Category Archives: Events

The Lansdowne Bar & Kitchen, Glasgow West End

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We visited the Lansdowne on Wednesday to try out their wine dinner – 3 courses for £25 per person. We have posted about the Lansdowne previously (if you remember that far back!). This place is definitely one of my favourite pubs and restaurants in Glasgow for its consistently good food and awesomely relaxing atmosphere.

We sat in a booth (probably better for 4 people rather than 5) and were greeted with two glasses of wine to accompany the starter, a white and red. The wine aspect of the evening was a brief, non-intrusive chat from Chris from Bibendum Wines about the wines and how they matched the food. I thought he had the perfect balance of telling you enough interesting information without droning on and distracting from the food. After the meal he popped around to each table to see if anyone had questions which was a great idea.

Spinach and wild mushroom lasagne with toasted Italian olive loaf

For the starter, I had the spinach and wild mushroom lasagne with Italian olive loaf. I also got to eat the poached egg off Graeme’s dish (seared lambs’ liver with smoked bacon, poached egg and hollandaise) because he doesn’t like egg (still baffles me!). The poachy was perfect and I’d eaten it in two or three mouthfuls, I was that excited. My meal looked slightly soupy, which was worrying for a lasagne. But when I dived in, I was delighted by the super umami punch of the wild mushroom which made this a really exciting starter. My only criticism is that the portion size was a bit big – but that really isn’t much of a complaint!

Seared lambs’ liver with smoked bacon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce

For mains I went for the braised beef cheek, chorizo dauphinoise with white truffle and mushroom sauce. Again, another dish with a real wow-factor of flavour. The plating perhaps wasn’t the most beautiful I’ve seen, and it would have benefited from a side of green vegetables to cut through the richness. The dauphinoise was moreish and I continued eating until that exploding-full-breaking-point because I just didn’t want to stop.

Braised beef cheek, chorizo dauphinoise with a white truffle and mushroom sauce

Then we moved onto dessert – I had a few bites of the strawberry and mascarpone roulade and that was me finished for the night. It was really lovely but I had just eaten too much.

Strawberry and mascarpone roulade

The wine nights are on monthly and it was a really fun event to attend. For the amount of wine you got with your meal (5 small glasses) this was definitely amazing value. I also love sampling wines I wouldn’t normally buy or try. I’ve always enjoyed the food at the Lansdowne and it’s pleasing to see them keeping up the high standards! Keep your eyes peeled for their next wine dinner, probably at the beginning of May.

Longboard Italian evening at Whole Foods Market, Giffnock

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We were lucky enough to be invited along for Whole Foods Market, Giffnock’s new monthly night called Longboard. The launch night was Italian themed, and we were treated to a whole range of amazing food.

Longboard Italian Menu

You can read a really detailed description of all the food on their blog, Longboard Giffnock. The idea is that the event encourages sharing from platters and meeting lovely new friends. We had the pleasure of sitting next to Fiona from Eaty Tweety and her husband and I’m glad to report there was no fork-stabbing incidents fighting over food!

After enjoying our welcoming glass of a peach prosecco bellini (yum!) we were then treated to our first longboard – salumi.

This is pretty much my dream dinner. Had we not had to share (or have more food coming) I could have happily grazed on this for a few hours! Everything was delicious and thankfully, the food we didn’t get to eat was boxed up for us to eat the next day.

One thing that really makes Whole Foods stand out to me is their wonderfully friendly and helpful staff. All the items were explained in detail, and they quickly answered any questions we had.

Amalfi lemons with mozzarella

Ohhhfttt these were a real surprise. The cheese popped out of the lemon skin, and was lightly lemon flavoured, but still packed a real mozzarella punch. I really want to learn how to make these as they would be a great and unusual starter!

Insalata – olive, bocconcini & cherry tomato dressed in olive oil with rocket & Parmesan

This is just the refreshing salad we need – a perfect palate cleanser before the main. Also, I loved this salad for it’s extreme simplicity and goes to show that a delicious, healthy salad can be thrown together in just a few minutes with some really fresh ingredients.

