Excellent brunch at Montgomerys Cafe, West End, Glasgow

You got to try Egg Florentine for brunch at Montgomerys Cafe (9 Radnor Street, Glasgow) in West End. My husband is quite particular about coffee and even he has admitted that Montgomerys does a very good coffee. I love their Egg Florentine so much I have managed to coax my husband into going back there again two consecutive Sundays!

The cafe is very near to Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery and Radnor Street is sandwiched between Sauchiehall Street and Argyll Street. As we went there on Sunday, there is no problem to find parking spaces.

It's a lovely place. The decor itself makes you feel happy.

and when you look up, you see a colourful map of the world on the ceiling.

As soon as we were seated, the staff brought you a bottle of water, which was well cooled. 

Before we went to the cafe, I had already decided to order their Egg Florentine and a Vietnamese Coffee, however I checked the menu anyway to see what else they have to eat. Well, there are so many delicious sounding dishes on the menu it could be quite difficult to choose ...

... Yes, Portobello Burger sounds nice but so as Mushroom Salad, and Hot Smoked Salmon Salad too.

Tuna Melt also sounds good.... Haggis Melter!  That would suit Emily's husband Craig, definitely!

Well, I shall have Egg Florentine - the dish I came to the cafe for and my husband had Veg Stack when we went to the cafe for the first time.

He then ordered large cappuccino and I ordered Vietnamese Coffee. It uses a small coffee pot that looks like a hat and sits on the top of a coffee cup. Coffee and hot water slowly trickles through into the cup with condensed milk. Why condensed milk?  French colonists introduced coffee to Vietnam and in those days the French could not easily get fresh milk so they used condensed milk instead.

So I shall just wait for the black liquid trickled into the glass cup. When it's ready, I just stir up all the condensed milk to enjoy but you could leave it for the end.

And my Egg Florentine has arrived!!! Two big thick and fluffy slices of toasted brioche bread with buttered spinach atopped with two perfectly poached eggs with delicious hollandaise sauce that has some kick to it. It's just perfect!

This is my husband's Veg Stack - There is a big portobello mushroom hidden behind the stack ...

I enjoyed my Egg Florentine so much during our last visit, we both ordered this again this morning... and for me, with a cup of Vietnamese Coffee again too ...

I love it ... there are lots of spinach in between the toasted brioche and the brioche is just perfect - big chunky slices yet so fluffy and sweet and delicious.

My husband quickly checked internet to see what's in the brioche or how to bake it. He found Paul Hollywood's recipe on line and I noticed a photo of his book cover. I said, "I think I got this book at home." He said, "I am sure you do.", hinting that I shall start thinking of kneading the dough and bake a lovely brioche loaf. Nice try, but I do have a bread maker and I am sure I have seen the setting for brioche in its recipe book. I may try it....

Anyway, after our first visit to this cafe, we went to Tantrum Doughnuts shop nearby and bought a box of 10 doughnuts, which I will promise that I talk about in my blog another time but soon.

View from downstairs ....

Today, I said to my husband that I want to 'cake away' desserts instead of going for doughnuts as I can see delectable looking cakes are beckoning me ...

So, we then walked over to the counter and see what we can try ....

We got to try those big strawberry tarts ....

and Salted caramel tart with pistachios ....

There are just too many to choose from ....

My husband want to try Mango and Raspberry Delice ...

So these are our desserts at home ....

I have just had the strawberry tart and it was yummy. There are lots of cream in the tart, glazed all over with sweet and sticky strawberry sauce, AND, I found a huge whole strawberry right in the centre hidden amongst the cream. What a lovely surprise. 

I can't get enough of their Egg Florentine. I want to eat it again... 

It's definitely a trip worthwhile for brunch. Staff are very attentive and service is very quick. All the dishes they are carrying to tables look all fantastic. We need to go back again .... yummy ....

That's all forks.

Little Cafe near Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery in Glasgow

Having had a fab lunch at Ox and Finch (this is a follow up from my previous blog), Emily and I went to visit Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery for a bit of culture in the afternoon.

We walked back Sauchiehall Street, passing the snow-covered bowling green with University of Glasgow and the Museum and Art Gallery in the background. What a beautiful afternoon it was. When the food (at Ox and Finch) was so good, it did make us feel so good too.

