American dream for hungry teens
Anna finds perfect US-style place to delight a growing boy
Iam in constant awe of how much my 15-year-old son can eat. It is astonishing. Proper meals. Bananas. Toast. Biscuits. Lidl’s cheapo version of Percy Pigs. Down they all go.
And cereal. So much cereal. The other week, with four boxes in my trolley, I noticed other shoppers giving me the hairy eyeball. I wanted to say, no, I’m not stockpiling. I’m stopping an enormous teenager from fading away.
His bedroom is full of bowls harled with leftover Weetabix and fragments of Crunchy Nut Clusters. The bin overflows with crisp packets. Just this morning, I found a single Cheerio on his pillow.
He is built like a Peperami so, as long as he eats his salmon and salad as well as his Curiously Cinnamon, I’m not too worried. And it makes him the ideal person to test drive a new diner in Glasgow city centre.
Thundercat, a basement former pizzeria in Miller Street, is an independent version of the American-style chains that infest our high streets and shopping centres.
I am not the biggest fan of their huge over-hyped portions of industrial basics covered in sticky sauce. But Thundercat has a proper chef with a pedigree – Yvonne Noon, formerly of The Sisters. I was keen to see what she would do with the diner classics.
The Teenager was more than happy to help.
While I quickly get bored of chasing around bone and gristle in search of actual meat, chicken wings are one of his very favourite things. These salt and chilli ones were about as good as a wing gets – plump and fleshy, with a lippuckering layer of seasoning on the crispy skin. For me, one was plenty. He made short work of the other five.
Give me corn on the cob any day. This version, called street corn, lacked the bite of a recently picked cob. It was on the soggy side. However the flavours – sliced red chillis, coriander and lime, peppy chipotle mayonnaise and a dusting of salty cheese – were strong.
Fried pickles are the restaurant equivalent of a virus. One day no one is coating a hot peppers in batter, deep frying it then eating it with a dip. Then, out of nowhere, no menu is complete without them. They are perfect bar food – hot, moriesh, perfect with beer. The ranch dressing was blander than I would have liked, but the green salad tucked in the side of the basket was very welcome in such a brown meal.
Did we need a side of mac and
cheese? Of course not. But I was keen to see what Yvonne did with this stone cold classic and the Teenager is always up for pasta.
It was unexpectedly runny, with a higher sauce to macaroni ration than the traditional Scottish wodge of stodge. Spicy breadcrumbs on the top added a sweet crunch. We liked.
At this point I could have happily asked for the bill. No disrespect to Yvonne’s family recipe for meatloaf, but it’s an economical dish designed to stretch a small amount of mince around a whole family. It’s too much for someone who has overdone it with the battered chillis.
It was a good example of the type, with a smoother texture than I was expecting. But the two slices of loaf, plus creamed corn and baked potato, were drowning in indifferent gravy. This meant the corn was floating unattractively at the side. I don’t need everything to look like a recipe book photo. But I don’t appreciate swimming vegetables or saturated potato.
The Teenager was having a happier time with his pizza. Thundercat do deep dish pies rather than the more modish sourdough crust. His came loaded with tomato sauce, black pudding, streaky bacon and mozzarella. I liked the flavours but found all of them together, soaking through the base, a bit much. He thought it was the best thing since wireless headphones.
Earlier on, when considering drinks, the Teenager mentioned a milkshake. We remembered to order it at the dessert stage. It arrived in what looked like a metal pint glass, topped with skooshy cream.
He was throwing back the last mouthfuls when his caramel apple pie waffle arrived. Even he looked alarmed at a waffle the size of his pizza, topped with half an orchard and more aerosol cream. The extra ice cream was just showing off.
The waffle was very good, light and golden, and the apples had a pleasing cinnamon crunch. I had a couple of slivers before joining him in admitting defeat.
Looking around, most people were taking some of their meal home in a box. I would have enjoyed this much more if the portions were smaller, or the waitress had rolled her eyes when we ordered too much. But then again, I’m not a teenager with hollow legs.