Giraffe: Secrets Of The Restaurant Brownie

Brownie Basics

Remember when I didn’t eat the Giraffe brownie? Well, here I am in Giraffe to say farewell to my manager, and I’m eating the Giraffe brownie.

Brownie Backstory

Ah, Giraffe. I have a bit of a soft spot for it! It was the first restaurant I ever remember going to in London, wayyyy back in 2007. Over the years I’ve visited different branches of Giraffe, both in Bristol and in London, at various occasions; numerous work events, meals with friends, dates, etc. have taken place at one of the other.

Giraffe isn’t tied to any one cuisine or culture, although I’m sure that once upon a time it styled itself as South African-themed, and I don’t care to Google to try to prove or disprove this half-remembered impression. But nowadays you can get burgers, pizzas, curries of many different origins, salads, fish & chips, pasta, and so on and so forth. Obviously you can also get a number of desserts, and obviously the brownie is a crucial member of that line-up.

I’ve done my best to maintain my critical impartiality with this brownie, although I’m excited to have my first restaurant brownie for the blog and so might struggle to judge it against its ‘peers’ so to speak. Additionally, I was three pints (and one chicken curry) down by the time I had this brownie. Please, dear brownie fan, take note of this fact: if you come to this blog solely for the scoring, so that you can understand in strict quantitative and empirical fashion, what are the best and worst brownies available: these scores may be a little less reliable for that goal. If, however, you read this for entertainment and use the scores only as a rough guide – we’re all good, here’s what I thought!

Brownie Points

Taste: The brownie itself – pretty good! It came with very plain vanilla icecream (as in, sufficiently plain that I’m not sure if it even was vanilla flavour), and chocolate sauce that tasted like it had come out of a squeezy supermarket bottle. These two additions brought the overall down somewhat. 6/10

Texture: Here is a top tip. If you have a somewhat poor quality cakey brownie, and then you warm it up and cover it in sauce, it won’t seem so poor quality and cakey. I don’t want to knock this trick – it totally works, I’ve done it myself when I’ve baked sub-par brownies. I’m just saying, you can always tell the difference between this and a genuinely great brownie. 6/10

Presentation: Man, it looks great. That photo could be used to sell this brownie. That’s not just me complimenting my photo skills either: the icecream is perfectly placed, the sauce looks good, the brownie is a good-looking brownie. 5/5

Value: Same price, give or take 5p, as the Holiday Inn brownie. Also essentially free (for a similar reason). I now feel slightly silly for saying that that brownie was overpriced! Something something London prices (a running joke in Fleabag, which is ace by the way). But maybe paying a bit more to eat in the surroundings of a nice-ish restaurant with good company and service makes sense, compared to a brownie being brought to your room for you to eat on your own in front of Family Guy. C.f. the ongoing discussion about VAT on brownies in/out of coffee shops. 6/10

Fudge Factor: Here’s a couple of points to Giraffe, which is a great restaurant to go to for basically any dietary preferences or requirements: whatever you want/need, it’ll be on the menu in some form. And I’ve not yet had a bad meal there. 2/5

This Brownie Gets: 25

Should I Buy And Eat This Brownie?

Not the world’s best brownie, but I had a good time with it. Based on the other desserts I saw, I reckon this is probably as good as any other one you’d get at Giraffe, so why not treat yourself?

Closing Thought

I recently started playing Crusader Kings 2 and my God it is so addictive I think I need to stop playing it.