Lemon, fennel and marjoram rubbed roast chicken, rosemary & sea salt baby roasts, chilli and herb spiked roasted vegetables, ricotta mushrooms

There were four portions on the longboard so sharing wasn’t required for this course! I loved the chicken but the vegetables were the real stand out of this course. The first thing I ate was the mushroom and it had a really punch of chilli to it, which was a surprise as I was just expecting it to be cheesy. I loved it! Then the potatoes – they were served on a carrot and vanilla purée which was beyond heavily – another item I want to learn to make at home!

Desserts – sweet tarts

Graeme skillfully managed to cut these tarts into four so we could all try all of them. This dessert was the perfect finish to the meal – to be honest, I was totally stuffed by this stage so wouldn’t have been able to eat much more! We were also treated to dark chocolate squares, a glass of marsala (which I wouldn’t normally drink, but loved with the chocolate!) as well as an espresso. It was either the espresso or the fun that kept me awake for hours afterwards!

We had such a great night. It was really a lovely experience to dine at Whole Foods (what other supermarket could you say that about?!) and fun to meet awesome people to share it with.

There will be another Longboard event in September – Whole Foods will be announcing it this week! So keep your eyes glued to their facebook page as I’m sure it will sell out quickly.

The Glasgow Food Blog dined as guests of Whole Foods Giffnock.

Total Food Geeks Glasgow Bloggers Event at The Arches, Glasgow

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Scottish smoked halibut with Scottish asparagus, caper pop corn and smoked oil emulsion

Rabbit and ham hough Battenberg with sage crisps and a cider and honey jelly

A while back, Graeme from A Scots Larder suggested the Glasgow food bloggers meet up for a drink to see about starting up a Total Food Geeks over in Glasgow. There is a well established Edinburgh group so we set about arranging a meet up by twitter. Eventually we decided that it wasn’t right to have a foodies get together without food, and we settled on The Arches for its very reasonable set menu (3 course for £10!) and casual vibe.

Pan seared mackerel fillet with glazed beetroots, cauliflower & horseradish mousse, seaweed, spring onion & rapeseed dressing

Cairnhill farm roasted chump of lamb served with pistachio dauphinoise, confit shallots, baby turnips with a Bitter + Twister ale jus

We’ve written about The Arches before, so I won’t go into a detailed review but to say the food cooked for us at our first Total Food Geeks Glasgow event was, without understating anything, drop-dead amazing. I’d like to extend a huge thanks to The Arches and to chef Robbie McGuinness who not only made us an amazing meal, but came out of the kitchen to chat with us afterwards. Sorry for the interrogation Robbie but we all had loads of questions!

Chocolate Nemesis with salted caramel mousse and a bee pollen chocolate shard

We decided to meet every 6 weeks for a TFG Glasgow meet up – so if you’re interested in blogging, food, Glasgow, or coming along, let me or Graeme from A Scots Larder know (a tweet to @glasgow_food or @scotslarder will get you sorted, or comment on our blogs). We even have a hashtag where you can follow the adventures - #totalfoodgeeksglasgow.

Glasgow upcoming event – Glasgow Beer Week

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I’ve not really posted before about upcoming events in Glasgow I really wanted to share some information about Glasgow Beer Week. This is a UK first and inspired by Beer Weeks in the USA. What is the point of Beer Week I hear you ask? Well, taken from their website, Beer Week aims:

  • To raise awareness of excellent beer in and around Glasgow
  • To promote the pubs and other venues that serve great beer
  • To encourage drinkers to try something new
  • To improve the image of beer as a tasty, sociable drink
  • To facilitate networking between drinkers, brewers and the trade
I really love beer and I love trying new beers. Scotland has some really great beers, as well as having excellent access to a huge range of beers from Europe. There are already some very exciting events lined up for Beer Week and you can check their website to stay up to date with what’s happening. 

Some of the events that I think sound brilliant: 

  • Cooking with Beer Supper Club on Thursday 26 May at Gusto & Relish for £18.95 per person
  • Red Onion is running a special beer menu all week 
  • The launch is taking place at West Brewery on Friday 27 May from 5.00pm 
  • A special ladies beer event – Sisters are brewing it for themselves – at Two Figs on Byres Road on Saturday 28 May  

Hopefully we’ll see you at one of the events!