DO you guys mind, the gold-waistcoated waiter asks, moving outside when you’ve finished your dessert? Outside being some picnic tables at a plastic-hedged pavement area on non-stop Sauchiehall Street where right now at least it’s not raining. Though there is a geezer puffing away on a fag.

Okay, we say, even though I’m sighing deeply. This is immediately followed by: actually…do you mind moving out there just now to have your dessert?

So the three of us untangle ourselves from our tiny two-seater by the door where we have just wrangled a 450g Cote De Boeuf, a 500g Sirloin, a rack of lamb and fries, onion rings, jugs of sauces, roasted veg, a cuddly toy – okay not the cuddly toy but you get the drift.

The words “blame Coldplay” are still ringing in our ears. Coldplay? Been busy all day, I’ll be told when paying the £96 bill later. Because of that Coldplay concert. Non-stop.

“He’s been in on his own,” adds a guy, I assume to be an owner, nodding at that smiley waistcoat waiter, “with my brother in the kitchen”. Look at the stars, I could sing right now, if I could sing. Which I can’t. How they shine for you.

This modest yet freshly decorated little hole-in-the wall joint, with its slickly upholstered banquettes, naked bricks, crisp white walls, mounted cow’s head, yet weirdly only half a sign above the door, is absolutely bulging at the seams. This on a Tuesday night too. In August.

Yet the only table I could book was for 6pm. And it now being 8pm we’ve long overstayed that allocated slot.

So we settle down contentedly in the fresh air to share a Cranachan that’s just never a Cranachan - being more a pleasant creamy mini-spongey thing with some toasted oatmeal and too much raspberry gloop - and even now, outside, tables around us are still filling up.

Four ladies laugh out loud when Angus accidentally elbows a shot glass off the table and turns to them jokingly as it shatters spectacularly saying: why did you do that?

I see what look like Japanese tourists inside, young couples too, tables being pushed together for a big group. And all this for meat? In the 21st century?

The trouble with steak roulette, because that’s what it usually is, is so much depends on the poor cow itself; then the butcher, assuming there actually is one, before a chef even gets his hands on it.

And no chef in the world can rescue what nature mucked up, though many chefs can certainly ruin what nature didn’t.

And yet in this world of hot-stuff veganism, small plates everywhere, and big-flavour combos, steak is clearly still cool. We actually went straight towards ours with a sense of cave-man anticipation given what we could see being consumed around us.

Yes. They do starters in here. Haggis n’ Neeps (£8), Chicken Liver Parfait (£7), Black Pudding Duck Egg, with Mushroom Fricassee (£8), Bruschetta (£6) and scallops at just, er, just the £12.

Not one of them appeals. Coming across as heavy, stodgy, old skool and pricey. Not with £30-plus steaks coming in after that.

The cote du boeuf (£31) then, unsurprisingly perhaps, is the more flavoursome of our two hunks, even though the sirloin (£32), mid-cut, thick-strip looks juicier.

Both are completely gristle free, seared and caramelised stickily in all the right places, not really my sort of thing, but for 28-day aged Black Angus, hard to fault. There are okay fat chips thrown in for the price, good sweet n’ crispy roasted veg, an also-included but far too cornflour-tasting-for-me red wine jus and a perfectly acceptable peppercorn sauce too.

I took the £24 rack of lamb just to be different, couple of, seared again, juicy chops, a squidgy lamb shoulder bon-bon, dauphinois, and usual-suspect sides.

All pretty good too but outgunned by what is still clearly the global go-to feel-good food. Fashions aside.

 

Meat Joint Scottish Steakhouse

327 Sauchiehall Street

Glasgow

Open: seven days

Tel: 0141-212-9274

 

Menu: The clue’s in the rather clunky and unappetising name: steaks. Cotes Du Boeuf, Sirloins, Fillets all 28-day Black Angus. Plus some other meaty stuff. 3

Service: Cheery, personable guys trying to manage and turn tables in a tiny yet almost under-siege restaurant and actually pulling it off. 5

Atmosphere: Long, low and very narrow yet decorated stylishly and has a buzz about it even though your neighbours are millimetres away. 4

Price: It’s steak, it’s a post-covid crazy prices world, and at around £30 for a fair old portion with sides and sauces it still manages to feel reasonably priced. We didn’t do any starters. 3

Food: Steak roulette then, so many ways to muck one up, yet they avoid them all and produced a couple of juicy caramelised pieces of meat with okay sides that pressed all the right buttons. 7 

 

22/30