It's so dark up here that Leo and I are using the torches on our phones to read the menu while the waitress is giving us a bit of bish-bosh blurb about steaks, cuts, side orders and sauces whilst holding a mini-blackboard.

Normally, I find this formulaic patter as ordered by der management mildly irritating because a) if you have to explain what you're selling, and this is usually simply up-selling, you've got a problem and b) it's impossible for the poor waiter/waitress to deliver the script with anything like sincerity after the dozenth/ hundredth time and c) it's usually mind-bogglingly boring.

But Porter & Rye has just opened and the waitress is charming and enthusiastic and oohs and aahs away and even laughs when we roll our eyes as she returns with a magnetic board holding a selection of different steak knives for us to choose.

Gimmicks aside, I can see why they are doing it. The city is awash with a rash of steakhouses who will charge richly for little more than a steak that may or may not have come from some farmer somewhere, sometime.

Here, not only do they have a genuine non-gimmick in the shape of a meat fridge with nicely darkened hunks of farm-labelled meat hanging, they also offer cheaper cuts and so I'm sure they're desperate to say, 'we're not like the rest.'

We'll see. We've ordered an ongelet and a bavette which both come with a side dish and a sauce in the prix fixee for about £15. The torches need to come on again for examination, call the gloom in this overwise nicely fitted out restaurant atmospheric, but the steaks are seared and trimmed and seasoned and both taste instantly of that carmelising, smoky grill downstairs.

The onglet - or hanger as it's usually known - is the best of the two coming in two traditional long thin fillets which have been scored to stop them rolling on the grill. It's a punchy, memorable bite, not the tenderest I've ever had, but at the price great value.

The bavette, long flat flank to you and me, Bub, is a strong red when cut and light in parts and even though there's a bit of chewing to be done it's all finished. An umami sauce on the side is a sucker punch of anchovy but does liberate the flavours of the meat after you get over the initial and sizeable fishy flavoured slap in the face.

There are other sauces, including a house sauce, but frankly it's hard to identify what is what and they're all a bit watery and anonymous.

We have a sizeable pot of good sauteed wild winter mushrooms and also ordered this year's must-have food accessory, mac 'n' cheese. I'm not keen on this version at all, it being far too oily and creamy.

While we're eating Leo's been trying to tell me about a 16 oz steak he had in Meet in Liverpool for which was charged £16, about the same as in here, and his trip last week or so to a two-Michelin starred restaurant in Tokyo which charged a stunningly low £60. See what you can get with a club card? Tesco, presumably.

This is interrupted so regularly by a white noise scream from what could be an ice grinder right below us that I don't get the chance to mention that the last time we were in a two-Michelin stared restaurant - not in this country - it wasn't very good. Or cheap.

Anyway, is there more to Porter & Rye? Yes. A lovely seared venison haunch to start and Crowdie cheese bob-bons that were crisp, salty and gooey; also an oozing free-range duck egg in a crispy shell.

Again the sauces that accompanied these were a bit lightweight, but the starters were good. I won't mention the awful clammy carrot cake with sauce squirts from a plastic bottle to finish because actually I would come here again. Definitely for the steak. And it's good value.

Porter & Rye

1131 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

0141 572 1212

Menu: Steaks mainly, but not anonymous and pricey as we sometimes know them. Good cuts, bold sourcing and a few decent starters. 4

Atmosphere: Stacked floors, stone walls, low lighting, the odd awful kitchen noise but pleasant and expensively fitted out. 4

Service: There's a bit too much official explanation blurb, no doubt to a script, but waitress was otherwise excellent. 4

Price: Cheaper cuts such as bavette and onglet with sides and sauces for about £15. Interesting starters around the fiver. Very good value. 5

Food: Trying to raise the steak house game with a bit of quality and flavour. Generally achieving it, though there's the occasional limp sauce and one dull dessert. 7

24/30