Tempus restaurant at the Grand Central Hotel

I'm sure you're all aware by now of my dedicated love affair with wining and dining in Glasgow (read: pls don't judge pregnant me for ANOTHER food related post I JUST CAN'T HELP IT) The Tempus restaurant at Grand Central Hotel launched a new menu at the end of summer, and after sampling their delicious food at our annual blogger sleepover held at the hotel (2015& 2016's posts) I was intrigued to see what new offerings were on their menu, which was designed to showcase the very best of Scottish cuisine and culture - featuring locally sourced seasonal produce and ingredients.

To start: Marinated queen olives with garlic and chilli, and Tattie Scone Nachos with haggis and creme fraiche.

Foragers Salad, put together at your table, with different selections on offer daily.

Our mains: Fillet of scotch beef stroganoff with saffron rice, cocktail gherkins, dairy cream, mushrooms and paprika.

Rigatoni with scottish vine tomatoes, chilli and parmesan.

The dessert: I went for the Taste Of Summer which contained scottish strawberries, chantilly cream, meringue, strawberry gel and strawberry mojito sorbet. The restaurant were aware of my newly announced pregnancy after discussing mocktail options with our extremely helpful server, and it was such a nice touch for them to add on a message of congratulations! They also did this on my friend Emma's plate too, as she is currently 12 weeks ahead of me on the preggo scale. Emma is a vegetarian and unfortunately we both felt the veggie options were slightly lacking on the menu (which required closer inspection as well, as they weren't labelled) Neither were the vegan options either, so this might require a chat through the menu with your server before ordering. You can see what's on the dinner/dessert menu here and here.

Food wise, I absolutely loved the clear scottish influence throughout the menu (everything from hebridean salmon, to scottish heather honey, and St Mungos beer batter on the fish and onion rings) and my tattie scone nachos with haggis were the perfect comfort food, but not too filling and perfect size for a starter. Call me scottish but I bloody love haggis, and I thoroughly recommend you try it if you see it on a menu next time you're out. Fillet is my favourite cut of steak, and paired with the creamy stroganoff sauce and fluffy saffron rice it was a match made in heaven for my main. I knew I wanted something fresh and fruity (and essentially palate cleansing) for desert, so the taste of summer did the trick. However I do have my eye on the Grand Central Glasgow sharing sundae for next time, which contains arran tablet, irn bru ice cream, tunnocks and a wham bar!

All in all, we were both extremely satisfied with our food and the top notch service at Tempus. It did feel like the veggie options were lacking, however the restaurant were helpful and flexible when it came to mocktail choices so perhaps they would be as flexible in the kitchen too if you wanted to order a man sans meat? It felt like a very elegant and civilised way to start the evening before we headed off to stomp around in the mud at Bellahouston Park for the Eminem gig! Haha. Thanks Tempus for a lovely evening, and I'll definitely be seeing you again soon.