The Cloth Ear, Where 'Pub Grub' Meets Fine Dining.

The Cloth Ear is the public bar which is part of Belfast's Landmark luxury hotel, The Merchant.

Photo from The Cloth Ear's Facebook

Being a sibling of The Merchant, The Cloth Ear as you expect is a classy affair, with a comfortable, plush interior design based on 1930-1950s musical theatre. Children are welcome, in fact there is a kids' menu and colouring pens and sheets waiting for them.

Even the bathrooms are luxurious!

So what of the food on offer? Well it isn't the usual pub grub you'd be served in any old bar, it keeps to the high standards of The Merchant Hotel. My son ordered cheesy garlic bread for starter, and literally tore through it.

My husband went for the buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce. I had the meat platter. These were very generous in size, and for someone like me they would probably suffice for a light lunch just by themselves.

Wings

meat platter

Our main courses: I had duck confit on a warm salad. The neat was so well cooked it simply slid off the bone.

My husband chose the Beef & Burger. That's a burger topped with pulled beef, caramelised red onion garnish and monogrammed brioche bun. The photo looks good enough to eat.

Little Michael chose the kids' meal fish & chips option. His meal was a fantastic size, considering it was a children's price, and just look at that batter.

After finishing our main courses, we mourned that our eyes had been bigger than our belly when we had order starters, and our downfall was being too full to get dessert! We couldn't have even fitted in a cup of tea!

It really is a pity as I wanted to try their dessert kebab. Hanging kebabs both sweet & savoury are one of the signature dishes of The Cloth Ear. They look delicious.

Steak and chips. Vertical.

So if you're looking for somewhere to impress you other half with a lunch on a busy Christmas shopping day, The Cloth Ear is for you.

Yardbird Belfast has given me Chicken Fever!

Yardbird in Belfast is a restaurant who have taken to heart the culinary advice of, 'do one thing, but do it really well'. They serve chicken, and that's that, but they are bloody amazing at it.

Nestling just a stone's throw from The Merchant Hotel, Yardbird can be found inside & upstairs of The Dirty Onion pub. 

The cosy, first floor eaterie is family friendly, with kids eating free at the weekend (one free child's meal per full paying adult). Their menu is straightforward, well priced and can all fit on one table mat.

The main question is 'how much chicken can you handle?', then it's a choice of sides including skin on fries, corn cobs with garlic butter, coleslaw and an avocado salad to die for. I also went for a quarter chicken, and should you visit on a weekend you can try their lunch special of 1/4 plus side for only £5. They are also trialling a chicken burrito, which we are coming back next Saturday for, we loved Yardbird so much.

A whole chicken straight from cooking. Yardbird only serve free range birds, sourced from Crossgar here in Northern Ireland.

The free kid's meal- not bad at all!

Golden corn cobs with hot, liquid garlic butter poured over them at your table.

Two stuffed and happy boys.

They also have their own special sauces, a hot version and a BBQ one. You can buy bottles of them to take home too.

We also had the chance to try the dessert menu. Leave room for these because they are out of this world. Apple pie, lime cheesecake, or a hot brownie with fresh cream or icecream.

As I said, we are going back this Saturday for another chicken feast. Maybe we will see you there?

YES! Mex Elketo Brings Burrito Bars to Bangor!

There's been a lot of buzz on Facebook this week in various groups about the opening of Bangor's first proper burrito bar. Mex Elketo, newly opened at the services on the Rathgael Road has the fast, Mexican food experience that until now was only available a half hour drive away in Belfast.

Elketo is a healthy alternative to a regular takeaway, with slow cooked, pulled meats, nutritious beans & peppers and lots of fresh salsa. Their classic burrito is quite the belly buster, and it's up to you how spicy you dare go.

Is it just me who wishes they could get a big spoon and just eat all that fresh, colourful corn salsa? 

As well as burritos their menu offers tacos, sides like sweet potato fries, freshly made tortillas with nacho cheese, and my favourite the burrito bowl, which is a big tub of meat, rice, peppers and salsa.

To test out the menu my husband tried the pulled chicken burrito and made it super spicy. Their house chilli sauce will blow your socks off. 

I can't handle the heat as well as Michael can, so I went for the taco chip. Healthy, low-fat sweet potato fries topped with pulled beef, cheese and salsa. Absolutely delicious and big enough to take two sittings to eat.

The sweet potato fries are a must try. Call into Mex Elketo any day between 11am and 8pm (hours will be lengthening soon) and befriend Elketo on Facebook to stay up to date with offers, news, competitions and to find out when their exclusive app launches. (Search 'Mex Elketo')

Hen Dogs, Belfast. Clucking Good Gourmet Hot Dogs & More.

