Tiger Rock Hawker Food – quite the mouthful isn’t it. This is the name of the brand new East Asian eatery that opened it’s doors in Liverpool’s ever-evolving commercial district last month. Serving up Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Singaporean, Vietnamese and Laotian cuisine with a stylish twist in ‘small plates and big bowls’, the city centre venue is second in line from the popular Smithdown Road restaurant. I love Chaophraya and don’t get me started on Sapporo Teppanyaki so I was expecting greating things from our new kid on the block.
In true Hungry Harriet style, I obviously had a good mooch through the menus online before heading to the North John Street venue and I was definitely feeling seduced. Over the years, I’ve learnt that launch parties and press events typically mean politely pinching just one or two morsels from a canape tray when you’d really like to sit down at a table with the whole damn thing – so I was just teasing myself really.
THE FOOD:
My preliminary research taught me that Tiger Rock offers a lunch menu (2 small plates for £9 or 3 for £13.50), a main menu (featuring desserts) and even a ‘Cubs’ menu for the little ones. I thought the Tiger Cubs menu was a nice touch and not something you commonly see in Asian restaurants and not a chicken nugget in sight either. The main menu is split into Small Plates, Small Bowls, Salads & Greens and Sides, with everything priced from around £3.50-£8.50.
Of course there are the classics: your Thai green curry, your duck spring rolls, your Pad Thai, your Shu Mai, your Chicken Satay and I bet all are totally delicious but I was most excited by some of the more unusual dishes on the menu. I already can’t wait to go back and try the Rendang Kentang (Malaysian beef curry with baked potato), Sambal Ikan (grilled seabass with tamarind chilli sauce) and the Laksa Mee (Singaporean chicken coconut curry noodle soup). Even the shoestring mango salad sparked my interest and believe me, I ain’t no ‘salad & greens’ kinda gal.
On the night we did get to sample some chicken satay skewers, some hot & spicy rice, some vegetable & hoi sin spring rolls and the grilled seabass. All were super tasty and packed a real flavour punch considering they were only bitesize amuse bouche.
THE DRINKS:
It seems to be quite the trend to pair a small plate menu with a Bellini bar (I’m looking at you Salthouse Bacaro) and Tiger Rock is the next eatery taking the wheel on that bandwagon. As if that wasn’t cool enough, there’s also the Gin Menu which sits alongside the selection of fruity cocktails and an extensive list of wines. Tiger Rock’s gin repertoire features our beloved Liverpool Gin, good old Caorunn and my favourite distill, Brockman’s amongst others. You know I like my gins, like, really like my gins so I enjoyed perusing that menu over a G&T.
As predicted, the teeny tiny canapes in all their delicate and delicious glory hardly scratched the surface of my intrigue to find out more about Tiger Rock so I’m going all Terminator on their asses and saying, I will be back. I mean, how could I not make a return trip to find out exactly what the ‘Special Cake‘ on the desserts menu is all about? With a pud mysterious enough for Peter Andre to write a song about it, these guys have got me hook, line and sinker so watch this space…
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