Thursday 27 October 2016

Dinner at Ox & Finch, Glasgow


So, I'll start this off by saying, I was nearly afraid to go here ... this place has been on my radar since before I moved over to Scotland. I had been commuting back and forth from Dublin for over a year and it was constantly popping up on my social media accounts... So because it was on my radar for so long I was thinking that maybe I have built it up to be something that it's not. Well I can heave a big sigh of relief... my dinner was EPIC and it totally deserves the reputation it has. One of the main reasons though that it took me so long to get here was that if you want to book for a weekend you need to book well in advance and unfortunately Mr EmmaEats and I are not so good at long term planning. So back in August I decided I just didn't care we were booking the first Friday that we could (bearing in mind that both Mr EE & I do a lot of travelling the first weekend we were both free was in October). Anyway the night came around a lot quicker than I thought it would ... time just seems to be flying by. We arrived into a lovely warm and welcoming restaurant and were seated at our table.


Food
Ox & Finch is a tapas style restaurant - I suppose you could say a 'posh' or 'formal' type of tapas. It is billed as contemporary, relaxed sharing dining. There is plenty to choose from with snacks, desserts and four different 'main' options; raw, cured and cold, seafood, meat and vegetable. Our waitress advised us that four or five dishes between two should be plenty - so I decided we were having six plus a dish from the snacks and two desserts. I wanted to sample as many dishes as possible. So we went for the following and in true tapas style we shared each dish:-


Sourdough and butter


Oh this was just delicious and a huge portion. We got four very big slices of bread.


Buffalo mozzarella, black fig, mint, prosciutto and eight-year-aged balsamic


Delicious - everything worked really well together you could clearly taste that they were using really good quality products.


Lamb merguez kofta, baba ganoush, mint and chickpeas


Everything about this dish was really tasty, even down to the chickpeas. However, I will admit whilst I did have a few bites of the lamb it really wasn't cooked to my liking, it was very pink. I did make myself taste it and will admit it was lovely but my brain wouldn't let me eat any more. Mr EE didn't see anything wrong with the way it was cooked though and demolished it.


Duck leg, Thai yellow curry, shredded salad and peanuts


This is the hands down winner. I had been told by numerous people that this dish was amazing and boy were they right. Each component of the dish was lovely but when you put them all together there was just a complete taste explosion in your mouth. The shredded salad was so zingy, the duck was cooked to perfection and the curry was so subtle. I loved it.


Game sausage, gnocchi, butternut squash, fennel, chilli and sage


I didn't get to taste much of this dish but Mr EE loved it (I know I thought we were sharing too). I did taste the gnocchi and it was lovely and the butternut squash was out of this world tasty. I loved it.


Spiced beer-battered cauliflower, creme fraiche and harissa verde


I got this dish as I was curious to see how cauliflower deserved to be a dish in itself and I think Mr EE wasn't too impressed with my choice but this dish was delicious (I feel like I'm beginning to repeat myself a lot here). I couldn't get enough of it, it was just so tasty and so worthy to be on the menu.


Truffle chips with roast garlic aioli


These chips were lovely but I have to say the garlic aioli was the winner of this dish for me. It was so tasty, I'd nearly just eat it on its own.


Pineapple carpaccio, coconut ice cream, tarragon and lime


If I had to pick my least favourite dish I would say it was this dish - don't get me wrong I actually liked it but for me the unusual flavours in the dessert took a bit to get used to. I eat coconut yoghurt daily but I did find the coconut ice cream a bit too coconutty for me.


Blackberry, coconut and lime millefeuille


This dessert was delicious. It was beautifully presented and it tasted just as nice it looked. The pasty was amazing, melt in your mouth stuff.


To be fair, we did not have one bad dish. Every dish was amazing in its own right. However, I will warn you we did order way too much food but I did want to sample as many dishes as possible. Food rating: 4.5/5.


Service
To be honest at first I was a little indifferent about the service - or I felt that the staff were a little indifferent about us. However, over the night they did seem to warm up and by the time we were leaving there was even a bit of banter between us. Everything was pretty efficient and in true tapas style dishes did come out as and when they were ready (a complete nightmare for a food blogger trying to take photos though). Service rating: 4/5.


Atmosphere
There is a lovely vibe in Ox & Finch, the place is compact and cozy and beautifully decorated. I especially loved the candles in the wall on the stairway, it was a really pretty touch. There is also a lovely private room downstairs, I'd love to have a function here. I must mention the bathrooms, they were really pretty too. In general there was a great buzz around the place. The restaurant is dimly lit which does create a lovely atmosphere however, it is a bloody nightmare for a food blogger who is trying to take photos so please excuse my photos they are not the best and don't do the food much service. Atmosphere rating: 4.5/5.


Price
The total cost of our bill was £93.95 and this included a bottle of wine (£38), 9 dishes and 2 coffees. So the food bill was £55.95 (incl the coffee) and I think that this is totally reasonable for the quality and quantity of food especially given the fact that we went overboard with the amount of food that we ordered (and we ordered over and above what we had been advised by the waitress). Price rating: 5/5.



Last Words
Ok so I really loved this place and I will definitely be back. It has it all and it is totally worth a visit. I suppose the only drawback for me is that you need to book ahead (but for most people I know this isn't a problem). Total rating: 18 out of 20.

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Thanks a mil for reading.

Emma mai xx

3 comments:

  1. I love Ox and Finch! It's probably my favourite restaurant in Glasgow! The food is absolutely amazing!

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    Replies
    1. It is certainly one of my best meals so far this year. I can't wait to go back. Thanks for reading my blog ;-)

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  2. Phone call will be a voice message, which says the placed order cost and order number.Make phone call alert to store owner when they got new order

    ReplyDelete