Posts Tagged ‘eating out’

Last week, the Atheist Society organised a dinner at Veritas. We gave them fair warning, booking out their back room so we would have the place to ourselves.

We’ve eaten there before, and it’s been reasonable.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case on Tuesday. We arrived at 7pm, and after a bit of a delay in just taking the orders – the food didn’t turn up until 9:30pm! We got some snacks and a round of drinks to say sorry, but two and a half hours is just incredible.

Worse, when the food did turn up, a lot of it was burned and badly cooked – Elina’s pie seemingly the only meal that came out of the kitchen as intended. By the time our main courses had arrived and we had eaten, it was going on until 11pm, so we skipped dessert and gave it up as a bad job.

For this month’s Humanist Community meeting, we met at The Reliance, for dinner.

At my birthday meal, we managed to eat our way through £557.54 worth of meat :D.

Last weekend, me and Elina went to Red’s True Barbecue for dinner. As you can see from my restaurant review, I wasn’t overly impressed. But, to their credit, they did literally provide a bucket of ribs.

Last weekend, I joined my parents for dinner at Escobar, which bills itself as “Mexian restaurant and live music venue at the heart of Leeds.”

Despite only three or four of their twenty tables being occupied when I turned up, they seemed somewhat startled that I had turned up, but a quick double check against my booking seemed to pacify the situation. “We’re short staffed tonight” the waiter explained.

The menu was reasonable, it offered a good selection of fajita and fajita style products, though not much else. I decided to go for a burrito, which was enjoyable and more than I could eat (you should now have playing in your head the phrase “wow, this burrito is delicious, but it is filling.” 😉 ).

Not a bad place to eat, but I’m not in any hurry to go back.

With everything that you need to cook still packed away in boxes, myself and Elina headed up to AM Kitchen & Bar to grab some dinner. It’s one of the few restaurants in Leeds I hadn’t eaten at yet, so I was looking forward to trying it.

It’s tastefully decorated with what I presume is Indian style furniture (I haven’t been to India, so I can only guess), though the window displays were all of various different vodkas. Perhaps there is something I’m missing, but I’m not quite sure what the connection was there.

The food itself was great, probably slightly more authentic than Cafe Guru and equally as good. I really enjoyed my chicken dopiaza, though I was a little disappointed with Elina’s lamb pasanda. They also had excellent chocolate mints, so I might just order a bowl of those next time.

Last week, we headed over to San Carlos for Michael’s birthday. Overall conclusion – poor quality restaurant, good quality company.

The restaurant itself was very disappointing – I had the steak, which just wasn’t that nice, it was cooked OKish, but wasn’t even warm by the time it made it to the table. The sides didn’t arrive with the meals either – they were just placed randomly on the table and we had to re-arrange them.

After all that, we were still a side missing and they had Tom’s main order completely wrong. I tried to grab a waiter to ask about the extra side, but that took rather a long time as no one came to check if our food was OK and they seemed to be rather rushed around.

Finally, we decided to order profiteroles for dessert, and thinking there would be plenty for the £5.10 we were paying for them, we decided to split them. When they arrived however, we found only three on the plate.

Unfortunately, I can only conclude that this was one of the most disappointing restaurant experiences I have had in Leeds city centre.

That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the evening however – the turn out was good and it was great to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen for quite a well, as well as finally meet the parents who have apparently heard a lot about me – all good stuff they assure me… 😀 Big thanks to them for part funding the meal too!

With Elina back in Leeds, I decided to take her out for dinner and despite my general dislike for Italian food, with Jamie’s Italian being one of the few restaurants in Leeds I haven’t eaten at, we settled on that as a venue.

You can’t book, so you just have to turn up and wait. We were told on arrival that the wait was around 20-25 minutes. We were handed a pager and sent to the bar area, which was too small for the number of people waiting, but otherwise fine.

The wait ended up being around 15 minutes and we were soon seated and ordering. The food was good, and served fast, but I felt we were generally a little rushed so they could turn over the table. Overall, it was a perfectly pleasant dining experience, but nothing special.

On Friday, myself, Norm and George headed back to Gattle Grid for some more steak.

Having had the ribs last time I opted to try the steak this time, though I was somewhat torn because the ribs were amazing. They are definitely the best thing on the menu, once again being bigger than the plate when Norm’s meal was delivered.

The steak was excellent, so not quite up to the standards of Blackhouse. For the price though, you can’t really go wrong.

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.