Glasgow University (right) and Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery (left)

As we were walking toward the Museum, we discussed what we actually wanted to see at the Museum for a bit of culture. We both said, "Those floating heads!" We were actually talking about a series of white heads, suspended from the ceiling in the area dedicated to Expression, depicting a number of human facial expressions as we just wanted to take photos.  Emily declared, "I want to see the big elephant too!"

Floating heads and elephant, sounds like a great plan, maybe not much of a culture but off we went.

Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery

When we arrived, we also learned they were having an exhibition of Scottish writer Alistair Gray's art work. Ok, since we are here, why not see that too for a bit of culture.

We went through the South entrance to enter the building. As soon as we were inside, we saw the massive pipe organ by Lewis & Co, the centrepiece of the central hall. Unfortunately we had just missed the pipe organ mini concert at 1pm. 

Our plan was to cover the whole ground floor exhibition first before we search for Floating Heads, however as soon as we had a glance of them, we went the area straight away for lots of photo opportunities. 

The lighting from ground below, changing colours from purple to pink to white to yellow, giving an interest effects on floating heads and the ceiling above, whilst contrasting the traditional displays below against contemporary floating heads above. Very interesting ....

We then went upstairs, enjoyed the changes of colours of floating heads and their surrounding ambience. And more photos from the upper level.

I posted this on Instagram for my sister in Japan to see.
She did not like it.... I think she thought they were eerie...

We spent far too much on taking photos of these floating heads and almost forgot to see Salvador Dali's surrealist religious masterpiece Christ of Saint John of the Cross.

We then went downstairs to see the Museum's popular resident, Sir Roger, the life-size elephant that Emily wanted to see.  I asked Emily if she wanted her picture taken with him but she said no.

We then went down to the lower level floor to see Alistair Gray's artwork. The exhibition will run until 22 February 2015 and is £5.00 for entry.  We did not know much about him or his art work so it was interesting and it was a bit of culture for us indeed.

After this, it was time for a nice cup of tea or coffee. Unfortunately museum's cafe downstairs was too full with people cueing to get in, so we decided to go outside. As we were leaving, we saw Elvis.

"Thank you very much for visiting!"

We crossed the road and found this cafe named Little Cafe at 1361 Argyle Street, Glasgow G3 8AF.

On the window, it says Suki Tea - Proper Tea Sold Here!  Yes, I shall try that.

We asked the staff what flavours they got. He explained the list of flavours they got and let us smell some of leaves to help us choose. Emily decided to try apple and mint whilst I chose green tea with ginseng.  Emily also ordered a slice of Salted Chocolate Brownie, which turned out to be a really yummy and chewing delicious dessert.

My green tea with ginseng was really refreshing, soothing and relaxing.

Green tea with gingseng 

Emly's apple and mint tea smelt really delicious. She really enjoyed this tea so much she has just ordered some on-line through Amazon.

Having checked some reviews on Tripadvisor, they have quite good reviews, apparently their home-made pizza is very good.  The service at the cafe was also good and friendly too.

Well, we really had a great day in Glasgow - we had a fantastic lunch at Ox and Finch, an interesting afternoon with a bit of culture at Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery, and then a lovely Suki Tea at Little Cafe.  We were then off to a Chinese supermarket to buy some Japanese food for dinner as we were thinking about having Okonomi-Yaki (see my earlier blog about Okonomi-yaki in Osaka!). 

Always thinking about foods, of course!

That's all forks!

Ox and Finch in Glasgow

Emily and I have just has a mother and daughter day out yesterday in West End of Glasgow.

Our plan was to go for a lunch, visit Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallerty for a bit of culture and then go to Chinese supermarket to buy some Japanese ingredients for dinner.

We had different options to go for lunch and eventually decided to try Ox and Finch (http://www.oxandfinch.com) at 920 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G3 7TF.  I first heard of this place from having read the review by Marina O'Loughlin on The Guardian last October (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/17/ox-and-finch-glasgow-restaurant-review-marina-oloughlin) and have been intrigued about this place but not have got around to try this place until now. Because of its name, Ox and Finch, I thought this must be more meat-focused place but actually it is not necessarily so. This place caters for all taste, they even have a separate vegetarian menu too. There are so many tapas places nowadays and you feel like you are getting the same kind of food everywhere, so just think of a bit up-market tapas place with comtemporary feel, a sort of place you could imagine the West End of Glasgow would have.

