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Tapas restaurant
The flavours of Spain breathe life into a once-famous watering hole
AT some point this evening the waitress will reveal she is not in fact Elena – we kind of assumed she was – and that Elena has gone home to Spain. To cook for a family party, or something like that. But that Elena will be back. Probably by the time you are reading this and thinking: not more bloody tapas.
Hey, what can I say? We have already eaten the little grilled and salted padron peppers, finished the blue cheese croquettes and are picking our way through an interesting, make that kind of good, baby salad of nuts and goat’s cheese, dressed solely in honey.
We didn’t actually swoon at the dish of marinated fried fish when the basket was put on the table, but I’ll tell you this; we’re swooning now. Clean white fish in a crunchy, crispy, dare I say it popcorny batter that tastes faintly and delicately of garlic and spicing. They could sell this on street corners and make a fortune.
For a whole 10 seconds after it is finished I seriously consider ordering more. But by then the table has almost been swamped by a platter of pulpa a la Gallega, which you’ll immediately have spotted is Galician-style octopus with potato.
With a pinch of her fingertips and a knowing look another waitress had indicated earlier that this was a great delicacy. Maybe in Galicia. Maybe in the summer. On a cold, wet November’s night on a street corner somewhere between Glasgow’s weary west end and it’s booming Finnieston strip? With the rain skittering round the corner and whacking the window pane? Er, it’s not.
It tastes like sliced octopus. On sliced potato. Covered in paprika. It’s not even the best octopus I’ve had this week. And there’s metric tonnes of it. Meaning I’m kind of picking my way through it so we don’t send it back without having made a decent attempt at it.
Not that it is spoiling the evening. It started with me wandering around the very dark, very deserted Barras market trying to find a new restaurant that turned out to be closing for the evening just as I walked in.
That was followed by all of us wandering along Argyle Street en route to another restaurant that I was pretty sure might be open on a Sunday night, when I suddenly spotted the cheery chalkboard sign advertising this place.
A Spanish bar and restaurant? Whatever next. We’d only taken about 10 steps in the door and eaten absolutely nothing when Debs announced: “I’d come back here.”
I can see why. It’s warm, it’s not quite chintzy, but it’s comfortable and the staff are friendly and relaxed. There’s bread to dip into things, a platter of sweet, soft roasted peppers with salty anchovies, another platter of lomo de orza, or warmed pork loin with aioli.
There’s a very long table filled with what look like international students lingering down there, a family with kids over there. As we pick slowly at torreznos de la casa – roasted house pork rinds, either an acquired taste or not crisped enough in the oven – it’s hard to escape the conclusion that even though Elena isn’t actually here tonight, this place has personality. And a Spanish one at that.
Which is kind of ironic when you consider that once upon a time, maybe 50 years ago, in the Swinging Sixties, this, I think, was the famous Stirling Castle – Glasgow’s most popular pub.
It was so busy that its owner bought a
gold Rolls-Royce from the proceeds and people came from all over to drink in a place that had, wait for it, carpets. And comfort. And some, though not very much, food. Basically, it wasn’t anything like the masculine spit-and-sawdust pubs of the olden days.
Nowadays, carpet and comfort bars are on their uppers and slowly, quietly, being turned into restaurants with bars and better-than-average food.
And that can’t be a bad thing.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that even though Elena isn’t actually here, this place has personality