Life

Eating Out: Olé for tapas night at Neill's Hill Brasserie

Neill’s Hill brasserie in “up and coming” Ballyhackamore, east Belfast Picture by Declan Roughan
Neill’s Hill brasserie in “up and coming” Ballyhackamore, east Belfast Picture by Declan Roughan Neill’s Hill brasserie in “up and coming” Ballyhackamore, east Belfast Picture by Declan Roughan

IF YOU'RE a regular reader of Eating Out you'll already know me and the middle child bond often over food, wine and gossip.

So I sent her a message saying, "dinner tonight, any ideas where we should go?"

She messages me back. Depressingly, this is how I communicate with my children these days: via Facebook messenger, direct message, private message, email and Snapchat.

The youngest child Whatsapp'ed me one night from bed to say she could smell something burning. Had the house been burning down I'd have had to Whatsapp her back to tell her to get out the window.

Anyway she Facebook messaged me back: "I hear the nightlife in Ballyhack is really up and coming".

Honestly, a stint in grammar school and a university degree and the child has officially been educated out of her class. She started life in a kitchen house in west Belfast and now speaks like a BT9er.

But she's good at picking restaurants and so I trusted her superior knowledge of east Belfast.

I'm going to be honest here – we had intended to go to Graze but I foolishly hadn't booked and despite it being a Wednesday night there were no tables. So we went across the road to Neill's Hill Brasserie, and I'm very glad we did.

As we walked through the door to the large restaurant, we were greeted by a very friendly front-of-house and a guy with a guitar knocking out some Spanish-style acoustics.

We'd stumbled upon tapas night and with me still mourning my recent Spanish holiday it was a warming, welcoming sound on an unseasonably cold April night.

We got a lovely table in the corner and, much like the restaurant we'd just been knocked back from, the place was buzzing. Middle daughter is right: the nightlife in Ballyhackamore really is up and coming.

There were three menus, a tapas menu, a specials menu and the usual evening offerings. Straight out of the traps we ordered three tapas for starters: crispy squid, pil pil prawns and some Spanish olives. They came pronto and we got a bottle of white to keep them company.

The squid, fresh and crispy, was delicious, the olives good quality. The prawns, however, were a massive disappointment. We got around six tiny prawns in oil without enough heat to make them taste of much. We needed more prawns, more chillies and more garlic.

All around us groups of women, families and couples were enjoying their meals. Middle child ordered lamb with kofta, flat bread and a Turkish salad. I looked at the evening specials and was drawn to the seabass with garlic Portavogie prawns.

Her lamb dish was pink and blushing, with a salad jewelled with pomegranate and salty from crumbled feta; the lamb had been rolled in ground coriander before searing, giving it that Middle Eastern flavour.

My fish had a crisp skin; the prawns on this occasion much more satisfying than the starter, sitting on fresh steamed green veg and with a few baby potatoes all rich with garlic butter. A real brassiere-style dish but done superbly well.

I would happily have passed on dessert had it not been for the sound of the lady on the table next to us smashing through the topping on a crème brulee. We ordered one of those and a passion-fruit Eaton mess to share between us.

The crème brulee was perfect – full of vanilla, creamy with a crunchy topping; the Eaton mess rich and creamy, delicious but impossible to finish.

Service was low key but friendly and efficient. It may not have been our first choice but it was certainly a good choice.

THE BILL

Tapas

Olives £2.50

Squid £3.50

Pil Pil prawns £3.50

Seabass £15

Lamb £13

Eton mess £5

Crème brulee £5

Coffee £2

Montes Sauv blanc £18

Total £67.50