It's not cheap (if you think of the concept of tapas for sharing) but the food is fantastic, everything taste fresh with great ingredients. We love this place. We can't wait to go back to this place again and it's not often we say things like this about a restaurant.

We checked the reviews on Tripadvisor beforehand. Everyone is giving great reviews. I did not want to raise my expectation too high as I often get disappointed by it. We did not book tables and were not sure if we could even get it. The place opens at noon so we tried to be there around that time, hoping that we could get seated. We parked just outside of Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. We were lucky to get perfect parking space on Kelvin Way and walked for a few blocks on Sauchiehall Street toward the city centre direction. And here it is, sitting at the corner, we found Ox and Finch.

It did not look too busy so we went in. We were told that no tables were available for another an hour or two but the manager came up and asked if we would not mind sitting at counter tables. Of course not, we don't want to miss this chance. Actually it's not a bad place at all to sit as we could see the kitchen and chefs are in action, and on my left was the wall full of wines, great!

The waiting staff came over with menus and suggested that we try 2 - 3 dishes per person. 

We checked the menu and decided to try four dishes of Buffalo Mozzarella, Fig, Mint and Eight-year-aged Balsamic from the vegetarian menu, Crab and Crayfish with Chilli, Mango and Glass Noodle Salad,  Sea Bream, Shredded Thai Salad, Chilli and Peanuts and Salt and Pepper Squid, Blood Orange, Chilli and Saffron Aioli.  

We also ordered Sourdough Bread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil dipping to nibble whilst waiting for the dishes to arrive.  The bread was really lovely and soft and E.V.O.O. was really good too.

As Emily was driving, I could also order a small glass of sauvignon blanc to go with dishes, hee hee hee. 

We were quite lucky as the place was not too busy yet and our orders arrived one by one but fairly quickly so we did not wait too long.

First arrived was crab and crayfish salad.  This was our favourite. It was really tasty, really refreshing. We tried to dissect what was in this salad so that we could recreate this at home. There are obviously crab meat, crayfish, roasted chopped peanuts, glass noodles (or Vermicelli Noodles?), chopped spring onion, bean sprouts, red and orange peppers, carrots, chilli, fish sauce and lime and coriander.  That's all we figured out so far. Emily thought there might be some lemonglass too. 

Crab and Crayfish with Glass Noodles - really really yummy!

Next arrived was Mozzarella with grilled figs and 8 year aged balsamic vinegar. We never tried figs before so we were delighted to try this. Mozzarella was really soft and almost melt in your mouth and figs were really tasty too.  8 year aged balsamic vinegar .... wow, it sounds delectable already even if we could not tell the difference between 8 year aged one and M&S's one.

Salt and peppered squid and sea bream followed.  To be honest, I did not find salt and peppered squid was particularly special although it was still a good dish - personally I would like to have more blood orange segments.

Sea Bream was really good too, with Thai peanuts salad.

We enjoyed everything. Our favourite is Crab and Crayfish Glass Noodle salad. 

 Just as well we only ordered four dishes to share between us (and sourdough bread). We managed to scoff everything except one bit of fried squid tentacles. By that time we were too full to try desserts.  Well, we just need to come back again to try them next time.

We then ordered coffees to finish off our meal. My macchiatto was excellent.

Whilst having coffees, us 'ladies do lunches'  also posted some picture from this restaurant on Instagram.  We decided to go to Kelvingrove Museum for a bit of culture after this and thought of having some tea with desserts later on.  Emily treated me for this lovely lunch. Thank you very much, Emily. It was really really fab!  We would love to go back but next time we need to make sure we book in advance. Whilst we were eating, quite a many people came and could not get in.  We were really lucky that we could get in. I have just found out on the web that this is a restaurant by Jonathan MacDonald who was a former head chef with the McLaren formula one racing team and apparently you would need to book a month in advance if you want to eat there on a Saturday night! Wow, I can't wait that long, I want to eat it there now!

Feeling great about having managed to get in and tried lovely dishes, we felt really good for the rest of the day.  If I get a terrible food at a restaurant, I feel as if my whole day is ruined. Emily laughs about this statement but it's true.

It was a fabulaous dining experience. We also had a fabulous time at Kelvingrove Museum too, which I shall talk about another day.

That's all forks!