The Shepherd Market in Mayfair always have answers to food lovers, from Indian food, Italian, Lebanese, Japanese, French to simple and hearty old English pub food are all there to choose from. And on our most recent culinary adventure, our choice goes to The Market Brasserie.
Like its sister restaurant - The Little Square - that we have visited before, the concept of The Market Brasserie is simple, honest and comforting. What more could we ask during grey and wintery day?
After choosing our spot by the window, we browsed through the menu. Grilled lobster is on today's special! Tempting, but we need something more substantial (read: stodgy). So, we start with Mushroom Rarebit and Calamari Fritti with sweet chilly dip, accompanied by a bottle of Poully-Fuisse followed by Rib-eye steak and Sea Bass with button mushroom and mashed potato on the side. Those should keep our rumbly tummies happy for the day.
Our starters arrived. Our first impression was 'good portion'. Just enough to get our appetite going and leaves plenty of room for main course and obviously - the dessert. Both mushroom rarebit and calamari served hot, which is important. Presented adequately attractive but not over the top. Taste wise, they were slightly under-seasoned, but we didn't mind.
The main course, Rib-eye steak and Sea Bass. Again, very good portion and the steak cooked perfectly, medium to well done it was, served with green salad on the side. The sea bass was beautiful too, served on a bed of salad leaves with grilled vine tomatoes and baby fennel. The only flaw we noticed was the taste of fennel was rather unusual. Not quite anise-ey but more carroty... There's a mystery for you! :)
Side dishes, the button mushrooms and mashed potato were 'okay', could be better with a little bit of butter and seasoning. But they were not disappointing us in a big way.
What let us down more was the Poully-Fuisse. It tasted fine, but it has a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottle, plus it was a screw top. That's very unusual for a reasonably good French white wine. We mentioned our concern to the staff and apparently it will be forwarded to the owner.
We have gone through starter and main course, now it's time for a cheese platter and sweet treat. We chose Chocolate Torte. We were happy with the portion size of both starters and main courses, now we got shocked by the portion of cheese platter! Well too generous!! And those cheeses were not quite mature to our taste. The chocolate torte was rich, almost mousse like but heavier, topped with two large dollop of double cream. We think after all the food we just gone through, we have to jog around Green Park several rounds to burn off the calories.. :))
All in all, we were quite pleased with the whole culinary adventure at The Market Brasserie. We would not categorise it as a fine restaurant, but more to a local restaurant that everybody can visit anytime to find comfort food and casual service without breaking the bank.
The Market Brasserie
18 Shepherd Market, Mayfair
London W1J 9QH
Phone: +44 20 74919442
Website: http://www.themarketbrasserie.co.uk/home.htm
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