Market Kitchen
Lunch £13.95 Dinner £15.95-50
Food rating 7 and a half/10
GLASGOW appears to be wholly immune to the "eat less meat" narrative that gathers a head of steam elsewhere. Forget "meat-free Mondays", it seems that the city can't tear itself away from its carnivorous inclinations for one meal, let alone one day.
I find myself with a foot in both camps on the hotly debated meat question. While I accept absolutely the arguments for reducing consumption of meat, poultry, farmed fish, eggs and dairy products from factory-farmed, grain-fed livestock, there has to be a role in our diet for free-range, wild, pasture-fed animal food, particularly in Scotland. Our country teems with deer. We excel at producing world-class beef and lamb on grass. It's nonsensical to turn our backS on these native ingredients, only to fill the gap with problematical alternatives, such as forest-depleting soya, and expensive, much travelled, imported foods, such as Peruvian quinoa.
No, my problem with yet another seafood and steakhouse menu at the Market Kitchen is less ideology than boredom. More of the same. And unlike the city's recently opened Porter & Rye, there isn't enough chapter and verse on provenance at Market Kitchen: "Our steaks are from the best and most tender of breeds, grass and barley fed, on select Scottish farms. Our prize beef is aged for a minimum of 35 days in special near freezing very dry cold rooms." To my mind that leaves a lot of leeway. What breed? Are these mainly pasture-fed cattle only finished on a little barley, or are we talking the other way round? And why only offer the most expensive, "safe" steak cuts? If we want to use every bit of the animal and not abet waste, where's the hangar, feather blade, and skirt? Or are we just talking the same old done-to-death mindless hunk of meat formula that's really an excuse for a fat pile of chips, with a cursory nod to plant food in the form of fudgy grilled tomatoes that nobody much wants to eat?
The decor at Market Kitchen does not reflect the name, and echoes in mood the predominantly macho, flesh-heavy menu. The place is dark and masculine: submarine grey walls; brown wood; leather; upended pails as lampshades; lights that cast the orange of streetlights; an unflattering blue glow. I did, however, manage to select one of the lighter, airier options: five neatly proportioned seared scallops on a Japanese-influenced, ginger and soy sauce-dressed seaweed salad. Contrasting texture and flavours of the sea vegetables - one ivory-coloured and crunchy, another brown and noodle-like, a third emerald green and brittle - made this dish both educational and delightful to eat - and at £6.95, puzzlingly cheap. For the same price tag, braised beef short ribs, served with a smoky chipotle slaw, constituted another bargain, to my mind a starter of main course dimensions with lots of biddable, glutinous, slightly over-sweet meat that only just adhered to the bone.
I'm not quite sure how a restaurant can manage to put monkfish on the menu for £13.95, especially when an ample portion is also lined up train carriage-style on a pile of La Ratte potatoes. The fish was a bit on the dry side, but the lemony caper dressing and roasted beets distracted from that. I could take or leave the braised ox cheek. Its glossy gravy had burnt undertones through its sticky brown sweetness, and white chocolate horseradish mash (better than it sounds) with cloying roast carrots cooked to a vanilla-scented slump, cranked up the overall sweetness beyond my personal tolerance point.
Come the desserts, I was further convinced that this kitchen has a sweet tooth that could do with behaviour modification. A solid dark chocolate tart, served up as though slashed with a Stanley knife, came with salt caramel that sent shock waves through sensitive teeth. A fresh, but anodyne cheesecake had an interesting base, as though it had shortbread and broken nougat as components, but plummy compote wasn't quite enough to foil the richness for me.
Market Kitchen is more affordable than others in its category, and there are some pearls in there to leaven the otherwise predictable line-up.
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