Birthday Lunch at Amore Dogs

So it was time for another birthday (yay!) and its accompanying week/fortnight of dining out. For those people who are led to believe January is a crummy month for birthdays, I say it’s merely a sympathy drive. To make up for the daylight deprivation and the already well-honed inertia following Christmas, January’s as good a time as any to indulge in myriad Champagne and food dates with as many friends, loved ones and innocent bystanders you can manage. Add in one or two reviews for Bite Magazine, and it’s time to bring out the elasticated waistbands for now, and get those trainers primed for some pavement pounding in February. 

But to back-track a little, the first of my food-feasts was a slightly impromptu little lunch with the Silver Fox last Tuesday. You may recall my belated discovery of The Dogs last month (seriously though, where had I been?) and decided to follow up with lunch at their sister/slash/neighbouring unit Amore Dogs, which is the Italian arm of David Ramsden’s nominally mutt-themed restaurants. 

In terms of space, the bright high-ceilinged ground floor room had more instant appeal than the Dogs’ space upstairs. A few cosy sofas in front of the fire, trademark long bar and poochie portraits all in place, it also has a couple of bright mezzanine levels towards the back. The rest of the furniture is perfectly functional, with tables which are more than faintly reminiscent of school desks.

We walked in without a reservation, and were seated straightaway at a nice table at the back, beside a poor girl whose lunch date was never to materialise. A couple of glasses of prosecco ordered, and we turned to looking at the short ‘day’ menu. It’s a simple, straight run at what’s on offer, rather than being separated into any formal staters/ main course sections. There was a temptation to begin with a platter of antipasti to start, but time was a bit limited, so from the menu we chose spaghetti carbonara and pizza salami, with a plan to ‘go halfers’.

Sometimes this plan doesn’t work, as one of us (ahem, not naming names) can get a bit carried away and eating more than ‘his’ share, but I was hungry and fully intended to give him a run for his money! Following a recent experience with some raaaaaather tragic pizza in a well-known local pizza place, I made sure to ask that this one was to be well-fired. My loathing of under-cooked, soggy pizza dough is well documented, and I’m sure more than a bit tiresome for Graeme who has to listen to me whinging on about this kind of thing.

When the food arrived, there was a good whiff of well-cooked, just charred round the edges pizza crust and I knew this would be a good one. With thin dough base, nice tomatoey sauce and the spicy salami thinly cut so the fat had had a chance to render down to meet up with the melted cheese. At £7 , it was very fairly priced.

The menu states clearly that their pastas are served ‘al dente’, and the skinny spaghetti most definitely was. I have to admit, I do have a tendency (from fear?) always to just slightly over-do my spaghetti at home, and it’s nice to get a chance to eat it cooked to a perfect point. The feel in the mouth is far better than when it’s allowed to swell up too  much. A simple affair, there was a generous amount of the creamy carbonara sauce, and plenty of bacony-bites to get munching into, and this really was a bargain at £5.45.


As is was my birthday, we pigged out a bit unnecessarily and ordered a couple more glasses of the bubbly stuff, and dessert. G had the Venetian Rice Pudding, and I ordered the amaretto panna cotta with raspberries and home-made biscotti. I had no idea what to expect to be Venetian in the rice pudding ( well, would you?) but turned out to be ‘pimped’ with some raisins and orange peel and maybe a little spice. I was too busy slowly but surely decimating my panna cotta which was superb. A subtle taste of almonds through it and not too much of that ‘gelatinous’ texture you sometimes get with this pud. The fruity compote was  familiar (i.e. I think identical) to the one which came on the choccie cake I had at The Dogs in December. The only let down was the biscotti – just lacking a bit of flavour and sweetness. 

So that was us, an unexpected treat for the day and the first of no doubt many of 2011’s dining treats! Soon to come, Afternoon Tea at The Bollinger Bar, room service at The Scotsman, and Love You Long Thai. Now where did I put those stretchy pants…