Huffkins,
35 High Street, Witney,
Oxfordshire. OX28 6HP.
United Kingdom
http://www.huffkins.com/
Where is it?
This is an assault course. Really, be careful as you work through the stages.
1) Go through the shop.
2) Get past the staff who want to seat you in the restaurant.
3) Weave through the tables until you get to the very back...
4) ...and skip to the left.
5) Jump through the door.
6) Just to the right is the female baby changing facilities. Go straight and there are individual stools for gents and women.
What’s it like?
This is a great place to stop off and have a sandwich or small meal. The bread is great, and the portions plentiful. Having said that it is always busy and there are so many tables to navigate around that you really can image yourself dodging grenades on a Second World War battlefield as you head off for the toilets.
When you get there the impressive thing, for what is after all only a small coffee place, is that it provides baby changing facilities. Still, I have to question if female only baby changing is PC. Men do change nappies and the ones who make the effort really shouldn’t be discriminated against!
Assuming you don’t have a child in tow, the fact that the toilets are singles is impressive, especially when you get an electric hand dryer in each. They are also of an OK size and clean enough too. However, the décor is dated. Come on, I thought it was against the law to have dado rails in public buildings since 1995!
What’s more a mirror that is far too low continues the assault course theme. Well, either that or its sole purpose is to show your crotch area. Even when crouching down I still couldn’t get a good view of my face. I was tempted to try for the limbo approach, but quite frankly gave up.
Marks out of 10:
7 for the family centred approach and privacy.
Comments to the management:
If you cleaned up the décor and thought about how people used the facilities you’d get a ten.
Saturday, 3 February 2007
Pho pho phooey
Pho Pasteur: Authentic Vietnamese Cuisine
Pinar Plaza
710 S. Goldenrod Rd.
Orlando, FL USA 32822
Where Is It?
An arched wall of mirrors divides the back wall of the dining room. To the right (when facing the wall) is the kitchen entrance; to the left, the bathrooms, tucked into the far back corner of the restaurant.
What's It Like?
Disgusting. While the dining room is squeaky clean and comfortable, the restroom looks -- and smells -- like it hasn't been scrubbed (or even sprayed with cleaner) for weeks. Mildew and hard water stains ring the sink, urinal and toilet, the chipped linoleum tile on the floor is filled with grime and the toilet's tank looks like it's had a sledgehammer taken to it (either that, or a karate competition was held in the stall and no one bothered to clean up afterwards). Worse still, the sharp stench of urine stings your nostrils the instant you walk in. When coupled with the multitude of air fresheners sticking to the walls (nearly all of them dried out), you may start wondering if you've accidentally stepped into some long-lost, never-cleaned last-resort toilet in middle of nowhere Indochina.
Marks out of 10:
1. I've seen cleaner toilets in the jungles of Peru, believe it or not.
Comments to the Management:
The rest of your restaurant is so tidy and clean, and the food is phenomenal (some of the best Vietnamese in Orlando) -- so why does your bathroom have to be such a wreck? Given it's appearance, people may soon start to wonder about the cleanliness of the other parts of the restaurant -- like your kitchen.
Pinar Plaza
710 S. Goldenrod Rd.
Orlando, FL USA 32822
Where Is It?
An arched wall of mirrors divides the back wall of the dining room. To the right (when facing the wall) is the kitchen entrance; to the left, the bathrooms, tucked into the far back corner of the restaurant.
What's It Like?
Disgusting. While the dining room is squeaky clean and comfortable, the restroom looks -- and smells -- like it hasn't been scrubbed (or even sprayed with cleaner) for weeks. Mildew and hard water stains ring the sink, urinal and toilet, the chipped linoleum tile on the floor is filled with grime and the toilet's tank looks like it's had a sledgehammer taken to it (either that, or a karate competition was held in the stall and no one bothered to clean up afterwards). Worse still, the sharp stench of urine stings your nostrils the instant you walk in. When coupled with the multitude of air fresheners sticking to the walls (nearly all of them dried out), you may start wondering if you've accidentally stepped into some long-lost, never-cleaned last-resort toilet in middle of nowhere Indochina.
Marks out of 10:
1. I've seen cleaner toilets in the jungles of Peru, believe it or not.
Comments to the Management:
The rest of your restaurant is so tidy and clean, and the food is phenomenal (some of the best Vietnamese in Orlando) -- so why does your bathroom have to be such a wreck? Given it's appearance, people may soon start to wonder about the cleanliness of the other parts of the restaurant -- like your kitchen.
Fake Royalty?
The Crown Inn & La Cucina Restaurant,
31 High Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TE
United Kingdom
http://www.wakeuptowoodstock.com/the_crown_inn_in_woodstock_oxfordshire_england_uk.html
Where is it?
To get to the toilets go straight to the bar when you enter and then head left. When you get to the end of the bar go right and down the corridor. The Gents (you cannot miss the sign as it’s 6ft. high) is straight in front. The ladies have to turn right at door to the Gents and take 3 steps where the door is on the left.
