The first half of April featured my thoughts on three city centre restaurants: Revolution de Cuba, Tuk Tuk Indian Street Food and Smashburger (If you haven’t read it yet, it’s available here). Last month, I also visited FF Finsbay, the new steak restaurant in Woodlands rd, Gnom – new cafe/restaurant in Strathbungo, and tried the new pop up Undercover Dinner Society, which was held in Finnieston. Have a read below to see what I thought of these three new Glasgow restaurants.
Gnom – Brunch – Strathbungo
Gnom is a new cafe created by the brain behind Chompsky, one of my favourite street food vendors in Glasgow. Though I’m missing Chompsky’s presence in Glasgow’s street food scene, I have to say I’m very impressed with what they have created in Gnom. Brunch seems to be the trend of the year right now, and Gnom is definitely one of the places to visit if you are looking for tasty and more interesting breakfast scran. It certainly ticks all the boxes for me. Delicious coffee – check. Good choice of breakfast dishes – check. Add to that, more interesting options – check check check! I had the famous Chompsky (breakfast) bao which was so good. Tasty pulled pork filled baos and topped with a fried egg, makes for a really nice breakfast, apparently! They also have other interesting sweet and savoury options inspired by different world flavours (Middle Eastern food another popular food trend by the looks of it). Overall, it’s a fantastic addition to the amazing food scene over at Strathbungo and I will be returning frequently,
- ££: Breakfast options are around £7-9, and coffee is around £2-3 quid. Fairly standard for brunch in the area, and definitely worth it!
- Good for: breakfast, brunch, lunch, coffee and cake! Also slightly larger than some of the other popular spots in the area so maybe you will find it easier to grab a table.
Undercover Dinner Society – Tasting Menu – Yorkhill
Glasgow’s food scene right now is on fire with amazing street food, brunch, pop ups and tasting menus. This year, chef John Traynor, who has done a number of pop ups in Glasgow already (Flock Pop up) and has worked at Porter & Rye, launched Undercover Dinner Society which was held in the Drugstore Social. The menu featured the best of seasonal Scottish produce mixed in pan-Asian flavours to create six delicious courses. We also had an option to pair our food with cocktails or wine. Both me and my friend chose to go for the cocktails as we wanted to try something new and interesting.
The food was definitely interesting and very creative. Some of the flavour combinations were unusual but are ones that I still talk about, almost a month after I’ve been there. There were two dishes that really stood out in my opinion. The first course which featured delicious Goat’s cheese mouse in a charcoal cracker, which melted in the mouth in a symphony of fantastic and subtle flavours. It was served with a vodka based watermelon cocktail which was absolutely yum! And the third course, which was a seaweed cured trout in kimchee consume with korean noodles. I was really impressed at how well the flavours balanced each other – a very salty fish with a subtle consume and noodles, which worked together extremely well. Bonus point for the wee fortune cookies that came with it!
The cocktail pairing was a bit hit and miss for me, but that’s more because I’m very fussy with my spirits (i.e. not a fan of gin and really dislike whisky). Since more than half of the cocktails featured quite strong on the gin and whisky I couldn’t really drink them, but it’s my fault for not really looking at the ingredients properly. My friend thought they were delicious. The menu also featured two desserts, which I was initially slightly worried about as I’m not really a dessert person. However, I have to say that the Mango, coconut & Yogurt sorbet (Course No 5) was so light and sweet, and very balanced in it’s flavours. The second dessert was slightly sweeter but delicious and once again, featured and balanced delicious flavours. Also.. who can say no to rainbow meringues?!
- ££: £30 for a six course menu, £20 for cocktail/wine pairings.
- Good for: those who like to eat interesting food and flavours and fusion food.
FF Finsbay – Dinner – West End
FF Finsbay opened in the West End only a couple of months ago, and since, it has gained huge popularity with Glasgow foodies. They specialise in flatiron steaks and have a banging deal during the week – £8 for a flatiron steak between Sun-Thurs, £10 Fri-Sat. It’s great price for a steak in any case, and they also have a really good selection of interesting sides (Parmesan and Hollandaise Sauce topped chunky chips, black pudding bon bons and more).
A few weeks ago, a friend and I headed there for some steaks and cocktails. We both had the flatiron steak, medium rare as recommended by FF’s team, with garlic butter and had some chips and black pudding bon bons to share. First things first, the staff are nice and friendly and explained the menu options and steaks well (there are sometimes other steaks on offer as specials). The cocktails were also really tasty. However, when it came to the steak… it wasn’t so great. The steaks arrived and looked absolutely delicious, however when I dug in I was disappointed to discover a well-done, chewy steak. When you have a steak restaurant which doesn’t cook it’s steak right, it’s always disappointing. Even more so when they specialise in one particular cut AND recommend it medium rare. When I highlighted this to the staff they took it away and served another steak a little while later which was on the rare side – so still not quite right, but an improvement.
The restaurant is only opened at the end of February so still quite new, and perhaps the chef had a bad night that night. But even so – it was a Friday night (so perhaps a busy night for them) and not doing well what they specialise in was disappointing. Everything else was pretty good, so I might pop in again for another try.
- ££: Our bill came to just over £40 for the two steaks, sides and drinks.
- Good for: midweek dinner, cocktails. Specialises in steak.
I hope you will go and try some of these places, and if you do, please pop your thoughts in the comments below!
~Em
Food Notes 
This is a lovely read Em. Thanks very much for writing. Cheers
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