Borough market steak-house

We’ve been having a culture day at the Damien Hirst exhibition at Tate Modern – pretty strange, though the butterfly pictures are attractive. Naturally, we then have a glass upstairs in the bar, which has splendid views over to St Paul’s.  Well, it does as first, but when the rain comes, it’s impossible to see across the river except when highlighted by lightning striking the Old Bailey. That puts paid to the idea of a gentle stroll along the Southbank, so in a lull we hurry back towards London Bridge.

At the edge of Borough Market we call in at Black and Blue, an excellent steak-house. You can’t miss it – it has a huge model cow on the roof! It’s more or less the middle of the afternoon, so fairly quiet, so we get to sit in a booth, rather than slightly small standard tables.  It’s a nice room for a steak-house; light and airy rather than dark and warm, and the waitresses are very lively and attentive. B&B is now a small chain of seven restaurants in the smarter parts of London.

To start we have garlic king prawns – huge and succulent – and foie gras mousse, which comes with a sweetish brioche bread.  We share the cote de boeuf (600g) for main, served nicely rare on a wooden board with a few leaves as decoration, and a pot of very creditable chips. It’s a tidy piece of meat which we struggle to get through, and end up with a “doggy bag” to enjoy the following day.  The wine list offers several Malbecs and other Argentinian reds, but quite quickly goes up in price – we settle for a Tilia Malbec at £26.  The bill comes to a reasonably good value £85 – good if you like your steak.