Posts Tagged ‘restaurants’

Having hit Fazenda last month, and then again a few weeks ago, I took one more trip there recently, to celebrate Jonni’s birthday.

As usual, they delivered some good meat, though with us being there on a Tuesday, they seem to suffer from a lack of turn over, as the meat was often slow coming. This was a little disappointing, though ultimately we ate to bursting point, so we didn’t have any less food.

We also got a free cocktail for checking in – they weren’t shy with the alcohol either.

I think it clearly has a critical mass point though, so if you’re going to go, I would recommend going on a Saturday evening when there are plenty of people and plenty of meat coming round.

While mentioning I had just written up a negative review of Trio recently, Norm suggested that I was too negative and just hated everything. As such, I wanted to write a short piece recommending a few of my favourite restaurants in Leeds, to point out a few places that I would highly recommend eating.

Blackhouse, one of the best steak restaurants in Leeds, nice atmosphere if a little noisy, but that is mainly due to the live pianist they normally put on. The steaks are fantastic.

River Plate, another fantastic steak restaurant, this one Argintinan. A bit on the pricey side, but arguably the best steak you will get in Leeds.

Chaophraya, despite mixed reviews from some of my friends, I have to recommend Chaophraya as the best Thai restaurant in town. I’ve always enjoyed amazing food and good service there.

Sam’s Chop House, if you’re ever in the mood for a bit of traditional English, if such a thing actually existed, you can’t go wrong with this place.

Cattle Grid, another great steak restaurant, perhaps not quite Blackhouse or River Plate, but what it only slightly lacks in quality, it definitely makes up for in portion size. Try the ribs, they’re amazing.

Las Iguanas, two for one cocktails and fantastic Latin tapas make for an excellent combination, and according to our waiter at their South Bank branch, Leeds is the best one in the country – staff even get sent up here to train.

Also, honourable mentions to The Restaurant, which despite it’s steep prices and odd name, win lots of points for greeting me with “good evening, sir” as well as having great food, and Oranaise, which I wouldn’t describe as the best Moroccan restaurant in Leeds, but is certainly the friendliest.

Last week, we headed over to Trio for a bit of a work social. Despite making it clear that partners were invited, but not welcome, it somehow quickly turned into a bit of a couples-fest and as a possible first for Buzz, actually ended up with an equal gender balance.

The drinks were good. Their Rekorderlig was a bit of a rip-off, they had a “special offer” of bottles for £2.50, but it wasn’t the kind of bottle you would expect if you got a bottle of Kopparberg, it was a small beer style bottle.

Far more importantly, however, we were there for the two for one cocktails.

These started well, they had a menu but the first bartender we got was willing to mix up anything and I was soon sipping on an apricot martini. The second bartender we got was far more disappointing, however, despite working at a cocktail bar, he had never even heard of a sloppy joe, let alone being willing to mix one. Service was at least reasonably speedy, however.

The restaurant was far more of a disappointment. Despite charging almost £20 for a fillet steak, it couldn’t even compete with the likes of Brooklyn Bar or The Restaurant, let alone Blackhouse or Cattle Grid, all of which are cheaper, despite being in the city centre!

All in all, a good place to go for cocktails, but I can’t recommend eating there.

Recently, a new steak restaurant named Cattle Grid opened inside Waterloo House at the back of the Corn Exchange in Leeds. They have a number of restaurants in London, and I believe this is their first outside the capitol.

So, last week, myself, Norm, George and James headed down for a reunion of the steak based man date club, to try it out.

It’s good. Very good. I had the ribs. They were immense!

I haven’t had a steak yet as I couldn’t fit one in for dessert, but I’m looking forward to it as from the judgements of everyone else, they stack up well against the competition. The ribs were excellent though, almost as good as the ones I had in Edinburgh, which were the best ribs I ever had – so we’re talking very good!

Already looking forward to our next visit. Bring on the steak…

On Sunday, my sister was in town so we headed down to Fazenda for a family meal.

