Eating Out | Roostiq

Trick or Treat?

 Pro Can I get back to you?

 Con Elementary unforced errors.

Pay €€€€ Food ★★ Service ★★★ VFM ★★ 

Practicals

Per Person €40-€45 for an equal share of five dishes, two desserts, plus two beers.

Website https://madrid.roostiq.com/

🛈 Dietary You'll need to ask.

Access Step free, including an accessibility lift from the street. Bravo.





In Pictures
On Google Images

The Story

Hopes? Some smartly cooked, quality flame-cooked meats,

Reality? I am reassessing my "never send stuff back" protocol. Seriously.

First Impressions? It's dark. And smart. And busy.

USP? It's supposed to be that fresh-cooked meat thing. Spot the operative words.

The offer in three words? Over and out.

Service? Good. Lots of staff around. Although drinks took an oddly long time to arrive. How long does it take to pour beer?

Eat me! Where to start? A starter plate of Torreznos strips was tasty - how could it not be, we're talking Torreznos - but these are not your granny's pork scratchings, as individually and collectively they're just too small. And underseasoned. Mind you  - Spoiler Alert - we're going to find out where all the salt went. Grilled leeks were a failure. Sad, but there we are. All that missing salt had found its way into them. They tasted like they'd been boiled in seawater. That or the chef's afraid of vampires. Well, it is nearly Halloween.

Picañha was the right size, lightly cooked, Argentina style. But without chimichurri or similar to add some interest. Mystifying. But not as mystifying as Roostiq Chicken, which turned up with a pot of freshly pureed tomato. What was that about? Performance art? We shall never know. But that wasn't as mystifying as the chicken itself. Like some kind of avian autopsy, we examined it, trying to divine which part of a chicken we were dealing with. Boned thigh was the verdict, although Roostiq say it's leg. Presumably several, scrunched up, Brazilian style. Oh well. Quicker, flamier cooking needed to crisp the skin. But even that wasn't as mystifying as how you stuff up a plate of Chips. The demon chef was back, spraying the NaCl around like icing sugar in a doughnut shop. Some were salted to death, some not quite cooked. None were good enough. 

Silver lining? A Burrata pizza was the highlight of the day - admittedly not hard on this particular day, but it was excellent. Ice-cream consistency cheese and nicely explosive juicy, cherry tomatoes adding some real kick when combined with a nice strong pesto. Very good. 

Chocolate Brownie was warm, mushy and dense with a decent chocolate hit and well matched with some very intense-looking vanilla ice-cream. Lemon pie was suitably bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and arrived with Limoncello. Hurrah! Room temperature limoncello. Ohhhh.,,, And I've never seen orange-coloured lemon curd before. It looked like it'd had a fake tan. Enduring getting one would have been more fun than this lunch, I reckon.

Friend friendly? You can make something from the menu if you're not a meat-eater, yes.

Rating for dating? Decor and so on - it's almost spot-on, aside from the overloud background music. Food-wise. Well. Stick to the pizzas & desserts.

Tip? Nelly. Your. Not. On.

Change one thing? Quality control. Or complacency. Same result whichever.

Revisitability? Sadly not going to happen without better reports.