Brett Ellis gives an honest review on Karen's Diner

It was a home banker, or so we thought, as we tried to keep the kids amused after a less than enthralling trip to Tate Modern where the sight of a painting called ‘white’ and another entitled ‘blue’ was devoured eagerly by millennial types in glasses and trousers hung at half-mast as I wondered if their thumbs and forefingers were surgically attached to their chins….

I digress, Karen’s diner. As we walked in, I had my video recording as we had not told the kids and we wanted to glean their reaction as grumpy boots, yours truly, did not react to the abuse we were expecting as my wife and I were the only ones in on the joke.

The video was ruined within a nanosecond of pushing the door which said ‘pull’ on it (madness!) to be met by a poor man’s maître de who held a disclaimer an inch from our face as he described how we would face some ‘abuse’ and not to react.

Brett Ellis took his children to Karen's Diner With the cat out of the bag, he picked up the mic and embarrassed us by proclaiming to the assembled diners how we were cheapskates with vouchers, but we thought ourselves lucky as the poor chap behind us, on what looked like a first date, was forced to go table to table begging for change as he had dared rock up with a Wowcher.

Vaguely amusing at first, the jokes soon ran thin as you realised they were on repeat and their repertoire of insults was somewhat lacking.

The staff, trying hard to be abusive, seemed too nice and besides throwing the menus on the table and making us all wear hats, mine read ‘tic tac d*ck’, had little to offer, even coming up twice during our meal to ask if everything was ok.

An Australian concept, clearly playing into the stereotype of the Aussies being rude (from my experience, the opposite is true) the USP only has limited legs and it's not a place you would become a regular unless that is, the food was good value and up to scratch.

Would I go again? No. The novelty wore off extremely quickly and the food was pedestrian at best.

If I want to be abused, I will take up sadomasochism as this was like being mauled by Mr Tumble and, sadly, the food was overpriced and lacking in any wow factor.

Still, it has a place no doubt for drunken hen and stag parties and the concept will exist for a year or two before something more interesting comes in its place, but for me, I’ll be saving some money and moaning about the Wetherspoons portion sizes instead.

• Brett Ellis is a teacher.