I continue my series of restaurant reviews from the perspective of a family of three, low to middle income and with a fairly adventurous palette, but as yet not too knowledgable about much beyond steak and chips, or chops and mash.

This weekend our venue was Hen Dogs, in the Cathedral Quarter, just beside the MAC.  The setting is relaxed, you order your food at the bar, and from the mains to the sides it's one of those places where it's a real struggle to choose as half a dozen of the dishes sound amazing.

The setting it bright and clean, friendly and service is quick. Hen Dogs is open all week, so would do rightly for a quick spot of lunch. 

I love the mismatched furniture, some of the chairs are old school chairs.

Children have a choice of pork or beef sausage and chips. Coming strictly from a family used to chippy shop sausages wrapped in paper, we found our pork sausages a little anaemic looking. No doubt they are cooked in a much healthier, less fatty way than fried and wrapped in newspaper, but I would have liked to see a little browning on the sausage, even from grilling. I said I am going to be deadly honest in my reviews, so it had to be said!

My son loved the chips though, which were freshly made, still with delicious skin on them. I pinched a few, for review purposes obviously ;-)

My own choice was the Hog Dog, pork with black pudding, apple ketchup , bacon crumb. It was lovely. I would have liked a little more bacon, but the black pudding gave it a real kick. The bap is soft and cloud like; make sure you try their in house ketchup and house sauce and use any leftover bap to mop it up. My husband would have gladly taken the house sauce home, it was his favourite part.

I should have picked a side other than the house slaw, as you get a little bit of it with your hot dog any how, but on the other hand I was glad I got slaw as I really enjoyed it.

My husband went for the spicy Raging Bull Dog. He beef sausage looked nicer than our pork offerings, and he said it was very very good.

His side choice was 'messy fries' which include salsa and cheese.

The final part of the kids' menu is the choice between a Nutella or a Raspberry icecream shake. We all had a slurp of this and it was heavenly.

Mums and Dads, don't feel out! Look what we can choose from! The Refresher shake with rose water, coconut and popping candy is just for big kids like us.

My New Favourite Restaurant in Belfast- Canteen at The MAC.

The World of Kitsch certainly didn't start out as a restaurant review blog, but I've had lots of wonderful opportunities in the past two of my five blogging years to share with you the best spots to get grub all over Northern Ireland. I love places who use lots of local produce, and The Canteen at The MAC, Belfast, structures it's menu especially to show of Northern Ireland's best of the best. 

The good news is because it's Belfast Restuarant Week, The Canteen have two courses for £10 which is a steal. This isn't 'canteen' food, it's melt in the mouth perfection. I have to admit I've always been snobby and thought from the name, Canteen, made me think of plates of floppy, ham sandwiches with a few crisps on the side. Instead here is yet another of my restaurant reviews bulging with praise! It's getting a little embarrassing. Someone should suggest me somewhere poor to eat and review via Twitter so I mix things up a bit, as my review for The MAC food is a ten out of ten!

As you can see the Canteen is big and airy, but it's worth booking a table especially on busy weekends. The MAC is an art gallery, and even the tables were part of an art installation. There is an old fashioned phone at each booth. You can actually ring through to another table anonymously and have a chat and flirt! 

Perhaps more of a night time game when the cocktails are flowing, we had fun being arty which we waited the short while for our main course.

I'm a seafood lover, and althought the salted chilli quid appealed, I was fairly hungry so went for the battered coley with beer battered chips and peas for £9. Of course that meant for an extra £1 I got the Restaurant Week deal and a dessert! 

The batter was delish, so perfect, and the chips freshly made.  The peas were mild and a perfect compliment.

My husband had the Morrocan spiced chicken which he describes as one of the tastiest things he's ever eaten in his entire life. Now there's a recommendation!

Our son had a great kids' menu to choose from. Not just the standard anything with chips, he also had mildly spiced chicken skewers with noodles, or sausages with mash to choose from. Surprisingly to us he went for the house special, the MAC and cheese with pinenuts crust. We all had a little dig into this as it is available on the adult main course menu too. It is tasty indeed, and the pinenuts give it an usual sweet, vanilla edge.

Dessert time and the boys went for peanut butter brownies. My husband's brownie was intimidatingly huge, like a brick or the monolith in Space Odyssey 2001. Both boys loved them and the delicious accompaniment of Glastry icecream.

My choice was the cherry bake well tart. It was a little tiny compared to the boys' but it was beautiful.

I strongly encourage you and your family to try out The MAC this week when the Restaurant Week deal is on, and get back to me on Twitter to let me know your thoughts on what you chose to eat. And someone, please, suggest to me somewhere to go and review that I might NOT like, so I stop looking like a rumbly, tumbly sycophant!

Don't miss out on the free galleries to visit while you are in The MAC.

