"Short version – 10/10 Food was wonderful, blown away. Staff were so friendly and offered great service, top notch. Long version: My daughter started working there a few weeks ago. She impressed upon us how good the food was and how they made it all from scratch. She also told us how welcoming and knowledgable all the staff were and how excited she was to work there. My daughter told us about the menu and sounded right up our street. So we booked a table for a Saturday afternoon, to try it out. We don’t really visit Uddingston too often, we live about 10 miles away and have good eateries close by. So hadn’t even seen the restaurant. Easy to get to on the main street and we got parked just round the corner. We got greeted straight away and were seated in a nice table for two at the window. The décor and ambience of the place was very nice. The staff were smily and open which is always a good sign. For starters there was a special of King Scallops, with Asparagus, chorizo and bacon, which I went for and the good lady wife choosing the Chicken and Duck liver parfait with caramelized onion with toasted brioche. The Scallop dish was amazing. I’m going to make the first of 2 comparisons to the ‘Come dine with me’ series. I have had Scallops only twice before and a long time ago, they were nice but that's all I can remember. In ‘Come dine with me’ hosts were forever getting slaughtered for cooking them too long, making them tough. At Smiths I reckon I got them exactly how they were supposed to be cooked. They were tender and succulent, slightly seared and tasty as you would like. Went so swell with the rest of the dish, absolute dynamite. I didn’t get a taste of the wifes parfait (its not my cup of tea) but the good lady scoffed it all with not a crumb left on the dish. She really enjoyed it. My daughter had put forward a recommendation to us to try the blade of beef in particular as that came with the mashed potato that she stated was outstanding. The good lady went for this, I was humming over getting the steak, but hey I have had steak plenty of places and its very specific and cooked on the spot, but wanted to to try something from the main menu. I went for chicken breast which was lightly smoked and roasted, with glazed carrot, roast Thyme gravy and Arran mustard crushed potatoes. Second reference to come dine with me. They always slam the host for the chicken don’t they? Too tough, dried out, or even worse, the dreaded pink. Oh not at Smiths. Wow, eye opener, this is how chicken is supposed to be cooked. Hands down in 52 years on this planet eating solid food, that chicken on Saturday was the best I have ever tasted. It honestly was something else. I need to look at how I cook chicken because it aint like this. The delicate smoky taste through the succulent breast. It was a wonderful sized portion and the potatoes, my ow my, these were outstanding. The mash which I sampled from my Mrs plate was very good, but the Arran mustard crushed variant with spring onions mixed through it – wowee, absolutely splendid. I had a go at the good ladies dish. It was a slow braised feather blade of Scotch beef in a rich red wine jus. Tender as a kiss from an angel, beautiful. Plates scoffed, almost licked clean. For desert the waitress recommended the Vanilla Rice pudding with Rhubarb, apple and ginger crumble topping, as it was her favourite and described it as a ‘warm hug’ and who doesn’t like a warm hug? We were tempted to get two of these, but I fancied trying something else out on the menu, knowing fine well I would be stealing a bit of my ladies ‘warm hug’, so went for the nutella cheesecake with Pistachio ice cream with a raspberry coulis. Wonderful combination it was as well. Fabulous and so delicious. I did have a couple of spoonfuls of the rice crumble dish, this was superb as well. The rice, so creamy, the crumble so tasty. Not a scrap left on any of hour plates on any of the courses. Magical experience and would thoroughly recommend."
