Got that old school charm and Quality

I'm not much of a innovator or a trend setter, I do what most people on Twitter and Instagram do, read or see something good and try it out for themselves. Quality Chop House is another example of me following the trend. I saw some amazing looking plates of food on Instagram and thought 'yes I'm going to have to try that place out'. It was a wise decision.

A Chop House is a establishment that specialises in serving traditional English dishes, your Ploughmans, game pies, steak, chops and so on and so on. QCH is situated in Farringdon and it first opened for business in the 1870s. It closed in 2010, reopened under the name of 'Meatballs', a restaurant that specialised in meatballs (I think). Meatballs moved onto Westfield and QCH came back to its former glory in 2012.

QCH is unlike any restaurant I've been to before, in terms of my knowledge of classic traditional restaurants it stretches as far as Harvester (I like their lattice fries) so I didn't really know what to expect when arriving. On appearance alone QCH has so much character, from the wooden benches with leather cushions strapped to them, to the old school chairs that my dad use to use in his restaurant which are now gathering dust in his garage.

I had waited about an hour for my friend so I was worried that my judgement on the food would be impaired by my caveman like hunger but the quality really does stand out. To start we opted for the Middle White pork rillettes with pickles, Lamb ribs with mint sauce and the fried fish with aioli. All the starters were excellent but the real winner were the lamb ribs, the way the meat fell off the bone and melted in the mouth was stunning. I'm not a fan of mint sauce but I couldn't get enough of theirs perfect balance between sweetness and the freshness of mint.

For main I went for the sirloin steak served with confit potatoes. This plate of food didn't last long at all, now this isn't an indictment on the portion size, it is merely a sign of how much I enjoyed it. I'm not sure how things are done at QCH but in all steak restaurants I've been to I'm asked 'how would you like your steak cooked?' I wasn't asked that, and I thought that was a bit odd, but when the steak arrived it was exactly to my liking, a perfect medium rare. Served with the steak were these wonderful confit potatoes, perfectly crisp and golden on the outside, wonderfully fluffy inside. Heston can keep his triple cooked hay infused chips, not interested in Delia's roasties in lard because QCH does the best potatoes!

Those beautiful confit potatoes under the sirloin!!

The dessert maintained the high standard of the meal, I opted for the chocolate tart with ginger cream. For me it was the perfect way to finish with the spice of the cream cutting through the richness of the chocolate.

Chocolate tart with ginger cream

I've got several tried and tested restaurants on my list, ones that I will go back time and again; my local tapas bar, Hawksmoor, the Goldmine in Bayswater to name a few. Quality Chop House is definitely going on the list.