Another new restaurant, it had been on my list of restaurants I wanted to try and tonight was the night; Ego Mediterranean. Jayne & I went after she finished work as she works in Leamington, it isn't very far from there. It was a Monday night and they offer a very good deal on a Monday-any starter or dessert with any main course and a bottle of wine each for £18.50-bargain!
The restaurant was very busy, not surprising with the deal though. It is a very pretty restaurant inside with a nice atmosphere. The service wasn't great though, we were shown to our table quite fast but it took a while to get a drinks order taken-we ordered a bottle of red each but we took them home as we were both driving so we ordered soft drinks, which again took a while to come to our table. The waitress took ages to take our order too-I understand it was busy but no excuse for bad service. It puts me off from going again because you shouldn't have to wait around for your drinks and orders to be taken.
We decided to have starter and main course as we hadn't seen the desserts and I prefer savoury to sweet. It took me a while to decide which starter to have as there is a lot of choice on the menu, with 12 different starters on the menu and then they offer you a specials menu too. Jayne wanted the mussels, they informed us they had sold out of them-unimpressed. They should have plenty of stock when they offer a deal like this. Eventually I chose a starter:
Chicken, Liver & Rosemary Paté served with clarified butter, toasted bread and chilli tomato marmalade
£5.75
The presentation was pretty good, but I always like more toast than I was given with paté, the chilli tomato marmalade was yummy-paté always needs a sweet sauce to go with it. However, I asked if the paté was smooth and they informed me it was as I really don't like non-smooth paté, however when it came and I tried it-it was actually quite flaky and I wouldn't describe it as smooth at all. I was quite disappointed with this starter to be honest, I love paté usually but this was a disappointment. £5.75 isn't exactly cheap either-I expected more and I ended up leaving quite a lot of it on the plate.
I was hoping the main course was going to be better.
Iberian Pork Belly: slow roasted honey glazed pork belly, on spinach, chorizo & black pudding with a thyme red wine jus
£13.95
The presentation was pretty good, not too big but not tiny which is good! I was still hungry though after leaving quite a lot of my starter. The colours of this dish were very vibrant and rich looking. We ordered a side of dauphinoise with our meals too for £3.25.
The portion size for the dauphinoise was huge for the price! I wasn't expecting it to be that big. They tasted delicious and were perfectly creamy but the potatoes were soft and cooked very well. Dauphinoise are very rich though with all the cream and milk in them and my belly pork was also very rich, so therefore both of the dishes together was a bit much-it was incredibly rich and I couldn't eat too much of it. The belly pork was cooked very well, crispy on the outside but tender in the middle. I couldn't taste the honey glaze on them though, but that could be because the dish was covered in the thyme red wine jus, the spinach, chorizo and black pudding mixture between the pork belly was average, I like black pudding but this was SO much of it, it was cut into quite big chunks and I didn't like how it was done and I thought it was too many rich and spicy flavours mixed together with the chorizo too. It was all a bit TOO much, it needed some calming down and without the chorizo and black pudding I think it would've worked with some simple mash instead, it was all too many flavours going on at once. I couldn't distinguish the different items of food as it was too rich. Wasn't overly impressed and when we looked at the dessert menu we were disappointed too-lots of choice of rubbish, Jayne and I don't usually struggle finding a dessert we want but we didn't want any of them on this menu.
I'm glad I tried it and it was ok, I would go back for the Monday deal as it was such good value but I would probably try something different.
5.5/10-food too rich and service wasn't good enough. Brilliant offer though and my dad loved me bringing him home a bottle of red!
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