Hello lovelies

Recently I have been eating out quite a lot – good for the yummy food but bad for the waistline and bank balance.

A few weeks ago, I took my sister to Made in Belfast, City Hall for a pre theatre feast before going to watch The Woman in Black at the Grand Opera House (side note- it was very good).

I hadn’t been to the restaurant in quite some time, so was really looking forward to seeing what I had been missing.

We were seated quickly, and the restaurant was relatively quiet (it was still quite early in the evening). After a quick glance at the cocktail menu, I thought I would start the evening with a gin based Belfast Bramble while perusing the menu (another side note – this cocktail is just great and I wish the sold it by the jug…).

Made in Belfast offer a very reasonable Show Time Menu, Monday-Friday 4pm-6pm and from 12pm-6pm at weekends whereby you can avail of two courses for £15.00 or three for £18.50.

Given the fact that we weren’t ravenous on this occasion, we both decided that two courses (main and dessert, naturally) was more than enough to satisfy us.

I had been craving a steak all week so decided to opt for the 8oz rump steak (medium-rare) which came served with crispy onions, beef fat chips (nom nom nom) and pepper sauce. As you have probably gathered, I am a big fan of the beef fat chips – they are just delicious. The steak was just enough for me and was thankfully cooked correctly – I have a bit of a thing in relation to steaks being cooked correctly as I have been to so many restaurants who have tried to give me a well done steak in place of medium, but I digress…

The pepper sauce was lovely too, but I only use it to dunk my chips as I’m firmly of the view that a good steak shouldn’t need slathered in sauce…

Just as dinner arrived, I opted for another cocktail. Sticking with the gin theme, I went for a Cool as a Cucumber which is a frozen concoction of Gordons, elderflower liqueur, lime cucumber and mint. This one was also delicious though I couldn’t drink them all night with the cucumber.

For dessert, which was honestly just gluttony, I selected the vanilla panna cotta which came with a freshly made raspberry donut. The donut was served hot and was mouth watering. The panna cotta was light and creamy, but not firm enough for me personally.

To finish the evening off, I ordered one more cocktail (I think I have a problem…) going for a Foragers Fizz which consisted of wild berry liqueur and prosecco. This one was a little disappointing in comparison to the others, I just felt a little underwhelmed if I’m honest and the prosecco wasn’t particularly chilled which wasn’t great. But it was drinkable.

The staff were lovely. Very polite and helpful. It did take some time for us to get our bill after dessert and when it did come, they had forgotten to charge us the Show Time Menu prices so we had to have the bill amended and wait another ten minutes on the card machine. Not ideal as we were running low on time before the show, but nothing major. Just worth mentioning to be completely honest with you all.