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You are here: Home / Restaurants / London restaurants / All Star Lanes, Westfield Stratford

All Star Lanes, Westfield Stratford

by Jeanne Horak on January 27, 2012 12 Comments in London restaurants

AllStarLanes © J Horak-Druiff 2013

 

Isn’t it funny how a single smell or sound can transport you instantly from the here and now into the way back when?  For me, the smell of a certain air freshener whisks me back to Grahamstown in the early 1990s.  I was staying in a motel on my own for two weeks, conducting the hopeless pro bono defence of a sullen and clearly guilty bloke who had taken part in a botched robbery; crying nightly over the man I thought was the love of my life who had just dumped me (by letter, no less!); spending long afternoons over bottomless cups of coffee at the Spur Steak Ranch bemoaning my fate to a patient girlfriend; and eating chicken stir fry alone in the restaurant ever night for 14 days. The trip ended with my client receiving the double death penalty for murder.

Suffice to say that I do not use this air freshener in my house.

On a happier memory note, one whiff of the oil they use on bowling alley lanes whisks me straight back to Port Elizabeth in the 1980s when they opened the first bowling alley I had ever been to.  I am instantly transformed into a teenager wearing my beloved pink trainers, Ronald Sassoon stretch jeans (an innovation of jaw-dropping stylishness at the time), hair in a side-ponytail, and feeling as much heady excitement as if I had actually stepped onto the set of Grease every time I walked through the bowling alley doors. The jeans, ponytail and trainers are all long gone (probably for the best!), but I am pleased to say that a whisper of that long-ago excitement still returned when I walked into the Westfield, Stratford City branch of All Star Lanes to meet up with Michelle, Louis, Sarah and Margot recently.  All Star Lanes is a small chain of four boutique bowling and dining venunes spread across London.  Founded in 2006 the company’s vision was to revamp the image of bowling in the UK by creating a bowling alley that was intimate, accessible, luxurious and fun (rather than out of town, lit with fluorescent strips serving flat  beer in plastig cups!)  Throw in some home-cooked classics from the American south, real cocktails, great music, private bowling rooms… and voila: boutique bowling was born.

 

AllStarLanesBar

 

AllStarLanesRestaurant

AllStarLaneslights

The Westfield Stratford branch is the newest of the four and was opened together wth the rest of the centre late in 2011.  It’s a large space, comprising 14 bowling lanes, a cocktail bar and a restaurant area, all reasonably screened off from each other so that you don’t feel too much as if you are eating in a sporting venue.  Although our waitress (in possibly the cutest waitress uniform I have ever seen) assured us that the other branches were more luxurious than this one, if like me you remember bowling alleys from the 1980s, this is the height of bowling luxury (with light fittings so funky I wanted to take them home with me!).  Like us, you can start off with cocktails in the bar: I tried an All-Star Julep followed later by a Dark & Stormy (both £7.50) – quite possibly the best I’ve had in London), nibbling on the chilli corn snacks before moving to your table.  The menu stays firmly in American territory, and mostly in the Deep South.  Chicken wings rub shoulders with hush puppies, chimichangas, pulled pork, mac ‘n cheese and Texas chilli – a smorgasbord of comfort food! There is also a selection of steaks, salads, and indulgent sandwiches like Philadelphia cheese steak, pulled pork & apple, and salt beef & gherkin.

 

AllStarLanesUniform

 

AllStarLanesSnacks

AllStarLanesCocktail

 

AllStarLanesCocktailCollage

I started with refried bean and avocado tostados (£5) – a generous portion of three large and loaded tostados.  The tostados were satisfyingly crisp and the refried beans were pleasantly spicy (although maybe a tad too mashed and lacking in texture?), plus the generous dollop of avocado was creamy and lovely. A winner.  Other choices at our table included popcorn salt & pepper squid with chilli jam (£5.50) – a HUGE portion of light,crispy and well-seasoned squid pieces and very nicely styled; a short rack of ribs (£7) – which were beautifully marinaded and fell apart at the touch of a fork; duck and cilantro chimichangas (£6) and vegetable & cilantro chimichangas (£5) – both tasty, light and crispy and served with excellent dipping sauces.  I think it’s fair to say that starters were winners all round.

