Meet Argentinian Restaurant, Liverpool

Being married to a chef it is not always easy to drag him out for a meal in a restaurant as he is incredibly fussy where he eats, so this in mind and the fact that January is the month of our wedding anniversary I took it upon myself to dive in with both feet and just book a restaurant that neither of us have been to before.

Why did I pick Meet?

Meet is a restaurant I have heard rave reviews about since the day it opened but have never got round to actually going their myself until last weekend. I have also been reading reviews around the net and so far have only come across one bad comment out of a good few which is always a good sign.

Arriving at the restaurant, hubby still a bit sceptical about where I was taking him, the entrance is up a few stairs but even here you get a great 1st impression of what is to come. The stairs are clean, wooden and have trendy water features to the right as you climb the stairs to the restaurant.

When entering there is no formal reception desk and as you open the door and enter you are greeted by diners and the sight of the large bar they have here, however, this is not a problem as there are plenty of staff and although the place was busy we where attended to and seated straight away even though we where a little bit early for our reservation. If your table is not quite ready there is plenty of seating around the bar for you to have a drink whilst you wait.

The décor is nothing to write home about as it is very simple and quite plain, disappointing, no not at all it goes really well with the atmosphere of the restaurant, the walls are whitewashed and where there is woodwork on the walls this is painted black, at the back of the restaurant the wall is stone effect with a large cow skin hanging up on the wall, well it is a Argentinean steak house. The lighting is not too bright and not too dim and I feel they really have struck there perfect balance here and you can still see what you are eating but keeping a nice cosy atmosphere at the same time, each table also has its own tea light.

The main grill is also located directly in the restaurant and you can see you food being cooked, even with this there is no contamination of the air by grease or steam or smoke from the cooking of meat as they have a really good extraction system and I did notice when we where leaving that the have a gold award certificate for clean air which is well deserved.

The menus and wine list are waiting for you on your table so you can quickly get down to the tough choice of what to order. Drinks ordered now for the choice of food. The menu is not extensive but there are still decisions to be made, there is a good choice of starters, though I don't recall seeing a vegetarian option I may be wrong. I choice the cured meats with marinated olives and blue cheese and hubby opted for the black pudding choice, for our main course I had chicken and hubby went for a steak.

Our starters arrived fairly quickly and I have to say that the portions are very generous, so much so I was actually concerned that I wouldn't be able to eat my main course, there was plenty of slices of cured meats on my plate with a large amount of olive and 2 large slabs of blue cheese, hot baguettes and butter had also been brought to the table, hubby was more concerned than me as his black pudding was a six inch slim black pudding sliced in half, and topped with a most delicious sauce, though we still haven't quite worked out exactly what this was, both dishes included salad with dressing, and a salsa type dip on the side. Both I can confirm where delicious, naturally we each had a taste of each others.

The main courses where extremely generous in size and all are served with either chips, mash or baked potato and salad and salsa dip again as standard. Hubby had opted for the smallest steak which was an 8oz and I would say that this was definitely cooked weight and not raw, pre cooked weight as is the case with a lot of restaurants and his steak was huge and extremely thick but perfectly cooked, medium, as per his request, big fat chips on the side also. The steak according to hubby was cooked just how he likes it, rare for a chef not to pick a fault with somebody else's cooking and for him to give compliments well it must have been good.

The chicken I ordered was 12oz of chicken breast and to say that it more than filled half the plate was no understatement, barely room for my perfectly cooked fluffy jacked spud and salad. The breast had been cut nearly into half and laid out flat and then grilled, this was topped with a tomato and herb marinade which really complimented the chicken beautifully, the meat was extremely tender and practically melted in your mouth.

Looking around, as you do between courses there where plates piled high with meat being served all around us and we where quite stunned at the size of the portions of some of the other items on the menu, pork chops, what must have been at least 4 port chops pilled high on the plate, meat platter for two which included, steak, ribs, chicken and port chops was, as hubby put it, enough to feed a small African country, not just two people, easily this would have served four people.

Below are some of the items I can remember from the menu:-

Starters
Breaded Lobster
Homemade soup of the day - it was vegetable when we where there.
Prawns

Main
Steak, 8oz, 16oz and 24oz, believe me the 8oz was large enough
Chicken
Pork Chops
Sirloin Steak,
Rib Eye steak
Steak and tomato dish that was piled high and held together with a skewer and looked too good to eat (hubby wants this next time we go).

I can't comment on the desserts as there was no way we could have ate one and this seemed to be the case throughout the entire restaurant, nobody ordered dessert. I would say that if you are a dessert person the don't' have a starter as you will never manage 3 courses in this restaurant its impossible with the portion sizes they serve, we couldn't finish two courses.

OK all important bit the prices - surprisingly reasonable, starts around £4-£6 on average with mains from £10 - £25 depending on what you order, naturally the bigger your steak the more its going to cost. Our meal which was 2 starters, 2 mains, drinks and coffee came to £51.55 bearing in mind that the drinks included 4 glasses of wine as £4 each then you would have to agree this was exceedingly good value.

The food can only be described as fabulous, extraordinary and probably the best I have tasted in a restaurant for a long time. I cannot recommend this place highly enough and will be returning very shortly, this is a place you go to and not a place you go on from.

As this restaurant is extremely popular and currently you have to book well in advance for premium times I can only imagine that as Liverpool is the Capital of Culture this year that demand to eat here will be extremely high as it has been since the day this restaurant opened.

Unfortunately Meet Arg does not have disabled access but guide dogs are welcome.

Address
2 Brunswick Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
Tel 0151 258 1816
Email meetargentina@googlemail.com

Opening times, 7 days a week 12noon to 11pm.