Bronchia

My turquoise leather wallet’s starting to split. It’s a sad, sad day as it took me ages to find a wallet that I actually liked. It has to have room for copious amounts of change in a zip compartment and room for bits of paper and nearly-lost buttons, plus card slots and a notes section. It must be a bright colour so it is findable in my bag. It must be chunky and solid and leather and practical, and not have stupid bows or dog motifs or cost silly money.

BINGO. I like all the colours, but red and purple is the best of the available combos for sure.

Costiness: £22 from Stabo

Thanks to The Culture Vulture, a group of intrepid bloggers were given the opportunity to try the new Leeds branch of “casual dining” steakhouse chain, Cattle Grid, last night. The restaurant is in Waterloo House, the attractive building behind the Corn Exchange that was once Cafe Rouge (and a failed venture or two after that closed).

One of the owners, Steve Novak, was there to greet us. This is not in any way reflective of his business practices, but he did remind me a bit of a cowboy. Plenty of humour, swagger and anecdote-slinging. Thankfully matched by a tendency to be almost too honest about the realities of running a restaurant. Perfect TV show material – yee-haw!

We were treated to a speech and Q&A session before our meal, which was interesting but allowed to run for about twice its natural length. Novak is an ebullient host, and chock-full of stuff to say, but when it’s 9pm before I get to eat anything and the event started at 7.30, I have a tendency to get a bit cranky. As does my digestive system. I’m sure other bloggers will relate the tale better than  I, but the explanation of a piece of meat involving the descriptor “sperm” will live with me forever. Entertaining.

We were allowed two drinks plus very generously anything we wanted off the menu, which led us to order a decent number of sides between us in order to try a good range of what was on offer. My companions began with a couple of starter portions of ribs to share, peri peri and baby back, and both went down extremely well. As did Dom’s full portion a little later, which would have been too much for many. I can’t digest red meat, so I missed out, but they certainly looked and smelled pretty great. I would say they’re worth trying and probably the best thing on the menu.

The steaks were next to arrive. The people around me ordered a mixture of ribeye and t-bone, with various different sauces. They let me pinch a couple of chips to try the sauces while I was waiting for my main to arrive. The blue cheese was fine, not too rich, but perhaps a bit mellow in flavour. No bite to the cheese. Maybe it was a mild variety, or maybe the cheese content of the sauce wasn’t high enough to give it punch. The green peppercorn was just right – balancing heat and creaminess without being overbearing. Sauces shouldn’t mask the flavour of the meat. Chips (double-fried, skins on) were a bit pale and floppy and could have done with being chunkier – they fell somewhere between proper chips and fries in size. Neither nor.

The steaks, which are served with with chips and watercress, got mixed reports, but the general gist was that medium-rare steaks turned up medium-well and the meat didn’t rate higher than average. The latter may be acceptable, given Novak’s stated intention to be the Pizza Express of steakhouses. Although a PE pizza costs less than £10 and is often available on 2for1 deals and Clubcard points. I’m not sure you can apply the same principles when people are forking out upwards of £15 in real money – plus extra for veg/salad – and waiting longer than 15 minutes for their meal. The mark-up may be similar, but people’s expectations of a steak at that price versus a family-friendly pizza are quite different.

There was a bit of a problem with one of the fryers, so we were later told, so although it didn’t take long after the steaks for my chicken burger to arrive, the sides of chips and onion strings didn’t turn up, without explanation. Rach and I ordered coleslaw and spinach to share. Novak had told us that he uses different mayonnaise for the coleslaw than is served with the burgers, because quality is important, so we wanted to try it. The mayo was decent, and the coleslaw creamy, however it had insufficient sharpness to tempt me and perhaps a little heavy on the sauce versus the amount of veg. I think that’s a personal preference thing, as it suited others’ taste perfectly. The spinach, chosen as “something green”, was wilted in butter, fresh and well-seasoned.

One good thing about the burgers at Cattle Grid is that all the toppings are available for all the burger types (beef patty – not 100% beef, chicken or flat mushroom). Many restaurants and pubs offer a plethora of options for beefburgers and one or only a  handful for other types. The chicken burger is a butterflied chicken breast, unbreaded. The recommended topping was harissa – which we were told was not really harissa but that was the best explanation for it – and buffalo mozzarella, so that is what I ordered. The sauce was tasty, but strong enough to overpower all of the other ingredients, so the generous portion of melted mozzarella might as well have been Tesco Value cow’s milk mozzarella, but never mind. Not as aromatic as real harissa, it was more of a tomato/chilli/garlic sauce that went well with the chicken and a few more stolen chips. The chicken breast was a decent size, cooked well, and juicy enough. No problems at all there.

There was a high level of what I would call redundancy in the burger. I love a dill pickle as much as the next lass, but half a large one split lengthways and a leaf of bog standard round lettuce were a bit lost with the thick layers of sauce, cheese and meat. The soggy red onion soaking the bun under the meat and mayo on the bread was also a bit pointless. The bread, actually, was ENORMOUS. From Anthony’s, rather than their London supplier, it was undeniably good quality but not really the perfect product for the burger. Far too big, too heavy – a brioche or sourdough brioche bun would have been better-suited to the chicken and sauce. The bottom soaked through too quickly and the top of the bun was so over-toasted that you could hit it with a knife and think it was wood. Made a good sound, though.

The worst element of the burger was a massive, rock-hard, tasteless tomato slice, that was mostly core. That said, I must reiterate that the chicken, sauce and cheese were good and worked well together. There was just a load of irrelevant crap in there to plough through/discard and this could easily be improved.

Towards the end of our main course, the fryer problems were explained and I declined the offer of finally receiving my chips, as I only had a small amount of burger left and I was already quite full. I would have liked to try more than the odd chip or two, but it seemed like a waste. We did accept the onion strings, which are actually nothing like onion rings, but more of a South African treat that would go down well with a beer. Cattle Grid serve several varieties of Fentimans, which are always an excellent soft drink option and would also complement the strings. Hot, sweet fried onion, speckled with thin batter – I was actually expecting somewhat more of this, as in this recipe – and choked with salt. They could dial the latter down a touch, but there’s a fairground/childhood nostalgia element to the onion strings that was very enjoyable and I wish I’d had them earlier so I could have gobbled up more of them. Unfortunately, the later I eat the less I can manage. Highly recommended, anyway.

I had no room for dessert, but there was a short menu that was enthusiastically seized upon by my peers. The chocolate brownie looked pretty tasty, the waffle a little dull/processed, the creme brulee was deemed no more than OK and the ice cream got decent reports.

My overall score is 6 out of 10, which would be eked out to a 7 if this was Come Dine With Me on the basis that the atmosphere, hosting and entertainment (via Steve Novak) were cracking, as was the company. The Culture Vulture crew is a jolly one and we all ate loads. Try the ribs and the onion strings, particularly when they open the upstairs room for events bookings early in 2012.

How tasty are these in violet? I bet me mother thinks they’re vile. Polyveldt vibe, nubuck upper, would stay on me feet… Somebody nab me a pair. Other half says “These look like the shoes my dad used to make himself”. I don’t think he’ll be buying me some.

Costiness: £54.99 from Clarks

These are the best sweets in the world. Though possibly only if you’re me. They’re Swedish. Shaped like a cat’s face. Soft liquorice. Half violet, half salt liquorice. I am known for loving salt liquorice/salmiakki. I also love floral flavoured sweets, especially violet creams and Parma Violets. AMAZING. But I’m guessing most people reading this will think they are revolting.

COSTINESS: £2.50/100g from Bah Humbugs