Hopscotch was on my agenda as a new bar to try out but it was the food there I really took a shine to! After looking at the two menus available, we decided we liked the Dining Room one more, so instead of just going for a drink we purposefully got to the upstairs main room early to get a table. The menu isn’t that long but there was only two of us and we weren’t planning a heavy meal so we got three dishes and a side to share. Every single one was on point. And a little bit spicy. Even better.
The flatbreads were anything but, piled high with the toppings they came with – aubergine and sumac onions for Carolyn, pulled goat for Erica and myself.
A generous plate of hispi cabbage was served liberally doused with zingy miso butter and festooned with parmesan. Wonderful.
In fact a lot of our dishes came with a lot of sauce which was hard to transfer to our own little plates and wasn’t easily absorbed by the food it came with. Some extra bread to dip would have been appreciated.
The scallops that came first might have been my favourite and definitely rank as one of my most top fave scallop dishes I’ve had. Charred corn gave it a Mexican feel and the fennel sausage was light enough in flavour to let the scallops still stand out. And then, that lovely heat from the chilli butter.
And the beef rib! Amazingly soft – so soft it was hard to transfer a strip or two to my own plate without it disintegrating.
I'd go back again in a heartbeat.
After our dinner, we went downstairs where the drinks, and food, menu is completely different, for a postprandial. I couldn't resist the Danger of Death (a nod to the bar that used to be here perhaps?) - dark spirits, smoke, danger. I'm not sure quite what the element of danger was but it was tasty nonetheless.
