This week has been quite full on, both at work and socially, which fortunately or unfortunately (depends on how you like to look at it…) meant a lot of eating out. It’s been great though, as I’ve had a chance to catch up with a lot of friends and eat a lot of nice food… This week’s post is a bit longer than usual as I have a lot to fit in, but I do hope you enjoy it and I’m sure it will give you some good ideas of where to eat in Glasgow!
Tuesday – Dinner @ Paesano (again!)
It was very recently that M and I paid a visit to Paesano on Miller Street and I wrote about our experience in my first post in this series. As we were going out to a gig close by we had decided that pizza will be the dinner of choice. It was five of us and three of us had the specials on the board – mine was the burrata special, on tomato sugo, with added rocket. Apart from M and I, no one else had been frequenting Paesano and I am pleased to say everyone left satisfied!
Overall cost: About ~£8 per pizza. Will we be back? Well, we were there only 2 weeks ago so, yes, we will definitely be back. Are Tuesday becoming Paesano Tuesdays?!
Wednesday – Dinner @ Ramen Dayo!
A friend of mine and I have been trying to meet at Ramen Dayo! since December but due to busy schedules, we’ve had to postpone several times… until finally this week we met there. Now, I’ve been to Ramen Dayo! a few times already and since my friend loved ramen, I thought this would be the place to take her. Ramen Dayo! have evolved quite a lot over the past few years, from having a street food place in a lane off of Gordon Street to having their own restaurant on Queen Street. They specialise in doing very tasty ramen. Their tonkatsu broth is made with a deliciously creamy 20-hour pork broth. And it is VERY GOOD. We both had the Deluxe Dayo which comes with double everything… if you are hungry I’d definitely recommend this. They also have very good gyoza dumplings, and other small dishes and sides, as well as options for vegetarians.
Overall cost: £35 for two people (Deluxe Ramen bowls, gyozas, and drinks). Will I be back? Yes, absolutely. I’ve had my doubts about Ramen Dayo! not because of their food but because their service used to let them down quite a bit. However, I can see that they have really improved on the second front and their service matches their amazing food.
Thursday – Dinner @ Kimchi Cult + Cheese Tasting with The Roving Fromagerie
Over the past few months, I’ve made a habit of going to the utterly fantastic Phoebe’s cheese tasting classes. The Roving Fromagerie, or AKA Phoebe, runs frequent cheese tasting events in Glasgow and Edinburgh. So, on Thursday, M and I headed over there for our first cheese tasting of the year after a very tasty Korean dinner at Kimchi Cult.
I’ve been meaning to try Kimchi Cult for ages! It has such a good reputation and I wanted to see why. We had the fried chicken, a pulled pork bibimbap, two baos (pulled pork + beef) and the cheesy spicy fries. We were very impressed by how quickly everything was prepared and how tasty everything was! We were particularly impressed by the baos and the fried chicken, and I’d be quite happy to have the spicy fries every day!
Kimchi Cult – Overall cost: £30 for two people – included 3 mains and 1 side. I thought it was a bit pricey for certain dishes (the fried chicken was a portion of just two pieces of chicken for £7, and though it was tasty and they were good sized pieces I still didn’t think that £7 was a fair price). Will we be back? Yes, certainly!
Now back to the Cheese Tasting. I always look forward to Phoebe’s cheese tasting events. She’s so knowledgeable and passionate about cheese and (so far) has always brought in amazing stuff to try. Also, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a little bit in love with the way Phoebe talks about the cheese… As the cheese tasting fell on Burn’s night we had plenty of Scottish cheeses to try, as well some fantastic Italian and French options. If you want to know when the next cheese nights are, follow Phoebe’s page on Facebook.
Roving Fromagiere – Overall cost: £30 for two people (for this you get to try 8 fantastic cheeses and have more after the tasting). Will we be back? You bet!
Saturday – Brunch @ KAF
KAF is, without doubt, one of my favourite places to visit for good coffee and breakfast. I haven’t had a chance to go there for ages so suggested to a friend on Saturday. KAF is really tiny, only a couple of tables and a bit of bar space so it could be quite full/has a bit of a wait. On the plus side though, they have an ever-changing menu and keep trying out new things in it. Their scandi plate is a fantastic alternative to the big breakfast, and they usually have a couple of sweet options (think hotcakes or brioche…), a lot of cakes on display and more! Not to mention the delicious coffee. Both my friend and I had the Babka french toast, with frangipane, pistachios, lemon curd and berries and a latte each. It was GLORIOUS! I can’t recommend KAF enough if you are in the Partick area.
Overall cost: £22 (coffee and breakfast each), portions were massive so good value for money. Will we be back? Yes, for sure!
Sunday – Lunch @ The Dockyard Social & Dice Roll Cafe
This weekend was all about street food in Glasgow! Both the Big Feed and the Dockyard Social were on. We decided to go the latter for an early lunch before an afternoon of boardgaming with friends at the fantastic Dice Roll Cafe, hosted at The Saramago/CCA. Our mission was to try as much food as possible between the two of us. We managed to eat the following: fresh squid from Shrimp Wreck (specialists in seafood as the name might suggest), duck bahn mi from NOMNAM (Asian food), pork with roti canai from Section33 (fusion food), churros with white chocolate and lotus flower from Cartel Cantina (churros with all sorts of interesting sweet and savoury toppings), pulled pork taco with watermelon salsa & the gumbo at FATBOYS (comfort food/american southwestern) and pulled pork dumplings from Bumpin Dumpling Co (you guessed it, dumplings). M and I were both most impressed by the duck bahn mi from NOMNAM (his favourite) and the food from Fatboys (my favourite) and I think we were least impressed by the dumplings. If you like street food, it’s definitely worth paying the DockYard Social a visit. I hope to make it to the Big Feed some point soon too!
Cost: All the food was priced ar £5 and there is £5 entry fee which gets you a welcome drink too. Will we be back: I hope so, I also hope that there will be a bit of variety in the place too!
We then spent the afternoon in The Saramago and the fortnightly pop-up – Dice Roll Cafe, which is organised by the lovely Kenny. He has curated his boardgame library pretty much on his own and it is mighty impressive. DRC is on fortnightly on a Sunday and the next one is going to be on on the 11th of February. For only £2 pp you get access to all the boardgames and you can sit and play all afternoon. My favourite thing about DRC is that it attracts a mixed crowd – from people who almost never play boardgames, families, casual gamers and those who are properly into the hobby, you can find someone to have a chat with and maybe even play a game with! Check out Dice Roll Cafe’s facebook page to get the latest news and events.
Do let me know if you make it to any of these places and let me know what you thought of them! I’m now in savings mode so hopefully, next week will feature less eating out…
~Em
Food Notes 