Fun Lunch Friday – Taste Buchanan

It’s that time of the month again – the first Friday after pay day, when you can push the boat out and live a little bit more luxuriously for one or two days! Forever on a budget, my idea of luxury is spending £10 on lunch, rather than £1, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to fit in another ‘Fun Lunch Friday’! With this one being my choice, I dragged Sarahjane along to the recently opened Taste Buchanan.

 

Although this was Sarahjane’s first visit to Taste Buchanan, I’d managed to pop in a couple of times before – once with the lovely Lis from Last Year’s Girl, and then again with my good friend, turned recent work colleague, Karen. With this being another place within a five minute walk of my work, it seemed like a perfect option for a quick and easy lunch date.

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, the whole idea behind Taste Buchanan is the flexibility surrounding the food on offer. In association with Street Dots, vendors book a space through their handy app and start trading – simple! This means that the whole top floor of Buchanan Galleries (with the exception of Burger King) has been transformed into a swanky new street food hub, with a constantly varying selection of goodies. With this ever-changing environment, it does sometimes mean that well-loved favourites disappear from the line-up, and I was extremely disappointed to see that Union Waffles have moved on, but it did give me the chance to try other things.

 

This time, I quite fancied something from Chompsky – I’ve seen a lot of other bloggers raving about how good it is, so I thought it was about time I gave them a try. There was some initial confusion about where the queue started, but after a quick wait and very prompt service, my food was ready. Never one for mixing it up too much, I opted for nachos (same as our last ‘Fun Lunch’) with a side of their sweet potato fries and managed to keep the whole bill under £7 – perfect for the occasional work lunch!

 

 

I was really looking forward to digging in, but I didn’t expect the nachos to be covered in quite so much onion and sweet corn. Not being a huge fan of either of these things, I ended up scooping most of it to the side so that I could get to the actual nachos underneath. Sarahjane’s sister had also joined us for lunch, and I was really wishing I’d added the extra beef to my nachos, like she had. The nachos themselves appeared to be homemade, which was a nice touch and something a bit different, but were quite burnt around the edges, which destroyed the taste somewhat. Thankfully, the sweet potato fries were awesome, and the accompanying chipotle mayo set them off nicely!

 

Despite not liking the taste especially, it hasn’t put me off wanting to try other things on the Chompsky menu. It’s not only the Taste Buchanan vendors who are constantly changing, even the menus on offer are continually revamped with different specials taking the limelight. When it first started trading, I’m pretty sure Chompsky were offering up a selection of Chinese food, so I’m sure the Mexican theme from today’s lunch will change in a wee while – although hopefully not before I’ve had a chance to grab the churros!

 

Regardless of my thoughts from today, Taste Buchanan have definitely upped the game when it comes to the traditional shopping centre food court. With the huge selection of reasonably priced, delicious food, I can’t wait to see what the next rotation of vendors brings to the table!

Sarahjane's 'food pose' returns!

I really need to come up with a new 'excited' expression!

 

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