Nott a Rock or a Hard place (Hard Rock Cafe)

Member Name: Emma1973

Product:	Hard Rock Cafe
Date:	01/06/04 (1799 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent portions, Good food, Good atmosphere

Disadvantages: Never ever, ever, go to the one in Cardiff!

"I'm going to be well upset if they haven't got Mick Jaggers underpants" Such was my comment as we walked the short distance to the restaurant from our hotel.
Yep, we're still in Nottingham! When we were wandering around we spotted this place. Now of all the places in Nottingham why here? I'm sure Nottingham has some fantastic restaurants. The Oyster restaurant and the French restaurant across the road looked rather nice. But, no, a chain restaurant it was, why 'Cos I'm a sucker for novelty and I love that American type of food.

But there was also a TGI Fridays and a Frankie and Bennys just a bit aways, the deciding factor was that we'd never been to a Hard Rock Cafe. Surprisingly we don't have one in Bristol considering the size of our fair city, we're getting a Hard Rock Bar, just what we need!

The Hard Rock Cafe in Nottingham is slap bang in the middle of the centre, just up a side road and occupying a lovely red brick corner plot. Walking in your first impressions is one of confusion, you're not entirely sure what to do with yourself as there doesn't seem to be an obvious reception desk.

One thing you cant fail to notice is the shop, placed right next to you and the entrance. As I cant imagine being sad enough to wear a Hard Rock Cafe cap or T-shirt, drink from a mug or put my keys on a Hard Rock Cafe keyring I didn't look to closely at the prices.
Finally a waitress finds and takes us into the inner depth. Once your eyes adjust to the dim light your eyes are assailed by the noise. Hmm, I think I may have found out why its called the 'Hard Rock Cafe'. The Linkin park track finished as we sat down to be treated to Disturbed. Hey, this was definitely my kind of place. Tinkly jazz music (Delmoniocs) or Britney Spears (TGI Fridays) are not conducive to eating.

I was rather happy with the table, it wasn't close to all the other tables, yet not out o
f the way either. If the hotel restaurant is modern, man, HR Cafe is back in the Neanderthal! A good solid black table, comfortable wooden chairs and a set of cutlery with a paper napkin and that was it. No soft cloths, elegant wine glasses, candles or seven knives and forks here, I wasn't really expecting gourmet food either.

The very cheerful, polite waitress took our drinks order, Budweiser for Alan and an Electric Kool Aid for (vodka, cranberry and grapefruit, rather nice as well). We finally got a chance to peruse the menu, and finally the place we were in. Its huge and overwhelming, the place is often to the rafters and very industrial looking with the big vents and pipes everywhere. But I was rather distracted by all the stuff on the walls, aside from the telly that is.
Eric Claptons guitar (By God, who hasn't got one?), someone from U2's boots (obviously the one who's name no one can remember) and, Hurrah! Mick Jaggers pants (well, his trousers really, but Americans call them pants, tenuous I know, but I'm sticking to it). Plus loads and loads of other instruments, clothes, photos, gold records, etc. Enough, certainly to keep us entertained through the meal.

Enough of the gimmicks on with the food. I'm not daft enough to be overawed by Kylies knickers whilst eating crap food. Cant say the same for Alan though.
The Starters were quite a small selection, 6 or 7. Being the culinary revolutionaries we are, Alan had potato skins with cheese and bacon and I, chicken wings. Being daring I went for the tangy sauce rather than the medium or really spicy.
Now if you've ever been lucky enough to eat at places like Pizza Hut or Harvesters you'll know that if you order the above you get 4 potato skins and 4 of the scrawniest chicken wings you've ever seen.

Well, we were rather surprised when the waitress came with our meal. 8 potato skins with sour cream were placed for Alan, large, crispy a
round the edges with plenty of filling. My eyes just expanded at the sight of 16, yes 16 chicken wings in front of me. Oh yes and tangy they were indeed, dip them into the accompanying blue cheese dip and your tastebuds do the maranga on your tongue.


Time for the main courses!

The American influence was here, but thankfully everything wasn't drenched in Jack Daniels like a certain other restaurant. Steaks,ribs. Fajitis and burgers featured rather heavily here. There were some pasta dishes which was probably an excuse for the vegetarians. Oh no, wrong there's a veggie burger!

I've gone for the steak and Alan had chicken. We were a little surprised, we were expecting gargantuan platefuls but they were quite average. Don't get me wrong, they weren't small but not as large as we were expecting. My steak came on a layer of garlic bread with caramelised onions, fries and coleslaw, Alan's was almost identical but the chicken was covered in BBQ sauce, cheese and bacon.
I requested my steak medium and this was exactly what I got and very tender it was too. Just one small problem, the juices from the steak had made the garlic bread all soggy and definitely quite unpalatable, it would have been much better on the side, I was not overly amused at having to miss out on my favourite snack! Alan's chicken was perfectly cooked with a good smothering of sauce and strong tasting cheese. The fries were fries, we've all had them! Thankfully though, not those horrible little spindly one, lovely crunch but something of substance inside. The coleslaw was a particular favourite. I don't like it too vinegary but it definitely erred more on the side of creamy.

Thoroughly happy with what we had digested so far we just had to look at the dessert menu. Well it was a special occasions after all, actually the desserts are also included in the main menu so I had been slavering at the though of them the whole meal!
Alan, however wasn't quite as happy as 8 of the 10 desserts had nuts in them or on them, not that he's allergic to them, he just detests the smell and taste of them. But missing out the:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
Sweet chocolate chips and chopped pecans baked in a golden pie crust. Served with a large scoop of our HRC Signature Ice Cream and hot fudge sauce
Homestyle Cheesecake
Our signature cheesecake in a walnut-graham cracker crust and topped off with a honey sour cream topping, pay extra for strawberry sauce (stingy lot!).

And the two banana one because I detest them! I went for the HRC Hot Fudge Brownie, filled with very rich vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and chopped walnuts, well it would have been had I not asked them to omit them, which they kindly did and brought two spoons. Slogging away at it (rather ecstatically I have to say), we noticed the ice cream was beginning to melt. It was them we plunged right in to the bottom of the glass and got a spoonful of warm brownie, and My Lord, it was lovely, very chocolaty, very small and also like Momma makes. And it was a little sliver either, it was a great big chunk, enough to make me sigh every time I thought about it for days after.

That's it we'd finished! Finally, tummies groaning, we did have to admit defeat on the brownie, although no one could say we didn't give it a good go! HRC definitely exceeded our expectations, we were just expecting average food with the Cafe itself being the highlight, but we were wrong, the food was fantastic. Prices? Not too bad at all approx. £6 for a starter. £9 for a main, and £5 for a dessert. It may seem expensive, but for the size of the meals alone it made it worth it. I've certainly had food that was much more expensive and undoubtedly smaller portions.

In fact we liked it so much we decided to take our daughter to the Cardiff one, the nearest to our home for her birthda
y. But that was a whole different story, a definitely different story!

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