I visited Riverlife a couple months ago for their nine (!) course French Provençale banquet on offer. We booked mid-week and the restaurant was pretty dead. There was only a family of 4 and us in the place, so there wasn't much atmosphere but I guess it is a bit off the beaten track (in Dalry) and relatively unknown. The interior was quite plain, cheap and a little dull so first impressions didn't fill me with excitement.
There was some confusion over the booking and the waitress said there maybe some wait between course as the chef was not prepared for the 9 course banquet, however it wasn't noticeable and the time waiting was filled while drinking our BYOB red wine, with free corkage!
Our starters included seafood bisque, which was very creamy and tasty, so far so good! Our second starter was warm goats cheese salad, also delicious and plate was scraped clean! So far the starters had been served on separate plates so I expected the following courses to be the same, but instead next 5 courses were presented on one large long dish to share. There was two of each seared fillet of sea bass, rib eye steak, rack of lamb, confit duck leg and pork scallops. The sauces used on each meat were all very similar, a red wine gravy, however the seabass had a lovely garlic butter sauce in it's own small dish. The other meats however were a bit gristly and of poor quality. These meats were eaten along side a plate each of caramelised sun blush tomato, red onion tarte tatin, dauphinois potatoes and vegetables.
Then came our dessert, a lemon tart (very sickly sweet) and a selection of cheeses to share. Although we were already full after the previous 7 course, the desserts portions were very small and uneventful. So generally the meal was enjoyable and we rolled out of the restaurant will our bellies full, but I won't return for the 9 course banquet, maybe try something else from the menu instead. The overall bill was very reasonable due to the BYOB. read more