 

AllStarLanesTostados

AllStarLanesChimichangas

AllStarLanesSTarterCollage

My choice of mains was a no-brainer.  I  have been in love with pulled pork from the first time I read about it and if I see it on a menu my decision is automatically made so for me it was BBQ pulled pork and rainbow slaw (£12) with a side-order of hush puppies (as in the Southern cornmeal fritters, not the sensible suede shoes!).  Now I’ve tried a few versions of pulled pork, and this one was a standout.  The meat was properly shredded – not cut but pulled apart; the BBQ sauce was the right balance of sweetly spiced, and the portion was enormous. Utter, total comfort food.  I found the slaw a little disappointing – definitely too vinegary for me, and next time I would order the standard mayonnaise-heavy coleslaw instead.  The hush puppies were excellent, crispy on the outside and smooshy on the inside.  Elsewhere, Michelle had a big portion of baby back ribs  (£16 – excellent but drier than the starter portion) and wonderfully crisp sweet potato fries (£3) on the side.  Margot had grilled salmon with baby beets and horseradish cream (£12) which was beautifully cooked, still moist and pink; and Sarah had the blackened chicken fillet burger (£9) which came topped with 2 huge mushrooms – and unusually for chicken, the meat was lovely and moist.  The only duff note in the mains was Louis, who opted for the All Star 8oz prime beef burger (£9.50) – despite its impressive size, the meat was overdone and a little, which is a silly mistake to make in a burger-obsessed city like London.  Other sides included coleslaw (£3) which was quite mayonnaise-heavy and just the way I like it; steamed broccoli with pecan butter (£3) which was, umm, steamed broccoli with crumbled pecans on top, no discernible butter; and a mini mac ‘n cheese (£3.50) which I thought was quite possibly the next best thing to finding out you’ve won the lottery while out on a date with George Clooney – positively saffron-coloured with butter and topped with a crust of gooey cheese – but which the others thought was “too buttery” (not a term my internal database recognises!).

 

AllStarLanesPulledporkl

 

AllStarLanesRibs

AllStarLanesSalmonBurger

AllStarLanesStartercollage2

 

AllStarLanesBurgercollage

AllStarLanesBurger

 

After this, we took a break both because we could not face any more food for a while, and because our alocated time slot for a bowling lane had rolled around (more on that in a moment).  But once the bowling was done our appetites seemed somewhat revived and we returned to explore the dessert menu.  The dessert menu is positively petite compared to the main menu, featuring classics like pie a la mode, cupcakes, whoopie pies, cheesecake and a selection of sundaes.  Instead of dessert I opted for the Reese’s milkshake (£4.50), reasoning that a milkshake would be less filling than an actual dessert.  That may have been true, in some sort of microscopic sense, but the milkshake is a hefty dessert in itself, heavy with ice cream and the chocolate peanut butter flavours of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  Yummy. My companions chose the vanilla cheesecake with a berry compote (£5 – good vanilla flavour but a little too sweet for me), the Bourbon raisin and chocolate brownie (£6 – incredibly rich, super-gooey, super-chocolatey, nice bourbon bite to the raisins) and the chocolate whoopie pie (£3). The whoopie pie, I have to say, looked nothing at all like a whoopie pie (which normally looks like the giant cakey cousin of a macaron) but more like a mini layer-cake, lavishly slathered in chocolate icing – which is no bad thing!  The icing was a bit much for me, but the cake itself was excellent with a deep cocoa flavour.  Between all five of us, we could only finish about half, making it astonishing value for money.  Two hungry people could easily share this!

 

AllStarLanesDesserts
AllStarLanesCheesecake

 

AllStarLanesBrownie

But what about the bowling, I hear you ask?  After our main meal, we trundled down to the bowling area where I was already dreading the smelly, well-used, unsexy bowling shoes I remembered from the 1980s.  Turns out not only have bowling alleys changed, but so have the shoes, which all looked nearly new and came in a natty red and black colour combination.  Result!  We were given a card, designed to look like a high school yearbook, on which to fill in our names that would appear on the score screen.  I chose a long-haired  beardy bloke with glasses for Cooksister, as you do…!  We duly settled ourselves into the comfy seating area behind the ball return at our allocated lane – banquettes and a table with flattering low lighting and more sexy lampshades, not the age-intensifying fluorescent strips of my youth.  The overhead projector of yesteryear for manual entering of your scores is also gone and scoring is fully automated. But improvements aside, it’s funny how 25-year old bowling memories came flooding back:  the smell of the oil on the lanes, the satisfying sound of the balls hitting the pins, and the fear of choosing a slightly too small bowling ball that then tries to rip off your thumb as you hurl it down the lane.  Good times, good times.  Standing around waiting for my turn, sipping a cocktail, bopping to the fabulously retro rock ‘n roll tunes and laughing with my friends, it was like being 17 again… only better. And the best thing of all?  Despite the intervening years, it seems that bowling remains one of the few sports that I am really quite good at.  And the winner is…. CookSister with 119! Woo hoo!

