Restaurant Review #7 - Blind Pig at the Social Eating House

Hi everyone,

Birthday's are a time of celebration and require good food. Luckily, London is full of interesting restaurants if you know where to look for them. The Bling Pig at the Social Eating House, located in the heart of Soho, is a restaurant that attempts to use local ingredients to produce excellent food. I wouldn't call the restaurant fine dining but it definitely has a professional feel when reserving a table. However, once you reach this establishment, the serving staff are very engaging and quite fun to interact with. After they take your jacket they welcome you to the dining room has a professional but relaxed atmosphere. The dining room itself is quite dark; the mood lighting made it feel like a bar, for my personal taste I would have preferred more light. Nevertheless, the waiters were very pleasant and the menu was quite interesting. I decided to be bold and order a side as a starter: Macaroni & Cheese with Chanterelles and Shaved Mushrooms.

The Mac & Cheese was very rich, despite it being a small pot I felt stuffed after I had eaten it. The flavours were well balanced and the mushrooms complimented the dish very well. It was a higher end version of the traditional comfort food that many people enjoy. Personally, I think Mac & Cheese is quite difficult to make special but the Bling Pig achieved this. However, I had taken a risk ordering this plate as a starter and payed the price as I immediately felt full rather than getting my stomach warmed up. Nevertheless, the next course was coming up as I tried to recover from this heavy starter. I ordered a 40 day-aged Native Cumbrian Rump Steak with mixed leaf salad, duck fat chips and peppercorn sauce.

The presentation of the steak was traditional but visually attractive. The steak itself looked very appetizing but surprisingly it was not the element that impressed me the most. Despite it having a good flavour and going very well with the sauce, I felt the steak was not as tender as I would have hoped. Normally, I am not a fan of chips, or french fried for those outside the UK. However, these were particularly special. I was aware that they fried them in duck fat but I was surprised how crispy they were on the outside but how flavoursome and soft they were on the inside. I was very impressed and rued by choice of the starter as I was feeling too full to enjoy them fully. By this point I was more than satisfied. There was no space for dessert on this occasion. However, it is worth noting that my friend ordered an Atlantic Octopus with charcoal mayonnaise, sea herbs, Padron pepper, pink fir potato and green sauce as a starter. This dish was particularly impressive and would not be out of place in the best restaurants in the world. Overall, the Blind Pig at the Social Eating House is very impressive. It is not a fine dining restaurant but the food is of a similar quality. It definitely justifies the prices they charge.

Price: Competitive High End

Food: Excellent Use of Local Ingredients 

Service: Very Engaging and Interesting

Rating: 4/5

Fun Fact: The origins of Macaroni and Cheese are thought to come from 13th century Southern Italy where they used lasagna sheets with fermented cheese.