The MAC Gets Arty with Food

Saturday 4 October  will see the multi award-winning 'Canteen' restaurant, located in the heart of the MAC, Belfast, kick-off a bountiful weeklong series of food and drink events to rival any in the city.

Sean McCann, Head Chef at Canteen at the MAC is pictured alongside award-winning guest chef, Joery Castel who will  be holding a  special Art of Food & Wine night, on Thursday 9th October. 

Sharon Wright, director JRS Catering, explains: 

“Saturday will kick start the week with our Craft Beer & Cider Tasting event which allows guests to sample the very best of these brews alongside some well matched food bites.

“On Saturday 11 October, we will be holding our ever-popular Coffee Brew Bar Masterclass which allows extensive coffee tasting allowing guests to discover brewing methods from the experts.

“And the absolute pinnacle of our Belfast Restaurant Week celebrations will be our extra special Art of Food & Wine night, held on Thursday 9th October where Sean McCann, Head Chef at Canteen alongside award-winning guest chef, Joery Castel will cook up a culinary storm.

For further information on Canteen at the MAC, including menus and photo gallery please visit themaclive.com/foodanddrink or call 028 9023 5053 to make a booking or enquiry.

Wagamama For Dummies : How to Do Noodles Without Looking Like a Beginner

My lovely friend Jane often posts beautiful pictures of Japanese cuisine on her Instagram feed. It always looks so healthy, colourful and delicious, so I decided on our next night out, my husband and I would try Wagamama's Belfast restaurant.

We had been once before, back when the branch opened, but at the time Michael was still a toddler, and it was a busy day, so we didn't really get to enjoy the experience. 

If you're a beginner like me I'll explain what goes on, as it's a little different to a regular western restaurant experience. You are seated at one of the rows of benches and tables, it's surprisingly comfy, and the atmosphere is bustling and friendly. The Belfast branch is quite warm, I mention this because I always like to know that sort of thing when planning what to wear!

Wagamama is primarily a Japanese noodle restaurant, but the menu extends to lavish salads and tasty sides like ribs or dumplings. If you've never been then I strongly recommend using the Wagamama website as a cheat sheet to help you narrow down your meal choice in advance. It has photographs of each of the dishes, which really helps if like me you don't know your soba from your udon.

If you haven't time to play around on the website, don't feel shy about asking your waiter for advice. We had help from a great waiter called Luke, who described to me the most popular dishes and helped me to pick the teriyaki beef soba as my main. I ordered it rare and ohmygod it was delicious.

My husband chose the Firecracker prawn, which was presented as one of the most beautiful dishes I've ever seen. He loves spicy food and is used to ordering so called 'hot' food only to find it to be quite mild, but this was HOT.

Your main cutlery at Wagamama will be chopsticks. I like to think I can use chopsticks, so I ate my noodles with them, but I think I was just mashing the two sticks together and hoping for the best. Don't fret though, your waiter will bring a good old knife and fork with your food too. 

We also tried some sides, the gyoza chicken dumplings and the edamame soya beans with chilli and salt. The latter proved another problem for the uninitiated. I wasn't sure how to eat them. The outer shell was coated in seasoning, but was I supposed to eat them whole? Luke to the rescue again who explained your pop the pod in your mouth, eat the beans and pull the case back out. Of course this was after I'd already eaten two or three crunchy bean pods whole.... whoops.

We loved our meal, and big thanks to Luke for the great service. I'm currently having great difficulty resisting phoning my husband and asking him to pick up takeaway Wagamama after writing this post. That beautiful rare steak photo is making me drool! 

Let me know on Twitter if you love @WagamamaBelfast too! 

Afternoon Tea by the Sea

We returned to The Salty Dog in Bangor on Saturday to try their afternoon tea selection. Priced at £10 per person, with the option to add a glass of prosecco for £4, it's surprisingly filling. We enjoyed our's just before 4pm and didn't need to eat for the rest of the day.

To begin we had tiny, little posh sandwiches. BLT, smoked salmon and egg, really tasty. 

Next we had a selection of scones including cherry and raisin. The cherry jam that comes with your tea is perfect with either the butter or cream on offer.

The final top tier was something very special though. The chocolate shots are unreal, I've never tasted anything like them. The home made macaroons are perfect and beautifully light. I wasn't overly keen on the walnut cake cubes, but we also had a little plate of carrot cake that was light as air which made up for that.

If you'd like to visit The Salty Dog, afternoon tea is served seven days a week between 11am and 4pm.

The Salty Dog Facebook Page has a competition running this week to win a meal for two at their 'Fish Supper' night this Thursday. They also have a Game Night and a Gin Tasting Night coming up, with full details on their FB Page. They will be matching gins to various courses of the meal, and serving special gin based cocktails. We went to the 'Snout to Trotter' tasting night and it was quite an experience!