THE MOON UNDER WATER, Central Milton Keynes

It's hard to review The Moon Under Water (Wetherspoons in the Snowdome) because it doesn't serve food.

It doesn't serve beer either. The signs outside assure you that its patrons are able to purchase both in abundance, but this is clearly a lie. Approaching the bar may convince you otherwise, there are tills, customers and an abundance of staff who all seem to be very busy. In fact as this bar seems to have the most staff per square footage of bar of any of the pubs in MK, one would think that this was a perfect set up for anyone wishing to purchase drinks or food.

This is not the case.

By some cruel twist of fate The Moon Under Water only employs bartenders with acute glaucoma. An ocular disability which causes severe tunnel vision. None of the bar staff have a field of vision wider than 5 degrees. This means that if you stand an inch to the left or right of them they can't see you. In fact unless you are standing directly in front of them screaming "Beer!" and smacking them in the face with a £20 note it's quite probable they'll never notice you at all.

I'm all for helping people with disabilities back into the workplace, but the upshot of this bizarre recruitment policy is that no one has been served in The Moon Under Water since 1983. You may see people with pints and food - however these people are obviously overspill from the surrounding clubs and have brought their own drinks with them. I heartily recommend you do the same because you're not getting served at The Moon Under Water.

Luckily for the purposes of this column the staff obviously prepare food and leave it lying around even if they have no idea who it's for: as such I was able to snaffle a couple of dishes and review the place.

The Moon Under Water serves a thick brown paste hastily constructed into various shapes and given names like "curry" and "fruit salad". The amount and consistency of the paste can vary as can its temperature – however, regardless of these differences the paste tastes of beef and onion crisps. Some attempt has been made to garnish the paste with thin slivers of yellow and green plastic hastily strewn over the plate by someone suffering from palsy.

I am unsure where the paste comes from but I'm assuming it's a long way away, because it's definitely not fresh paste and it costs more than the bog-standard paste you might find in a school stock cupboard.

As no one who has ever managed to order the paste it is hard to decide whether it represents value for money.

It's slightly cheaper than food served at other pubs in the area, but then again it's not actually food, and it's not actually served. No one has ever been able to pay for it either so I guess it sits in an interesting metaphysical purgatory: unloved, uneaten and unpaid for but, by virtue of its semi-corporeal existence, not doing anyone any actual harm.

And it really does taste of beef and onion crisps, which might be right up your street if you can’t chew solids and really really like beef and onion.

All this is moot however as you will never successfully order the paste - let alone be served and eat it - which in some ways is probably a blessing. If you must eat at The Moon Under Water I suggest you take your own food. And your own beer.

One Line Review:
Do not try to order beer. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no Beer....

ELEMENTS, Central Milton Keynes

Since this review was written Elements has closed down. The Masticator has no idea why but suspects some sort of plague outbreak. It has now been replaced by the Red Hot Buffet which apparently offers “the best and most varied food from China, India, Thailand, Mexico, Italy and Japan within beautiful yet contemporary settings, and all for one price.” The Masticator hasn’t eaten there yet but frankly that description fills him with dread. He will be going there soon to let you know if a restaurant specializing in several million different dishes from three continents is a good idea. For the record he asked a friend who had been for his opinion. They stated that “there was more choice than Elements but not as good quality”. Seeing as the choice at Elements was unmanageably vast and the quality slightly worse than the contents of a science fair Petrie dish, one suspects that Red Hot Buffet has simply discovered several new strains of botulism to foist on its unsuspecting customers…


Elements provides the only Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet in the Theatre District, so if you want to stuff yourself with sub-takeaway-standard monosodium glutamate slop then there really isn't any other alternative. Having said that, it's a wide world full of opportunity so why not try grating your face off with a rotary sander or performing your own dental work instead?

This really is a Chinese experience pared down to the bare minimum. The restaurant itself is cheap and grotty looking. Bare metal chairs, long plain wooden tables, every expense has been spared to ensure that you know you're eating out on a budget - which is interesting, because the actual buffet costs around £15 a head without drinks making it more expensive than a main meal at some of the decent restaurants around MK.

The bar where you get your food resembles nothing more than a prison cafeteria. Large metal vats of steaming gloop sit next to each other slowly congealing and imbibing their surrounding dishes with pungent odours and slowly cooking themselves to death so that everything ends up tasting of the same homogenised combination of garlic, salt and black bean sauce. The vats are large enough to ensure that not only can you truly have all you can eat but also that they never need changing which means most of them have probably sat there all day, maybe all week.

It comes as no surprise to me that this place was closed down for health and safety reasons a few years back. I have no idea how they managed to reopen because from what I can tell nothing’s changed. If something did get rid of the rats I can only assume it was the food.

You really are taking your life into your own hands with this place. I couldn't even look at the bright red seafood dish without my stomach booking a reservation at A&E for extensive bowel surgery. If you must eat anything I suggest going for the plain boiled rice and maybe a bit of fruit. Everything else will probably kill you.

There is also a Teppanyaki bar: basically a large hotplate where a chef will cook your selected ingredients right there in front of you along with a bunch of noodles. If you're hoping to avoid botulism this is a pretty good option, the ingredients have been suppurating in their own juices for several days but at least he cooks them for a good fifteen minutes so anything deadly has probably been destroyed by the time you get it. That said, he really does cook it for fifteen minutes, so if there's more than one person in front of you be prepared to wait an hour before you're actually served.

I got my plate about forty minutes after I started queuing. It was bland, tasteless and very greasy. The prawns I selected tasted strongly of boiled eggs. None of us could tell why.

I know some people like all-you-can-eat, but I really can’t recommend this place. Chinese food has a habit of filling you up quickly and making you feel hungry twenty minutes later so I can't see anyone getting their money’s worth unless they literally stay in there all day. And given the way the staff hustle your plate away if you so much as glance in another direction, that scenario seems unlikely and is obviously discouraged.

The fact that you can stuff yourself for a similar price at the infinitely superior Taipan across the street means that I can't really see any reason you might want to eat here unless you hate yourself and want to die.

My Editor assures me that he's had some quite nice meals here. My editor eats nice n’ spicy Nik-Naks and thinks Pot Noodles constitute one of his five a day. You do the math.

One Line Review:
All the fun of a Chinese motorway service station without the arcade machines.