[AD] Aberdeen Restaurant Week is back! Dine at 37+ Aberdeen Restaurants including The Lounge Bar and Kitchen between 15th and 21st of July for £10 2-course-lunches and £20 3-course-dinners. Get involved!
As part of the event, I am collaborating with Aberdeen Inspired along with several other Aberdeen food bloggers including Foodie Quine, Dinner Stories as well as Society Aberdeen. We are all reviewing the restaurants involved to help you decide where to dine!
As part of the event, I was asked to review The Lounge Bar and Kitchen. Located on Market Street, the best way to describe their Aberdeen Restaurant Week offering is traditional with a twist.
Admittedly, The Lounge Bar and Kitchen is probably not somewhere I would have immediately chosen to dine out at. It does have the appearance of a bar rather than a fine-dining restaurant. However, when looking at their menu – and the photos of the food – I was seriously impressed and became excited for my visit.
The whole point of Aberdeen Restaurant Week is to try somewhere new. Join me to use this opportunity to try somewhere you have not tried before to support local restaurants!
If you love experimental cooking, try here. The chef is clearly a very experienced cook and the dishes show a lot of skill. He has made all the dishes his own with unique touches throughout. The menu is great value for what you get- the dishes are made with the highest quality ingredients such as Scottish Smoked Salmon and Scottish Scallops. Every component of the (very) instagrammable dishes are also homemade which is a massive point for me!
The Menu
Traditional with a twist is the best way to describe the menu from The Lounge Bar and Kitchen. The chef has put his stamp on each dish- don’t take the menu at face value and expect the unexpected. Starters include soup of the day (Cullen Skink on our visit) and Haggis Croquettes. Mains include Mushroom Risotto and The Lounge Burger. Desserts include Chocolate Tart and Cheesecake of the day. All dishes are presented beautifully – have a look at The Lounge’s Instagram for photos of most of the dishes.
What we ate
Starters
For starters, we had the scallop dish and the smoked salmon dish. The smoked salmon dish was pretty traditional with homemade melba toast, salad and a creamy sauce. The addition of apple gave a different flavour and a nice crunch to the dish.
The scallop dish arrived with charred baby gem, lime, chilli, pomegranate and a pea purée. The scallops were cooked perfectly and tasted amazing. I felt there was maybe one too many accompaniments, but I get the creativity and it was an interesting starter.
Mains
For mains, we had the chicken dish and the moussaka.
The chicken was the best meal of the day for me. Perfectly cooked chicken with crispy skin, new potatoes, fresh green vegetables and a creamy tarragon sauce made for the ideal dish. It was proper good, high quality cooking.
The moussaka was the chefs unique interpretation of the classic dish. I would call it a deconstructed moussaka- it didn’t really bare any resemblance to the slow cooked Greek staple, but it was tasty in its own way. Aubergine was layered with tomato and mozzarella and it was all served with a huge salad made up of so many ingredients it was hard to identify some of them!
Dessert
We opted for the Pannacotta and the Eton Mess. The Pannacotta itself arrived to the table with the perfect wobble and had a lovely vanilla flavour. It was meant to be flavoured with rhubarb and ginger but unfortunately I couldn’t detect either.
The Eton Mess offered exactly what an Eton Mess should do with tonnes of whipped cream, fresh strawberries and crunchy meringue, plus a welcomed strawberry coulis which added more flavour.
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