Mora Bar and Kitchen
IT’S not all glamour, this restaurant reviewing game. Four new restaurants we’ve been to this evening and not a single one open. I blame the soft-launch phenomenon where a new place opens for a Friday night or two just to take the temperature of the latest kimchi small-plate-honestly-not-tapas yawnarama breakthrough and then slinks off either to lick its wounds or start hiring for the big rusheroonie.
OK, I could also blame myself. But where would that get us?
It gets my pal Gordon and I to Mora which is not only fully open on this dreich Tuesday evening in downtown Glasgow but surprisingly is nothing like I expect it to be from its rather Ugly Betty exterior.
Honest Injun? I am still looking backwards down Argyle Street scanning for somewhere better to eat even as we walk in the door.
I then turn round expecting to see a tired old Italian restaurant. But find instead a Tardis-like oasis of long tables, wood and stone, and hip waitresses, with what I can only describe as a Glasgow ski chalet feel. Yes, it is all slightly Twin Peaks.
“Do you think they can tell why you’re here,” asks Big Gordon, after I fail to keep my trap shut and ask the waitress if any of this stuff on the menu is freshly made in-house.
The answer to Gordon’s question is, no. They generally just think I’m a wierdo, or a sad food pseud, but someone’s got to take a culinary bullet for you dear readers.
The waitress answers my question by telling me “everything” is made here.
By the time I mutter to Gordon, “I bet they say that to all the customers,” I realise it’s too late. The big man has already been completely seduced by the waggy-tailed cheerfulness of it all and is now throwing his arms protectively around Mora like it’s some long lost puppy.
“Come on,” he says, looking up at the chalkboard specials on the board behind us. “Only a tenner for halibut with pine nuts or a bavette with chimichurri. Where else are you going to get that?”
Considering at this very moment I’m eating that very bavette which is a surprising good cut of beef, tender, juicy, seared and tasty, he has got a point.
In fact the chimichurri sauce is fully green with parsley and chunked with garlic and tangy with vinegar. Yeah, I know it’s the second time in a week I’ve seen it on a Glasgow menu and there could well be a big truck driving round with a tank of it on the back but it’s still very good.
But hang on. Those hand-cut chips that we were promised were definitely made from scratch here?
“A bad batch,” the waitress says of these floppy, soggy offerings.
A bad batch of what? Potatoes? Far more likely the chef was caught with his fryer temperature down as two random rockets wandered in at the fag end of the evening and started ordering everything.
Anyway, that ten quid halibut? There is indeed a crust of pine nuts, the fish is grilled and coloured and pleasant if not brilliant and it’s all served with a fresh salad. And, yes, it’s still a tenner.
Oh, I nearly forgot. To start we had a good little dish of gnocchi with a rich tomato sugo and chunks of Italian sausage which they later took off the bill – presumably on account of those soggy chips.
I also persuaded a very reluctant Gordon to try my mum’s favourite dessert an affogato – or dollop of vanilla ice cream with an espresso poured over the top. Delicious. If simple. Likewise the freshest cannoli I’ve ever had in Glasgow. All Sicilian rolled crisp pastry with sweetened cream cheese inside.
Normally, we would have left after this point, but instead we take a couple of drinks, drag a couple of chairs outside, and sit there a while watching Argyle Street go by.
Maybe I got a little seduced by Mora, too.
Mora Bar and Kitchen
1160 Argyle Street
Glasgow
0141 560 2070
Menu: Chalkboard specials of bavette with chimichurri and a nice little gnochi alongside pizzas and braised pork cheeks. Eclectic. 3/5
Atmosphere: More restaurant than bar, looks much better inside than out and has a real tardisy hideway feel to it.Even on a Tuesday 5/5
Service: Not entirely convinced by the chips story, but otherwise bright n’breezy, confident and friendly. 4/5
Price: A tenner for a good quality chalkboard main course is hard to beat, likewise the gnocchi at £6 for a main portion. Stick to specials and it’s value. 4/5
Food: Once upon a time a nice bavette steak with a decent sauce and chips would have been called good honest bistro food. Now, it’s just decent and unpretentious. 7/10
23/30
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