Riverhill, Glasgow

Riverhill Restaurant and Bar (http://www.riverhillcafe.com/west-nile.htm) is on West Nile Street, more or less across the road from Las Iguanas. Apparently there is also their coffee bar at 24 Gordon Street which is not that far from it.

It's a great place for brunch, but they also have very good breakfast menu, lunch menu and dinner menu too. I went there with my daughters for lunch when we were in Glasgow for Christmas shopping. We did not book a table but as we got there just around noon, we managed to get ourselves seats. It's not a big place so it'd be probably better if you book in advance. Alternative you can sit at the long counter table.

Wall decor behind us ....

We consulted the lunch menu. It has lots of tasty and interesting sounding things on the menu. For starters, there are Grilled octopus, chorizo, smoked butter, burst cherry tomatoes and almonds; Navajo fry bread, cheese and chilli oil; Cauliflower skordalia, charred cauliflower, lavish and toasted pumpkin seeds or Peanut-crusted mahi mahi, sweet potato pickle and raita. Skordalia is a Greek style dip.

For main course, you could have Goat cheese and roast pumpkin pierogies, spiced pecan, sour cream and crispy sage; Today's curry; Wild boar gnocchi, tomato ragu, mushroom pesto and crispy skin; Fritto Misto, mustard sauce, bitter leaves and soused shallots; Cobb salad - grilled chicken, egg, onions, tomatoes, romaine, black beans, bacon with a red onion dressing or Lentils, radicchio, cavil nero, feta, walnuts and honey. Pierogi are Easter European style filled dumplings.

You see where I am going... It's not an ordinary cafe restaurant. Menu has some global twists, almost making you feel as if you are travelling without leaving anywhere. And I have only just read you their lunch menu and not got even on to Dinner menu yet. Just reading their menus makes me smile and gets me thrilled - I want to try every single item on them from A to Z, top to bottom, left to right, except I don't eat meat so I need to exclude them. If you eat meat, there would be more food travelling you could do at this place! And if you think their food menu sounds good, wait to see their classic cocktail menu with difference (http://www.riverhillcafe.com/menus/Riverhill%20WNS%20Bar%20Menu.pdf). It's not a big list but their cocktails sound really good. I want to try their Riverhill Bellini, which they claim they try to make as close as possible to the colour and flavour of the original Bellini created at Harry's Bar in Venice.

Anyway, despite all these, we decided to try their casual/quick lunch menu.

Emily had Katsu curry chicken - crunchy breaded chicken strips, pickled cabbage, katsu curry aioli, toasted baguette.  It was a good sized baguette filled with lots of chunky breaded chickens!

I had Crayfish, hot smoked salmon, caper mayo, lemon, rocket and toasted wholemeal bap. The bap was huge, and when you lifted the top half, you see it was packed and piled up with crayfish and hot smoked salmon!

Maria had Green gammon croque monsieur - boiled green gammon, mustard sauce on toasted sourdough. You should see the size of it - like someone's foot.

Well, well, well .... the generous volume of food and quality of ingredients are fantastic. You may pay extra but they are not your ordinary coffee shop sandwich or baguette.

Whilst we were tacking into these, we notice that a couple next to us were having huge plateful of full Scottish breakfast. You can also get vegetarian one if you like that comes with helium, spinach, falafal, masala beans, tomato, mushroom, toast and tattie scone.

You can also get skillet eggs, such as Shashouka (Tunisian style eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chilli peppers, and onion spiced with cumin), Huevos Rancheros (Mexican style spicy eggs) or Jamon Manchego (Spanish ham and cheese). They had a vegetarian skillet eggs on their special menu that day and I am regretting not to try it to this day.

We then had coffee to finish our meal before we ventured out for further Christmas shopping.

You would probably easily pass by this place without noticing. Step inside and you find a small but cosy cafe restaurant that offers amazing selections and qualify of food. 

Looking at these photos and their menu make me feel hungry as well as wanting to go back there to try something different, whether for breakfast, brunch or dinner and you can travel around the world with them without leaving Glasgow. 

That's all forks!