Glasgow Malmaison Hotel
It’s that time of year again for standing in the Scottish Exhibition Centre and imagining the varicose veins forming in each leg. At least at the end of the day one can head back into town and a bit of R and R. The Malmaison in Glasgow fancies itself as a posh hotel but the position it occupies on a bus route, for a service that seem to operate for most of the night, leaves something to be desired. And the double glazing does not do its job.
Nevertheless the food is better than most hotel grub and so it should be at the prices they charge. The first night I ate from the local set menu priced at around 13 quid for two courses (no point trying to check on their website as the link to the .pdf never works) and was pleasantly surprised. The warm crusty bread, butter and tapenade were too tempting not to gobble up and by the time the cream of white onion soup arrived, it was all gone and more had to be ordered. The soup was perfectly smooth and comforting but the parmesan crouton was light on the latter – do be a bit more generous when wielding the grater, chef, or you may as well not bother at all.
The main course portion of slow-cooked shoulder of lamb, seemed to me to be on the stingy side but that could have been because the slice that arrived was so delicious in its soft, sweet succulence that it was simply not enough. The Puy lentils were fine, though not necessarily the best pairing possible, but the sauce was so yummy that the last of the bread was employed to sop it up. A bottle of Australian Shizaz was daylight robbery at 28 quid, but went down very nicely nonetheless.
The following night we went for the a la carte and I started with a salad of pan fried duck, with orange and fennel. If the fennel was present it was in hiding, and the orange only put its hand up at the end, but the salad still went down very well. I suspect the duck to have been cooked quite rare, which was not a problem to me, and the skin was of the requisite crispiness that it could be eaten with pleasure. More squeamish diners could have peered at it in vain, as the light in the basement restaurant is so low that Burke and Hare could be prowling round the outer edges waiting to bag an exiting diner, and no-one would spot them. I usually feel it obligatory to eat steak in Scotland just to see what all the fuss is about, and the medium rare rump tasted as though it was just that (though if I could have verified this by sight I would have felt, inexplicably, more pleasure still). The ‘frites’ were advertised as ‘hand cut’ and were crispy enough for one to shoot off the plate and off into the outer darkness a foot away – probably bringing down Burke or Hare or both. The béarnaise sauce was excellent in taste and consistency, with a real flavour of tarragon, but could have done with being slightly warmer – all right, we don’t want scrambled eggs but it was almost stone cold.
Service both at dinner and at breakfast (you would not believe it but 159 quid does not buy you as much as a bacon butty) was a bit hit and miss. The first night it was particularly slow and Colleague was given lamb rather than risotto (someone had “pressed the wrong button”) so I had almost wolfed mine down before hers finally arrived. The first morning at breakfast we almost had to rugby-tackle a waiter to get an order of toast, whilst the next day it arrived almost immediately but was burnt.
Verdict: value for money - 7/10 service - 6/10 quality of food - 8/10
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