Bluu
Who would have thought it? I've been to Bluu a few times in order to drink but I had never considered it as a serious venue for food. It's a chain, with outfits in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Hoxton.
Hoxton? Where is Hoxton? I looked it up on Google and about the first thing I found was Hoxton Alcoholics Anonymous ( AA ) UK. which gave no clues.
Anyway, they have a super-cool location in the Lace Market and a dark, stylish interior into which many interior-design dollars have gone. The music is funky and varied - Motown, Latin-American Jazz and soul. It's not intrusive - you can certainly still have a conversation and the place has a definite buzz.
The eating was a real revelation. I started with a salad of grilled figs with "Mrs Bells' blue cheese". I don't know who Mrs Bell is, but she makes a beautiful creamy blue cheese which goes with figs and a rocket salad like a dream. The four of us shared our starters and the fish soup, grilled goats cheese and a complicated salad of ham hock and butter beans were all excellent.
The wine list starts in the £13 bracket and then seems to rise exponentially into the unjustifiable. We stayed at the bottom end, except for an accidental foray into the £16 Shiraz realm thanks to an error by the wine waiter, for which - I am pleased to say - we were not charged.
My main course was the largest Belvoir lamb shank I have ever seen, served on a bed of red cabbage and mash - perfectly cooked and deliciously warming with temperatures hovering below zero outside. Even the leg of duck looked enormous and this was part of a three-course, £15, menu fixe chosen by one of our party. The smoked haddock came with a poached egg on top. Eggs are one of the best benchmarks of a proper chef and this was perfectly cooked again - all golden and runny....
Oh God, it's 11.30 already and I have to be up at 5.30am tomorrow. I'll have to finish this another day...
Hoxton? Where is Hoxton? I looked it up on Google and about the first thing I found was Hoxton Alcoholics Anonymous ( AA ) UK. which gave no clues.
Anyway, they have a super-cool location in the Lace Market and a dark, stylish interior into which many interior-design dollars have gone. The music is funky and varied - Motown, Latin-American Jazz and soul. It's not intrusive - you can certainly still have a conversation and the place has a definite buzz.
The eating was a real revelation. I started with a salad of grilled figs with "Mrs Bells' blue cheese". I don't know who Mrs Bell is, but she makes a beautiful creamy blue cheese which goes with figs and a rocket salad like a dream. The four of us shared our starters and the fish soup, grilled goats cheese and a complicated salad of ham hock and butter beans were all excellent.
The wine list starts in the £13 bracket and then seems to rise exponentially into the unjustifiable. We stayed at the bottom end, except for an accidental foray into the £16 Shiraz realm thanks to an error by the wine waiter, for which - I am pleased to say - we were not charged.
My main course was the largest Belvoir lamb shank I have ever seen, served on a bed of red cabbage and mash - perfectly cooked and deliciously warming with temperatures hovering below zero outside. Even the leg of duck looked enormous and this was part of a three-course, £15, menu fixe chosen by one of our party. The smoked haddock came with a poached egg on top. Eggs are one of the best benchmarks of a proper chef and this was perfectly cooked again - all golden and runny....
Oh God, it's 11.30 already and I have to be up at 5.30am tomorrow. I'll have to finish this another day...
2 Comments:
FYI - Hoxton refers to a small bit of the Shoreditch/Old street area of London.
Everything around there used to be a run-down shithole, but now it's run-down trendy shit-hole.
Think Nathan Barley and you won't be far wrong. Better than the chavvy towny West End, though.
A
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