McBrides cont...

To get back to what i was trying to say; our blog group set off to McBrides on a rainy Sunday evening. The restaurant was upstairs over a pub but- and i will emphasis this for those who are always a little wary of restaurants over pubs- it is a real restaurant with not a trace of pub grub about it. Not that I'm knocking pub grub but its a genre of its own. I always think that food is only a small part of a good night out, an extremely important make or break part but still only a part. The most important ingredient, in my opinion, is the company- but the company can only shine and sparkle when it is comfortable (warm but not hot, airy, nice seats, no overcrowding, not over loud but not empty etc etc), when the service is pleasant (polite, attentive, not in your face) and when waiting does not take the edge off the appetite or put the edge on the impatient. I have to say, McBride's gave my lovely company plenty of opportunity to shine and sparkle. We were given a lovely round table in a corner, the temperature was pleasantly warm all evening and all the staff couldn't have been nicer. A little aside, regular readers of this blog will soon discover that I have a bit of a thing about the temperature in restaurants. For some reason I often find them quite cold and it always ruins the evening for me. Sometimes I think that I am cold because of the bad evening and at other times I think it is the cold that ruins the evening. To digress further, I once saw an episode of The Outer Limits where hell was portrayed as freezing cold (an unusual concept i know) I could relate to it as I always see cold as not only painful and uncomfortable but as alienating and distancing as well.

Enough of my ramblings. Our maitre'd took our drinks order while we pursued the menu. I went for vegetarian. The bad news was that there was only one vegetarian dish (i am not a veggie but i think they should have a choice)- the good news was that it was delicious. It was vegetables in a pastry case. An awkward one to get right and they got it perfect. The vegetables were tasty and the pastry light and crisp. Nothing soggy and no heavy creamy sauce(which can be lovely with pasta or meat but never with pastry). The helping was just about the right size and i had no trouble eating all of it with relish. I would certainly have it again although I probably would try one of the other tempting dishes.

While there was no hovering around or intrusive spying, our plates were removed and the desert menu proffered at just the right time. I was recommended the creme brulee but went for the sticky toffee pudding. As everything was so lovely up to now, I was more than usually disappointed with the desert. The pudding was a small dry muffin type thing with a bit of toffee sauce. The sauce was delicious but not sufficient to moisten the hard dry little muffin. A pity

I had cappuccino- which was fine as was the glass of house white.

Overall I would give McBrides an 8 out of 10. The ambiance, service and (mostly) great food over weighing the dodgy desert and price (it was quite expensive). You could bring anyone there and be fairly sure of a good evening out as everything did combine to relax the company and get the conversation flowing.

P.S. I hope you like the pictures- I always think a good picture improves a blog and I have no pictures of either McBrides or food.

P.P.S. All the main dishes came with a choice of potato type and vegetables. You know the little dishes with carrots, mange tout and sweet corn. Well the maitre'd asked everyone if they wanted their veggies (no one did). I liked that touch. So many times I have seen those little dishes remain untouched for the whole meal and I always think 'what a waste'.