 

AllStarLanesBowling1

AllStarLanesBowlingShoes
AllStarLaneslBowling2

 

AllStarLanesBowling3

All in all, I must say that this is one of the most fun meals I have had in a long time in London – and I am not only saying that because it is less than 20 minutes from my front door!  Our waitress was fantastic – friendly, knowledgeable about the menu and efficient; the cocktails were good; the food was mostly good (and my pork was excellent); and as I said the portions are such that you can easily share and make this a very economical night out.  I loved the decor and the fun, retro feel of the bowling alley, and I had forgotten what a sociable and fun way bowling can be to spend an evening with friends. The cocktails are probably a little on the expensive side considering you are not in central London, but I did not think the food was badly priced at all, and I am keen to return to try out their Sun-Wed dinner and bowling deal: £26 per person for two courses and a bowling game until the end of February.  I’ll be back.

Liked: the Southern menu, the retro music, the Dark & Stormy cocktails (!)
Disliked:  the overdone hamburger
On a scale of 1 to 10:  7 for the food, 8 for the whole experience

For other perspectives on our meal, please check out my dining companions’ blogs:

Michelle of Greedy Gourmet

Sarah of Maison Cupcake

Margot of Coffee & Vanilla

Louis of Tuck & Vine

 

DISCLOSURE:  We enjoyed our meal and bowling game as guests of All Star Lanes. 

 

All Star Lanes
Second Floor
Westfield Stratford City
London
E20 1ET
Tel.:  020 3167 2434
[email protected]
 

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  1. Margot says

    January 28, 2012 at 1:08 am

    Oh, you managed to take a photo of the girl uniform, I really loved them but my husband did not let me mention that in the review 😉

    Reply
  2. Super Sarah says

    January 28, 2012 at 9:58 pm

    Wow, memories! Do you know, I waitressed at that Spur in Grahamstown for three years during my university degree and while you were sitting there drinking bottomless cups of coffee, I was a high school student down the road! We have been planning on taking our girls bowling for a while now, not quite the boutique bowling you have described but still very different to those bowling alleys of years ago!

    Reply
  3. Ren Behan says

    January 29, 2012 at 9:15 am

    The food looks REALLY good! Tempted to pop over, though not so close for me! So glad you all had fun x

    Reply
  4. Lauren says

    January 29, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    It probably says quite a lot about me that this is the post on which I choose to comment and emerge from years of lurking, but there you go. My sister doesn’t live to far from Westfield, I love bowling, and I think this is the perfect outing for my next visit, so thanks!
    More generally, I really enjoy the blog – as an Aussie in Europe (with a sister in London), it’s fun reading other perspectives from people who have also ended up a logn way from home.

    Reply
  5. Firefly says

    January 30, 2012 at 7:17 am

    I can’t remember when last I played ten pin bowling. Quite an interesting concept and the food looks stunning.

    Reply
  6. Michelle @ Greedy Gourmet says

    January 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm

    A beautifully written review – as usual! 😉 Next time I see you you must wear a ponytail on the side of your head!

    Reply
  7. Jo Michie says

    February 7, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    I’ve just discovered a 10 pin bowling alley in Beijing and am trying to get two teams together for regular contests. Your post has made me even more determined!
    Side pony-tails – oh that takes me back. Might suggest the style to my darling daughter who is (a) young enough and (b) has the hair for it!

    Reply
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Jeanne Horak is a freelance food and travel writer; recipe developer and photographer. South African by birth and Londoner by choice, Jeanne has been writing about food and travel on Cooksister since 2004. She is a popular speaker on food photography and writing has also contributed articles, recipes and photos to a number of online and print publications. Jeanne has also worked with a number of destination marketers to promote their city or region. Please get in touch to work with her Read More…

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