Alba Scottish Steakhouse,
49 Queen's Square,
Belfast,
BT1 3FG.
028 9692 2070
[ albarestaurant.co.ukOpens in new window ]
INDIAN, Greek, Thai, Bangladeshi, Italian, French, Polish, Pakistani, Vietnamese, Cuban, Korean, Mexican, Filipino, American, Japanese, Nepalese, Turkish, Ethiopian, Jamaican, Spanish, Lebanese, Canadian, Nigerian.
And I've probably left somewhere out of this list of the sit-in and takeaway food offerings from across the globe that Belfast has to offer.
And just when you thought the options from across the seas couldn't get any more exotic, along comes one from across the narrowest sea we've got.
Alba Scottish Steakhouse is a sister restaurant of the Mini Grill Scottish Steakhouse in Glasgow, and comes over the somehow still bridgeless stretch of water with its accent unaffected.
On the way up the stairs you meet the stares of framed highland cattle and monarchs of the glen, just daring you to order their friends and family.
The restaurant itself is part bare wood, part glinting metal, with big windows looking down onto Custom House Square. Today they're keeping out the icy rain that's battering against them.
In weather like this the cullen skink is obvious. It's also perfect – rich, smoky with haddock, and the potatoes adding actual potato flavour rather than just ballast. It's also enormous; £7 for this starter portion only leads you to wonder if they wheel in a bathtub to house the £16 main course size.
The trio of haggis is nice enough but not at the level of the soup. One slice in puff pastry, another bit wrapped in filo and a third ball in some breadcrumbs all come out tasting much the same – of pretty good haggis made a bit crunchy, with dots of an overly sweep turnip puree.
Steakhouse is right there in the name of the restaurant so trying one feels mandatory.
There are whoppers to share, including the gimmicky, ready for its Insta close-up, tomahawk, and a pound and a half of chateaubriand.
A smaller choice from the fillet comes for one but it's still a substantial slab of meat, and manages to combine the non-negotiable pink tenderness with more of a beefy flavour than you've a right to expect from the cut. It's helped along nicely by being dipped in the red wine bone marrow jus but, then again, everything would be helped by being dipped in this stuff.
This is deep, dark, brooding, intense; it's like they've melted down every Scottish detective who's ever appeared on television.
The skin-on, rustling chips, pilfered from the burger order, are pretty good by themselves. Imagine what they're like after dunking them in this.
There's also a Yorkshire pudding full of haggis and gravy because, sure why not? If you're going to get wet you may as well dive head first into Loch Lomond.
Just as a steak demands to be ordered so does the Glasgow Burger. It gets quite the write up. A finalist in Scotland's Best Burger (2017) apparently.
Practicality obviously wasn't a criterion because this thing doesn't know the meaning of the word. Trying to eat it with just your hands is hubris on an epic scale.
So it's taken apart and eaten with a knife and fork. What that does, apart from keeping it from going all down my front, is show off just how good the constituent parts are.
Piling this much additional meat onto a burger is usually a good sign that the burger itself is hiding something – that it's not very good. Not here, where the burger itself is a belter.
Soft, rich and meaty it is, as it should be, the star of the show. Braised beef cheek falls apart and the haggis 'Wellington' – a slice of the puddin' in a thin crisp coating - works well. The sickly sweet Buckfast bacon jam is plenty after about a bite and a half but this is a Scottish bingo card burger so Bucky had to appear somewhere.
The horseradish slaw, however, is fantastic, with its crunch and fire required against the big, bruising meatiness.
The brioche roll has a vaguely orange tint but thankfully doesn't taste of the advertised Irn-Bru because, let's face it, that would be disgusting.
A mojito with the girders-flavoured fizzy drink is more successful, while the Irn-Bru panna cotta is a bit over-set and tastes sweet and a little strange. So, exactly like Irn-Bru.
But the other dessert does a better job of explaining what Alba is all about even if it's one of the few dishes not explaining in the accent straight out of Trainspotting.
A lovely sponge disc with a chocolate orange mouse and tempered chocolate top comes with a pistachio ice cream and completely needless shot of egg nog. But it feels right - just a wee bit over the top but comfortingly and satisfyingly so.
Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a ****ing big bowl of soup and a burger clarried in haggis. Choose Alba.
THE BILL
Cullen skink £7
Haggis trio £8
Fillet Steak £38
Glasgow burger £17
Chocolate, orange, pistachio dessert £7
Irn-Bru panna cotta £7
Irn-Bru mojito £9
Diet Coke £3
Total £96