What’s it like?
The Crown Inn is a standard pub that has a little pizza restaurant – La Cucina – attached to it. The food is great and the staff friendly, that makes what is about to come so disappointing.
You walk in and think, ‘hey this is quite cool’. Then you soon realise that whoever put these toilets together has schizoid tendencies when it comes to style. Really, the let down here is so great it has to be compared to meeting a princess and waking up the next day to find the alcohol of the night before really did play a cruel trick on you.
So what’s so bad about it. Well it isn’t the quality – some real money was spent here. Still, the tiles are a colour of blue that doesn’t match with the slightly sick coloured floor. The sink is set so low that only a midget could wash their hands in it. Conversely, the stools are a set too high for most. But mostly you have to say it is the mismatches between everything that let it down. Colours, styles, just everything!
What does that leave us with? A restroom that is quite clean but leaves you feeling distinctly grubby. If that’s a contradiction it fits with the style of this place!
Marks out of 10:
6. But oh the angst this place has caused…
Comments to the management:
Next time you spend a few quid, get someone who knows something about style to help out.
31 High Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TE
United Kingdom
http://www.wakeuptowoodstock.com/the_crown_inn_in_woodstock_oxfordshire_england_uk.html
Where is it?
To get to the toilets go straight to the bar when you enter and then head left. When you get to the end of the bar go right and down the corridor. The Gents (you cannot miss the sign as it’s 6ft. high) is straight in front. The ladies have to turn right at door to the Gents and take 3 steps where the door is on the left.
What’s it like?
The Crown Inn is a standard pub that has a little pizza restaurant – La Cucina – attached to it. The food is great and the staff friendly, that makes what is about to come so disappointing.
You walk in and think, ‘hey this is quite cool’. Then you soon realise that whoever put these toilets together has schizoid tendencies when it comes to style. Really, the let down here is so great it has to be compared to meeting a princess and waking up the next day to find the alcohol of the night before really did play a cruel trick on you.
So what’s so bad about it. Well it isn’t the quality – some real money was spent here. Still, the tiles are a colour of blue that doesn’t match with the slightly sick coloured floor. The sink is set so low that only a midget could wash their hands in it. Conversely, the stools are a set too high for most. But mostly you have to say it is the mismatches between everything that let it down. Colours, styles, just everything!
What does that leave us with? A restroom that is quite clean but leaves you feeling distinctly grubby. If that’s a contradiction it fits with the style of this place!
Marks out of 10:
6. But oh the angst this place has caused…
Comments to the management:
Next time you spend a few quid, get someone who knows something about style to help out.
Friday, 2 February 2007
Ming isn't manky
Ming Bistro1212 Woodward St
Orlando, FL USA 32803
Where is it?
In a little corrider behind the lobster and fish tanks. (Not sure if they use the same plumbing, though.)
What's it like?
Cute. It's a clean, plane white bathroom, with white tiles, white walls, and white porcelain toilet and sink. To add a little color, there's also a red chair across from the toilet -- upholstered in a traditional Chinese cloth (red, with gold lettering and tassles) -- and a woodblock print of a pagoda or temple. Of course, given that, you must ask -- why the chair?
Marks out of 10:
7.
Comments to the Management:
Great food, good prices, clean bathrooms. Keep up the good work.
Thursday, 1 February 2007
Swanky sushi, dark toilets
(image courtesy of sharisushilounge.com)
Shari Sushi Lounge
621 E Central Blvd
Orlando, FL USA 32801
http://sharisushilounge.com/
Where is it?
Walk down the middle of the restaurant, past the metallic, sheen sushi bar and towards the entrance to the equally metallic and somewhat less sheen storage area and kitchen (you'll see lots of fridges and appliances). But instead of going into the kitchen, turn left -- the bathrooms are there, one-seaters, one for men and one for women.
What's it like?
This is one hipper-than-hip place -- a see-and-be-seen scene in trendy Thornton Park. Food is creative and expensive, and though there better sushi in Orlando (at a better price) the clientele seems to comes here mostly for the scene.
That being said -- this may be one of the hipper bathrooms I've been to in Orlando. So hip, in fact, that I felt a little out of place going in at first. (Thankfully, the laws of nature came to my rescue and got me past the metaphorical velvet rope.) Inside, you'll find marble tile on the walls; lots of black porcelain add-ons (like a square sink that seems lifted out of the counter); and a nifty faucet that uses a lever instead of knobs to turn the water on. Toilets (both urinal and commode in the men's room) are your standard white editions you find everywhere else, but they look like works of art when juxtaposed against the black floor tiles and marble walls.
Only drawback -- the lighting is very soft, and with all that black inside, it makes the room a little bit dark. Or "very dark, I could barely see in there"-- as one of my dining companions put it.
Marks out of 10:
8. Clean and hip. I've never felt so cool -- at least not in a bathroom.
Comments to the Management:
A little more light might help. But then it might hurt the hipness factor some -- which is certainly the restaurant's top priority.
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