones' albums. The restaurant is plastered in old memorabilia such as posters, some funny caricatures (which Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood have the perfect faces for) and a number of electric guitars. The restaurant is quite big and has plenty of seating, although it does get very busy, and it does have a number of stylish red seated booths with a tea light candle at every table.

Now a point to remember is that Monday is 20-50% off day! Now dont get too excited it doesn't mean everything, burgers are basically half price but ribs are only a £3.00 saving. Monday nights can be really busy so try booking in advance. We arrived at around 7pm and had to book for an 8.30pm table, thats not a complaint though because we love this place and it's worth the wait. If you decide to go to a bar or something while you wait, check prices first because £4.23 for a pint of Peroni is a bigger rip off than the clothes of an overweight party animal who's drunk enough to attempt the full monty.

On to the food..........

I apologise for the poor quality of the phone cam, it was a bit dark in there and positioning the candle for light nearly set my menu on fire.

This is known as the $10 milkshake or the Keith Richards (£5.00). It is a vanilla milkshake accompanied by the mutual friend of Mr Richards and Lemmy from Motorhead, Mr Jack Daniels! A quality milkshake with a kick to it, at first it almost tastes like Bailey's but eventually the JD kick comes through. This also comes in strawberry or chocolate and other shots are available too.

For starters we had buffalo wings (£5.95 small, £9.45 large) in your choice of hot sauce or barbeque, we chose the barbeque option. From what I remember there 5 large wings and 10 for the large portion, nice and meaty but very hot to handle so let them cool down a bit first. Comes with blue cheese and chive sour cream which Mr.C loved but it wasn't to my taste, a bit too strong for my liking. But the wings are awesome as always! The celery stick is a common annoynace on the plate of many wing dishes in London, however if you have one of those new vegan fashion converts for a friend, the celery stick provides a free meal for them! Eat well and save money, thats the Rebel way!

Also for starter I ordered a plate of pan-fried tiger prawns (£7.95) with a sweet chilli mayo. In all honesty I wouldn't recommend it, not really worth the price and the prawns were not too well falvoured. Chilli mayo was nice though. Perhaps the large wing portion would have been better, or maybe even some potato skins as an extra. You can even order a half rack of ribs for starters!

At £11.96 on a Monday (around £15.00 normally) the dish that stole the show was the bourbon ribs served with fries, baked or mash potato and a chunky apple coleslaw. The ribs are spectacular, succulent, melt in the mouth and coated in thick bourbon sticky sauce. Fries are as fries usually are in all restaurants and the coleslaw was also very tasty. These tender ribs are baby back ribs, slow smoked, dry-rubbed and grilled to the flavour of your choosing. A faultless classic which even on a cheap night out, fifteen pounds is enough to see you through. Again with a taste london card two week free trial for the same price you can feed two people!

Served with a couple of lime-necked Coronas from Mexico (£3.60 a bottle). Did you know that the crown on the Corona logo was apparently linked to a crown worn by a misstress of the Emperor Maximillian? Now with my name being Massimo (a shortened variation of the same name, including Maximus), I wondered whether my destiny was to be an Emperor or cassanova, from this day forth I think I will refer to myself as Emperor Mass of Feasts! Back to the Mexicans, Corona is a pale lager which is medium to low carbonated, not much of an overly strong flavour either which refreshes you can compliments the ribs quite well. If Corona is not your type of thing, Sagres and Amstel is also available. However as Mr.C spent some time in Argentina, we both decided that Quilmes would be a fantastic addition to the bar menu!

Next up was the Sticky Fingers burger (£4.73 NOW THATS A BARGAIN / roughly £8.00 the rest of the week). Claimed to be an award winning burger with 100% prime British beef, special Sticky Fingers sauce with lettuce and tomato. Also served with fries and a salad garnish. For the price you definatly can't go wrong. As for the taste this was Mr.D's meal so I didn't get to taste it unfortunately, looked great though. But for his verdict (not in any way a representation of my own thoughts) he didn't seem to think of it as worthy of an award, didn't seem to think it was the best burger he's had either. Somehow I think by it's appearance it's worthy of a try and I'm sure it tastes great, maybe he just wished he had the ribs! He did have ribs for starters though, maybe he wished he had the wings instead!

A couple of side orders with the main meal, firstly onion rings (£2.95) which were standard, the flavour was nothing to be wowed by but at least they were chunky and full of onion and not just hollow batter. This came with sour cream. Secondly was the garlic bread (£2.45) which is where I have to say loses a point for me. This was like the cheapy scored baguettes with artificial garlic, however it's not something to make a big deal of, these are just snacks alongside the mains and they are cheap enough not to moan about. However they do rack up the bill so if your fussy about your rings and garlic bread then be careful.

Once everything was devoured, the nice waiter cleared our plates with amazement and complimented us with a 'you done well there boys'! A much needed laddish encouragement to soldier on to the desserts. We did wait a little bit just to digest, so whilst the guys ordered some Cokes I gave myself a metaphorical pat on the back with a Coke Float (£3.25).

As Coke Floats go, great stuff, lots of ice cream, lots of coke and a curvy almost seductive looking glass to tempt you into more greed.

For the grande finale, I reveal (instead of pancakes which I really really wanted).....the table side campfire (£4.95).

The table side campfire was ordered by both myself and Mr.D, Mr.C ordered a double thick malt chocolate milkshake which he described as 'tha bomb' and also told me I should use that expression in my review. His 5 minutes of online fame yet I won't give him the satisfaction of being credited with his full name. Ha Ha!

Anyway, the campfire was really enjoyable, in the middle was a chocolate fondue dusted with icing sugar which was plentiful in chocolate and quite rich. Surrounding the campfire were three skewers of mixed pink and white marshmallows, three strawberrys and three Oreo cookies also dusted in icing sugar. This is pretty darn good for the price, a really filling dessert however I am not a lover of Oreo cookies (I can hear the booing already)! I was quite impressed with the concept and the design of it all, just a shame there were no pancakes because I was really desperate to try those.

In total the bill did come to £114.01 for three of us (£111.05 excl 12.5% service charge (£13.88), incl a Monday Madness saving of £10.92).



BUT....don't let that put you off because I ordered extra for the purpose of the blog, on average it's about £30.00 per head for a 3 course meal and a drink. Mr.C and Mr.D were just under the £30.00 mark but as I ordered extra food and drinks I had to cover the chunk of the service charge so mine was around £55.00.

But prices are really standard to that as everyother rib joint in town, but the quality is better! I can't stress enough the advantages of having a taste card either, 2 for 1 meals slashes the price considerably (although the 12.5% is charged for the total bill before the savings are taken off). We didn't have one this time so the prices reflect the Monday Madness promotional values.

The Verdict:


I seriosuly recommend Sticky Fingers to everyone, the wings and ribs really excel over a number of other similar restaurants, the service is both efficient and friendly, plus you get 2 or 3 people waiting your table so the banter at each round is a delightful thing to have.

Lively atmosphere, the waitress nodded to us that the Kings of Leon were seated a few tables ahead of us, really good music (mostly Kings of Leon as they were there) plus a mix of old rock and of course a number of Rolling Stone classics.

Price is very reasonable considering the area, the quality of the food and in comparison to other American style restaurants. Even more so with a taste london card.

I will definatly be back, more often hopefully and I am on a mission to return to try the steak!

8/10

Thanks for some fantastic grub and an enjoyable evening, see you very soon!