Goodmans

Goodmans is one of the newer wave of steak restaurants replete with the ever present Josper Grill which, paired with Hawksmoor and the daddy of them all, Gauchos, leads the charge for well grilled cow in London and forms part of a regularly visited trio on my part.

The urge for me is not strong however to sample every steak restaurant in town. It is, in my mind at least, a simple meal, dominated by the quality of ingredients and a careful hand at the grill that should remain straightfoward. Despite waiterly attempts to add "sides" at every opportunity I wave it all away and limit the choice to cut, size and then order it medium rare with chips and a bottle of wine.

I see that I nearly scrawled a post last April on this venue, but failed as there is little to say other than;

Good steak - check
Good chips (not fries!) - check
Reasonable wine list - check
A modicum of mustard - check

This is all that matters so and all of the above meet these requirements with ease but beware Broadgate Gauchos which differs a little on the atmosphere which is a little lively, aimed as it is no doubt at the younger city gent with its glass bar, Bond villianesque lift and background music so if this will may interfere with your your ability to concentrate on the matter at hand, choose the Picadilly branch and be prepared for one of the great gustatory pleasures.

Hix Oyster and Chop House

We visited Hix's sister restaurant, the Oyster and Fish House in the summer and so finally got around to visiting Mark Hix's original restaurant launched in 2008 after his departure from the Caprice Holdings group. This venue, a more meaty sibling is tucked away behind Farringdon station by Smithfields Meat Market which rather dictates the likely contents of the menu. On our visit, no Beef and Oyster pie was listed and no-one would join me in the chicken for two so signature dishes were not an option. Instead we plumped for Hix's home cured salmon (which is cured in his own garden smokery apparently), and battered Dublin Bay Oyster prawns both of which went down a treat, the former benfitting from a gentle smoking that was not too sweet and the latter, a crisp grease free batter and tongue tingling caper mayo.

Mains included a pork chop which fell into the "nicest I've ever eaten" category, whole John Dory and for full sustainability points, a fillet of Gurnard. We rounded off with Treacle tart (sublime and again light on the sugar), a Rich Chocolate Mousse and a Clafouti-esque version of Bakewell Pudding that will no doubt have me online buying a Hix cookbook within the week laden as it was with puff pastry, jam, whole almonds, an almond filling and almond ice cream so all the tastes of Bakewell allied with the guilt of puff pastry - superb. Extra marks for a full vegetarian menu as well.

All in all, a menu replete with Hix quirks (Credit Crunch Ice Cream, Hix Fix) and the trademark attention to ingredients backed by rock solid kitchen skills that bring out buckets of flavour without a hint of faff.