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Review: Horsforth's Medusa Bar and Tapas
Chances are you know this place as The Severed Head, a name that raised more than a few eyebrows when it was unveiled nearly two years ago.
The bar and restaurant – housed in the former Greenwood's menswear store – offered hearty English fare like pigeon breast and wild boar and pheasant pie.
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Since then the owners have had a rethink and rebranded it as a far less formal dining experience in the guise of a tapas bar.
The concept works well. The 1 million refurbishment that was carried out to turn it into The Severed Head lends itself to a relaxed, chilled out place to enjoy a few drinks and some food.
The dining chairs and tables have, for the most part, been swapped for leather sofas and wooden benches.
Wooden wall panelling in the form of recycled chests of drawers (which looks better than it sounds) adds a nice quirky feel.
Throw in a few beaded curtains and the transformation is complete.
in fact, this is just the sort of place you could see yourself whiling away the hours with a decent bottle of wine, some good company and some delicious food.
The menu has a dizzying array of choice. It's divided into four sections: nibbles and bar snacks; cold tapas; salads and hot tapas.
In all there are more than 50 options to wade through and it might take you some time to whittle your choices down to a reasonable number.
Taking care to dovetail our choices so that we didn't double up too much, we found much to tempt us.
The nibbles section offered lavash flatbread with a choice of three dips (2.25), so we plumped for hummus, guacamole and aioli (a sauce of garlic and olive oil).
The marinated mixed olives (2.95) were also an automatic selection.
We added potato and caramelised onion spanish tortilla (3.50), along with king prawns with chilli and garlic (5.50) and Tijuana king prawns in coconut and chilli (5.50).
The mini Moroccan lamb pie with mint and yoghurt (4.35) intrigued us enough to win a place on our order, as did the Middle Eastern puff pastry pizza (4.95) topped with spinach, feta cheese and pomegranate.
Just for good measure we added the coconut and lime marinated chicken kebabs (4.35) and spicy pork meatballs in rich tomato ragu (4.35), plus a couple of tapas staples in the shape of patatas bravas, or fried potatoes, (2.95) and chorizo in red wine (4.25).
We washed it down with a bottle of Pinot Grigio (15.45).
The dishes arrived in good time and in quick succession – which isn't always the case with tapas, which can all too often leave you eating your meal in two or three distinct blocks.
The food itself was something of a hit-and-miss affair.
The Tijuana king prawns in coconut and chilli were undoubtedly a hit.
The prawns were meaty while the sauce was thick, rich and flavoursome. Some crispy fried onions finished off a fine dish.
Likewise, the chorizo and patatas bravas were the equal of those offered at pretty much any other tapas joint in Leeds, of which there are many.
The mini Moroccan lamb pie with mint and yoghurt was pretty decent too. Minced lamb sitting on a bed of filo pastry, it was a combination that worked rather well.
The Middle Eastern puff pastry pizza topped with spinach, feta cheese and pomegranate also threw up an interesting succession of flavours, the sweet pomegranate contrasting nicely with the spinach and feta.
But too many of our other choices belonged firmly in the 'disappiointing' camp.
The olives were plentiful but marred by an over-abundance of fennel seeds that lent them a strong and unwelcome aniseed flavour.
Our chicken kebabs were meant to have been marinated in coconut and lime but were in fact pieces of white chicken on sticks, sitting in what appeared to be a weak, thin Thai green curry sauce.
The spicy pork meatballs were nothing of the sort. Pale in colour, they were bland and lacked anything that could remotely be described as 'spice'.
The promised 'rich tomato ragu' was in fact a watery liquid that was tinged red but otherwise gave no suggestion that a tomato had been near it.
It wasn't a disaster by any means.
But it was a shame that so many dishes failed to live up to expectation, because otherwise Medusa has got a lot going for it.
Sharpening up a touch on the food front would surely pay dividends in the long run and justify the decision to go down the well-trodden tapas route.
At the moment, there is still a bit of fine-tuning required.
FACTFILE
* Medusa Bar & Tapas
8-10 Town Street, Horsforth, Leeds, LS18 5LJ.
* Tel: 0113 259 0110
* Opening Times: Tues - Sat: 17:00 - 22:00
star rating
FOOD: **
VALUE: **
ATMOSPHERE: ****
SERVICE: ***
Ratings: ***** EXCELLENT **** VERY GOOD *** GOOD ** AVERAGE
* POOR
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