Fabulous lunch at 111 by Nico, West End in Glasgow

My husband, myself and my daughter Emily have just been to 111 by Nico (http://111bynico.co.uk) in West End in Glasgow for lunch today.  It was a fabulous dining experience!

Ever since I read the restaurant review by Marina O'laughlin in The Guardian's Weekend magazine, I have always wanted to go to this place and finally the time has come!

We booked our table for 12.30 in case we could not get in. It turned out that we were the first customers and we could choose any table we wanted. There was a booth next to the kitchen. It looked nice and cosy but we opted for a table by the wall as it was a lovely day and we would be sitting in a natural day light from a warm sunshine.

Cosy corner .....

We sat down and perused our menus.

Nico and his Head Chef Modou

We were then faced with a big dilemma - everything on the menu sounded so good we did not know what to choose!

Eventually we decided. Emily and I ordered Smoked Mackerel for starter and Stone Bass for main course. My husband ordered Langoustine and Squid for starter and Artichoke for main course.
We also ordered Warm Bread Loaf, Paprika Butter.

Emily and I were really excited to try their food.... and then the Warm Bread Loaf and Paprika Butter arrived.

The bread was delicious AND paprika butter was really creamy texture and flavoursome.

Whilst we were enjoying this, the staff brought us demitasse cups of mushroom veloute with rapeseed oil as amuse-bouche.

According to Wikipedia (What do we do with internet!), the word, amuse-bouche, is 'mouth amuser' in French, offering a glimpse into the chef's approach to the art of cuisine. We did not expect this at all and this was met by our absolute delight; mouth amuser indeed. I almost wanted to clap my hands with huge grin on my face. This was really delicious and we could not wait what comes next.

Our starters then arrived.

This is Emily and my Smoked Mackerel with Asparagus, Quail Egg and Radicchio.  Beautifully presented on a beautiful plate. Look at the contrast of vivid colours of purple radicchio and fresh green of asparagus. It's like spring has come!

This was a very refreshing starter. Radicchio was not bitter at all and asparagus tastes lovely green with bite. You cut into the quail egg and it was yokey inside.

My husband had Langoustine and Squid with Farfalle Pasta, Olives and Shellfish Bisque.  This was gorgeous to look at and gorgeous to taste. Shellfish Bisque came separately and the staff poured it onto the plate at the table in front of us. I love the blue plate too. It just make me want to go to The Mediterranean Sea.

When all the stuff on the plate finished, you still just can't help not finishing up the bisque too. Yes, that's why the staff brought him a spoon with the dish. It was really flavoursome.

My husband didn't want to lick the plate clean [Yes, we were in the restaurant] but it was so tasty he managed to polish the last trace of the bisque with his spoon.

Wow, everything was really delicious so far and we still have main course and dessert to go. We can't wait.....

Whilst we were waiting for our main course, other customers started to come in. Some of them ordered Smoked Ham Hough that came in a glass dome piped full of applewood smoke over the ham hough. When the staff lifted the dome, the white smoke escaped and wafted throughout the restaurant, enveloping around the diners. I bet Emily would order this next time.

Our main course arrived.

Emily and my Stone Bass with Miso, Cucumber and Horseradish Cream.  Beautifully presented again.

The staff then poured light miso flavoured broth over the dish ....

... and is ready to eat! Love the plate again.  Fish was cooked to perfection.

Of course, you finish off the broth to the last drop .... yum.

This is my husband's Artichoke with slow cooked egg, sprouting broccoli and leak. Artichoke was really tasty so was sprouting broccoli and this is a fusion of different flavours and texture. Love the plate again too.

Underneath, there was a slow cooked egg hidden....

My husband loves artichoke. He really enjoyed this dish and finished all. He said he would order this again. Look how clean the plate is!!! Even the empty plate looks really good...

We love the plates. They compliment the dishes they serve really well. Emily looked at the back of the plate and learned that they are Steelite plates (http://www.steelite.com).

We thoroughly enjoyed our courses so far. What we liked about this place is that the portion size of each course is just right. Not too little, not too much, and timing and pace between the courses are also just right. This means that we still have some room left for desserts....

My husband tried Chocolate with salted caramel, hazelnuts and rhubarb.

I tried Pear with cheesecake, lime and amaretti. This is a deconstructed cheesecake with lovely pear and tart but lovely lemony jelly.

Emily had the flaming Coffee creme brûlée. This was really tasty.

We then finished off our meals with great coffees.

Macchiato and cappuccino

We finished our coffees and asked for the bill. What's the damage? 3 course meal is £20 - for the quality, this is not bad at all.

When you visit their website, the first thing you notice on the Home page is Nico's philosophy:

"A JOURNEY OF PASSION"

"My vision is simple:

Firstly to create a unique dining experience for my guests.

The second is to give young people who've faced 

enormous challenges the opportunity to share my

passion and drive for cooking, to teach them 

my gift and philosophy and hopefully

change their life for the better.

This is my vision

This is my passion

This is our journey"

Apparently Nico has a training academy for young people to give them the opportunities to gain skills to be a top chef one day.  On the wall it says ....

However, such altruism aside, the restaurant serves fantastic food. You eat their food with eyes - colours and contrasts, and then aromas of different ingredients and then taste - flavours and textures, etc.  And some fun too .... a glass dome filled with applewood smoke and a flaming creme brûlée.
All staff were very courteous and friendly too.

111 because the restaurant is at 111 Cleveden Road ....

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch today. We realised that we were in the restaurant for 3 hours!!!
We did not even realise that we were there that long. Such a leisurely lunch, what a fantastic dining experience.  We would definitely go back.

We went outside and walked back to our car. Emily noticed a cherry blossoms. Beautiful. What a fantastic day we had today. 

Have a nice day and 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!