The Barking Frog

There’s fine dining and there’s foodie eating.

Fine dining is reserved for those with far much more money than taste buds.  The ploy with fine dining is to make sure the person doing the dining is overwhelmed by the ‘service’ and surroundings, and is nicely drunk ahead of the food actually arriving.  This way they have no idea, and will have no memory of how bad it actually was.  Because the whole experience cost them a small fortune, they will assume that it must have been a near perfect one.

In contrast, foodie eating needs none of those distractions.  It’s all about the food, its taste and quality.

Now we’ve gotten that pre-amble out of the way, you will probably guess from my take on things that I’m a foodie.

Probably the best foodie place I’ve found in months is The Barking Frog in Southport (Their website here doesn’t do them justice).

Naturally, since it’s me writing this, the initial hook was of course the name. Damnit, they knew me so well!

Then, on entering the rather striking building (was it once a bank?), I found a relaxed terracotta designed room with fans on the ceiling. Then, second only to the attraction of the name of the place, was the excellent chilled ambient music playing at just the right audio level.

Restaurants so often get the music wrong.

Not the content necessarily, but the volume level or tonal quality.  Shrill tone settings or loudness mean it’s not in the background.  Instead it’s interfering with conversation and invading your space.

There’s no space invasion from the music playing in the Barking Frog.

Neither is there space invasion from those who are there to serve you.  The service is friendly, polite and extremely efficient. That old balance between the extremes of either being over the top and constantly in your face, or being forgetful and ignoring the customers, is almost perfect.

And, of course, the food is proper food.  The menus are about the right length, although there are different ones for different days, with excellent variations on Sunday roasts on, well, Sundays.  There’s enough variability to satisfy every taste.

They do boast that wherever possible they will customise the food to suit individual requirements, and freshly cook as many elements of the meals where they can.

Hey, check this:  Portion sizes are extremely generous.  I’d highly recommend the roasted Henry, and the crispy duck and noodle parcels.

Although there’s a Spanish Tapas type theme to the place, it’s really not a tapas bar, or even slightly Spanish, to be honest.  It’s, well, it’s a Barking Frog.