WE DINED AROUND THE MEDITERRANEAN at this restaurant (Argan Cafe (Glasgow))

Member Name: 99line

Product:	Argan Cafe (Glasgow)
Date:	29/12/06 (1024 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Delicious food at a reasonable cost

Disadvantages: Perhaps just too many choices

A very wet and windy Monday in late November, the 20th to be exact, saw my sister, her hubby and me ‘n’ mine heading for this restaurant in Glasgow to celebrate sis’s **th birthday.

Although it was my treat I’d asked my sister to book a restaurant as I really don’t have any knowledge of eateries in Glasgow.
She’d been in this one before and had enjoyed the food and reckoned it was worth another visit.

It’s located at 1166-1170 Argyle Street and is about a five minute walk from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and ten minutes from Kelvinhall underground station.

A taxi from either Glasgow Central station or Queen Street station would be around the £5 mark each way if that’s your style.

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The décor in the restaurant is very bright and airy with beech/pine style tables, chairs and flooring. The tables are topped by snowy white tablecloths and the walls and woodwork is also white. However the appearance is not too stark as the lighting is nicely subdued.

There is wheelchair access to the restaurant and there are toilet facilities for the disabled.
The ‘run of the mill’ toilet facilities are down a fairly steep flight of stairs. The ladies’ was clean and tidy with plenty of hot water and a hand drier.
I was informed that the gents’ was equally clean and similarly equipped.

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Menus

Yes, there are several different menus - www.argancafe.co.uk shows the full selection.
We opted to choose from the table d’hote Tapas menu which at £10.95 each for three courses was excellent value.
We opted to drink the white house wine and it was a rather clean and crisp chardonnay style wine from France…..so we sipped and perused our menu of choice.

Once we’d placed our order some lovely warm pita bread and chopped olives were brought to the table…..we descended upon this like vultures and found it to be lip smackingly yummy.

There is a choice of twenty first courses, eleven mains and four puddings on this menu.
As there were four of us and the idea is to have two first courses per person we made a selection of eight which were placed in the centre of our table and enabled us to share tapas style.

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Between us we had:

Scottish smoked salmon marinated in fresh ginger, coriander olive oil & lime
Garlic & chilli prawns in olive oil
Deep fried calamari rings with spiced mayonnaise
Mussels cooked in coriander, tomato sauce, chickpeas& spicy lamb sausage
Crispy goat cheese & black olives on salad
Stuffed vine leaves with rice & herbs
Feta cheese salad with tomato, cucumber& red onion
Spicy Merguez sausage with harissa sauce

For our main courses we again all chose different dishes, however this time we opted not to share!....
We had:

Moroccan spicy fish casserole of the day (dog fish served on a bed of spiced butter beans)
Lamb tagine with apricot
Chicken filet in lemon & olive sauce
Moroccan style chicken Biryani

Time for pudding and we all opted for the same….
We had:

Chocolate & vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, crème Chantilly & grilled almond flakes

The four of us agreed that this was a very pleasant dining experience. The food was delicious, the service was excellent and we enjoyed the ambience of the restaurant.

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The Account:

2 x bottle house wine @ £11.95........£23.90
4 x tapas menu @ £10.95................£43.80
4 x coffee @ £ 1.50.........................£ 6.00
TOTAL ......................................... £73.70

We all felt that this was excellent value for money.

There was no charge for the large jug of water we requested, nor for the bread and olives.

When we’d finished our meal the chef approached our table and chatted for a few moments (Monday night and a reasonably quiet restaurant allowed this, we assumed), when he realised it was my sister’s birthday he offered us liqueurs and mini baklava ‘on the house’. We declined the alcohol but accepted the baklava as a ‘take away’.

No service charge is added so obviously if you’ve had an enjoyable evening, as we did, a reasonable tip is a nice gesture.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this restaurant.

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On the back of their business card is a picture of an Argan tree with the following explanation:

ARGAN is a medium, thorny, evergreen tree native to south western Morocco;
also known as the Iron Tree. This shrubby tree is grown for its almond-sized fruits
inside of which are large seeds of a highly esteemed oil which is 100% pure organic.
The tree produces the most unique edible oil in the world and is renowned for its
anti cancer properties. The Argan bears plum-sized fruits, which are eaten by goats on the tree.

The picture of the Argan tree shows the goats high amongst the branches of a tree eating the fruits!

N.B. As with all restaurants in Scotland this is a No Smoking establishment.

©Pauline 2006.

Summary: An enjoyable restaurant experience.