Express Lunch at Bar+Block – Steak and Frites

Bar+Block Steakhouse has just opened up in Nottingham on Chapel bar. They have a simple enough concept and that is mainly Steak for every meal of the day. You can have ‘Steak and Eggs‘ for Breakfast and Brunch, ‘Steak & Frites’ for Lunch, and then well just loads more Steak for Dinner.

I was interested to try out their Express Menu which promised a meal “cooked fresh and served within 10 minutes with a drink for £10″. It is often hard to get a quick sit down lunch in the city and this sounded to be the perfect solution if it worked out.

Checking out that Express Menu

As I said I had already decided that I was going to test out the Express Menu, now I just needed to pick out what I fancied. I had just expected to just see ‘Steak’, ‘Burgers’, and ‘Sandwiches” and they were there with offerings of a Pulled Pork Cob, a Veggie Burger, a Beef Burger and a Club Sandwich,

but you could also get a ‘Sea Bass Fillet‘ described as being ‘cooked over charcoal and served drizzled with a mixed tomato and rocket salad‘ which sounded pretty good.

I kind of already knew that I was going to be having some sort of Steak, I mean you have to don’t you if you are checking out a Steakhouse? So I ordered the ‘Steak and Frites‘

There was a nice and slightly quirky touch that I liked as I was given a little pot of popcorn? yeh popcorn! that was my first thought too, then I learned that it was beef flavoured popcorn and I was more interested 🙂 It really then helped that it was actually pretty nice and it made for a nice little muse as I had contemplated my options from that Express Menu.

I also found it amusing when a big sand filled ‘egg timer’ appeared on my table to reinforce that my meal was coming before the ‘sands of lunchtime ran out’. It was funny to me as I had just checked my watch to do my own countdown and almost as I looked back up that timer had appeared.

The sand hardly had time to fill the base before my meal was swiftly carried out to my table from the kitchen, steam arising from the freshly seared steak. This was all pretty good, to be honest I reckoned that it had been less than 10 minutes from being seated, getting my drink and making that order. Maybe I gave them too easy a test 🙂

Steak & Frites

The Steak & Frites at Bar+Block was described on the menu as being “Flash-cooked steak drizzled with garlic butter and served with French fries“. It arrived very simply with a large long piece of thin steak covered with that promised drizzle of bitter that was melting away and settling into the crevices with the meat.

The fries or frites if we want to play along did arrived in a bowl but they were quickly tipped onto the plate so that you could actually eat them alongside the steak. I mean that pot is just extra washing up now, may as well plate them to start with 🙂

The Steak was pretty decent, nicely charred and cooked and, even though it was thin, it was still quite juicy and tender. I liked that there was a slight bitterness from the harsh char on the base of the steak, but the sweet garlic butter mixed with chopped parsley balanced that out and there was a great combination of tastes to compliment the well tasting meaty beefiness of the steak. There was a nice marinade too with a touch of chilli (I think) as well as more garlic and herbs.

I really quite liked this steak, it was larger than I expected and yet it was still quite a light lunch, which is usually what I am looking for if I have to go back to work after. The frites were ok, I mean you cant do too much wrong with those, if I am honest thinking about it now I might have preferred a salad instead of those fries.

If you wanted you could just bypass the express choice and get one of their Steaks with a House Salad, which they say is under 600 Calories for an 8oz cut. Having said that you are not getting the £10 deal and you would be paying between £11.95 and £19.95 depending on which cut of beef you chose. I think it would be nice though to offer the steak and salad for £10 too though, it’s probably just as easy to do in 10 minutes. I might ask next time 🙂

As well as that Express Lunch they also serve breakfast from 6.30am which will be handy if you are staying at the Premier Inn of which they are the Restaurant, that is available until 12 and I could be pretty tempted to wander up into town to check that out too. I like the sound of the Bar and Block Works which is “Dry cured oak smoked streaky bacon, pork sausage, spicy beans with smoked bacon, beef hash, mixed mushrooms and roasted tomato, served with a fried egg on toast” for £7.95 (you can add a Steak as well for another £2 🙂 )

I also could be tempted by the offering of their Signature Beef Burger called the “Mighty Block Burger” which is an ‘8oz hand-ground beef patty with oozy cheese sauce, smoked pulled beef brisket, crispy onions, pickled cucumber spear, shredded lettuce, tomato and our fiery black sauce’ for £13.50. I would probably check out the lunchtime offering first though to see if they can do a decent burger before I got all fancy.

I suppose though really you should be coming back for the Steak and that is probably what I would be doing, getting a great big rib eye and a bottle of red wine to slowly slip away into a meat and wine fuelled splendiferous state of mind. Lets just see, it could happen 🙂