Done with the January Sales

Rogano!

Me and The Mary decided for the first time in about 20 years to hit the January sales!

I’m a great believer in you only get what you pay for so we decided to aim high and get the best of the deals about.  We wanted quality at a decent price.

I’m not easily seduced by a special offer, well sometimes I have been, but I’m not talking about my sex life here. 

Not yet anyway!

First bargain was 2 courses for £12 in Café Rogano booked on 5p.m.

What could go wrong?

Absolutely nothing and we were treated with dignity and respect from the moment we walked through the door until we were thanked on the way out by the gorgeous, polite and very lovey Fernando.

The food was chosen from the A La Carte menu and it could not have been simpler.  We were brought bread and water to the table and the preceding two plates of food were probably the best I’ve had for quite a while and I don’t just mean for the price.  At any cost I couldn’t have faulted anything.  Although I did say to The Mary I’d need to leave a bit of the fish salsa because it was ‘far too tasty!

The Mary had soup as the starter and it was fresh, hot and wholesome.  I had duck leg Bon Bons in lentils.

The Grilled Fillet of Seabass  (£13.75) with crab cake, crayfish and blood orange salsa, pickled vegetables meant I’d had more than my money’s worth before the next course.  The Mary had Beer Battered North Atlantic Cod - £12.95 with home cut fries, mushy peas and tartar sauce which was equally magnificent.

Not so last night at Marco Pierre White’s in The Indigo Hotel on Waterloo Street.

Marketed as the ‘ultimate dining venue’ in Glasgow it makes me wonder who does their digitals and have they ever actually eaten out in this town?

Because of our success at Rogano the week before we’d opted, again, for the 5p.m Sale offer.

It turned out to be an offer we should have refused.  Admittedly we were a bit noisy on the approach but had been excited by the initial illusion of grandeur.   Then we were escorted to the furthest corner of an already almost empty Sala.  I know people are seated near the entrance and windows to make the place look but me and my partner in crime were so far away from the entrance we nearly forgot where we were. 

However, that was impossible with Mr, White’s mugshots all over the place.  He was there in paper, oil and watercolour but:

‘what Marco himself calls affordable glamour’ seemed to have taken the night off along with the ‘lively atmosphere and exquisite food’.

The décor was grey and cold, food was mediocre to say the most.  I put a potato in my mouth and it was like jelly.  A baby charlotte boiled in its skin, then left in its cooling water to pottage its precious, delicate, taste away should be grounds for neglect.  As for the chicken…I’ll cluck no more!

This cruelty to food made me want to phone some helpline and get the rest of the produce rescued from the kitchen before any other organic life form was destroyed.

I can hear Mr Double Barrel White responding to this by saying we must be “Uneducated and common or retarded.”

Truth is Mr Narcissist;

The food was shite!

With Love...

Me and The Mary!