Is there anything worse than going for a meal when you’re under the weather? I’m sure being stuck in an Iron Maiden wouldn’t be much fun either, but I hate going for dinner when I’ve Man Flu.
But off I went anyhow to McHugh’s, along with 14 others from the family. It was a farewell dinner for my aunt and uncle who should, by now, be back in Australia. And McHugh’s had just been able to squeeze us in, thankfully.
Now. You know me. I like a good moan. And it started badly for me, before I got anywhere near McHugh’s. In this day and age there’s two things annoy me about a restaurant:
a) a restaurant that doesn’t have a website
b) a restaurant that has a website but hides it under an Internet bushel
Searching for McHugh’s menu last week annoyed me. Because, I finally found their website through Wikipedia. Yes, Wikipedia. After looking through four pages on Google, I was about to give up when I gave Wikipedia a try and sure enough, it had a link to their site. So McHugh’s, do something about your Internet marketing.
We were given a nice corner that fitted us snugly. And we decided to just have a couple of portions of bread with tapenade and oils to start with. The natives were hungry, and only main courses were going to do the job.
What can you really say about bread and oil and tapenade? Well, it was good. And it kept us going.
My sister (I’m no longer allowed to call her my mouthy sister after a stern talking to on Saturday night) and I asked a bit of advice from our waiter on the wine. And we were surprised to see a Chinese red wine on the menu (Noble Dragon – made by an Austrian in China). And it was pretty good too. It’s hard to be shocked by wine anymore when you can get a decent sparkling wine from England, but it was a bit of a shock to the system.
Worth it though. I went for the Seasonal Game Pie, which was pretty good. The menu says it has wild boar, venison, pheasant and rabbit… I’m not sure if it had all four as my Man Flu tablets mixed with alcohol were starting to have an effect. But it was pretty good, the pastry topping was perfectly crispy and my colcannon was damn fine too.
At least half our party went for steak, and they all seemed happy with how they were cooked. One was a bit cold, but it wasn’t a big deal. The only thing I was unimpressed with was the Dauphinoise potatoes someone near me had. I hate to blow my own trumpet again, but mine are ten times better.
I went for the crème brûlée for dessert which was possibly the nicest I’ve had in Belfast. Scrap that, it was the nicest I’ve had in Belfast. I had a taste of someone’s brownie. It itself was pretty good, but could have done with a little jug of pouring cream as the amount that came with it was nowhere near enough.
The Espresso was pretty good too. Always a good sign. And with a lot of drink consumed, including the odd shot of Sambuca, it was pretty reasonably priced.
Our waiter was very friendly, and pretty much managed a table of 15 on his own. No mean feat in any restaurant. And he even managed to remain professional when:
1. The third person from our table made a joke reference to the “male duck” on the menu. A joke I’m sure he’d heard a million times before
2. My mouthy sister accused him of flirting with my mother and
3. He had to witness the kind of argument over paying that was pretty similar to two grannies fighting over who was paying for tea
It’s always nice to be dealt with by people who take pride in their work. All in all, we had a pretty good night down in McHugh’s.