Fazenda is a Brazilian meat restaurant where you get a plate and help yourself to the salad bar, then they just come round with big slabs of meat and carve a slice off onto your plate. There are lots of different ones including beef, pork and chicken and you have a traffic light card with you turn to green when you want meat and red when you don’t.

Sounds good, but to be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed.

The food itself was good quality but as it’s all from large cuts you have to take it as you get it, whereas obviously when eating at a steak restaurant you can have it cooked to your liking. Also, the traffic light cards seem somewhat redundant as they just tend to ask you every time they come round.

Not that I didn’t enjoy it, it was excellent, but I wouldn’t say it was as good as say Blackhouse, and is similarly priced.

Work having shat all over my Friday night plans where I was supposed to be delivering a session of the Answers course at Atheist Society and then spending some time with Elina, I eventually made it home around 9pm, still in need of grabbing some dinner.

So, having rescheduled Elina to tomorrow, myself and George headed out to grab some much needed food. While I had heard some mixed reviews since the last time I went, they consistently delivered again with some amazing food. My Weeping Tiger actually tasted more of beef than tiger, but then I’ve never actually had tiger, so maybe it tastes the same.

Last Sunday, we headed down to Distrikt for some Sunday lunch.

Rich always gets great service in there as it turns out he has been unknowingly masquerading as an Observer food critic. You have to wonder whether an Observer food critic would actually walk in with a copy of the Observer, but there you go.

Never the less he played up to the roll and recommended the lamb to us, which he said was excellent when he had had it last week 😉 . The dessert was good too though they clearly haven’t taken on our heartfelt suggestions from last time that they needed more chocolate based options.

Last Tuesday, we headed over to the Brown Cow & Dragon to celebrate my dad’s birthday.

The Brown Cow & Dragon is a traditional English pub. And Thai restaurant. It’s an interesting combination with a selection of traditional Thai dishes and then bangers and mash on the menu.

Despite being determined to get some Thai food, I gave in when I saw they had BBQ ribs on the menu. They couldn’t complete with the amazing ribs I had while in Edinburgh but were never the less very enjoyable and the portion size was good – not too much, not too little.

On Friday, myself, Si and Sarann headed into town to grab some dinner.

We ended up at Cafe Rouge in The Light, which was looking fairly empty for a Friday night – ideal for some good conversation. Service was a little disappointing given how few people were in there but the quite atmosphere was enjoyable.

The food was mediocre, I went with the Steak Rouge which was OK, but given there are so many great places to have steak in Leeds, it wasn’t any more enjoyable than say the £6 steak I had enjoyed at Wetherspoon’s the previous Tuesday.

Afterward, we headed over to Browns for a few rounds of cocktails. Apparently they will mix anything to your order but we didn’t put them to the challenge and rather opted just to work out way through their signature menu.

After a few rounds of cocktails and the wine I had had at dinner, I found myself leaving the bar somewhat intoxicated whereas Si, the supposed teetotaler until a year ago, didn’t seem to be feeling it. Maybe Si is a secret alcoholic after all?

With the anniversary of Arthur Fonzarelli having arrived once again, I organised a birthday meal at Piccolino. As it happened Fonze turned up late to his own birthday shin dig so we ended up eating the main course without him, but never the less we didn’t let his tardiness spoil our fun.

The restaurant was a reasonably up market place and this was evident from the pitiful amount of change I received back from my £10 note having ordered myself and Elina a drink.

The staff were friendly though it was sometimes a little hard to get their attention. Some of them didn’t seem to speak very good English which I always find a good sign in restaurants as it can often be because they’re actually from the country that the restaurant’s food style is based on, though of course equally it could be a placebo effect.

The food was nice, the portions were small but I didn’t come away from the meal still feeling hungry so no concerns there. I had the crispy duck for main which wasn’t actually that crispy but the sauce was excellent and duck is a fantastic meat in general. Piccolino’s real strength seems to be in it’s desserts however.

I enjoyed the meal, but given the above average bill which didn’t translate into above average food, I think I would pick one of the multitude of great restaurants in the city centre rather than heading back there any time soon.