The Herald - The Herald Magazine
EATING OUT AND DRINK
THERE will be a point in this meal when we completely lose track of what exactly it is we are eating. Or even what course it is. That will happen shortly after the arrival of the Hainanese chicken rice with its side dish of finely minced ginger and pot of chilli sauce.
Much as I like poached chicken, even when it comes with something called oily rice, it isn’t the most exciting main on Planet Food. So, having nibbled and poked at it enough to ascertain that I picked the wrong thing, we start random ordering.
“Could we have some of those razor clams they’re eating over there?” I ask the waiter, nodding towards the long family table with about 20 people at it.
Off he heads to the open kitchen, actually only two feet to the left of where we are sitting, with this hot request. As he rounds the top end of the counter we finish off the deep-fried boiled eggs with chilli sambal sauce (much, much better than they sound) and I poke around in the remnants of the masah merak or sweet and chilli chicken wings.
Luke and I then turn to our puzzling Malaysian drinks – honey with red dates (kind of like a cold cure with things floating on top), special hawthorn drink (also kind of like a cold cure but without floaters) and iced red bean drink (kind of like something out of the movie Elf) – and move on to the rojak. This is a fruit and vegetable salad with mango, bean sprouts, big chunks of crispy, puffy, fried tofu and – wait for this – a dressing of lime chilli and shrimp paste.
Momentarily, it’s completely disorientating. Puffed candy in soy sauce. But then it becomes a little like eating a salted caramel salad.
Considering we’re in a pleasant, bustling little cafe just off Glasgow’s far from exotic Charing Cross the whole thing is a bit strange. To us, anyway. But then two grown men having a long conversation about the Lambretta scooter and its role in global culture, or to be more frank how much, crikey, they’re now worth, isn’t exactly normal either.
Anyway, the waiter is back and sadly telling us that the seafood at the next table has to be ordered in the night before. Even the brown crab.
Sigh. I won’t detain you with tales of how the waitress then comes over and how we skim our way through the menu again, with the older guy, who may also be the dad guy, and who does the cooking, leaning over the counter and joining in.
We decide against the stir-fry dry curry flank and even the spicy fish head, going instead for the belachan seafood udon – and a very good, spicy, slurpy and slightly sweet choice it will turn out to be.
Now here’s the bit where I lose track so completely of what food is arriving and where exactly that food comes in the, er, food chain that no amount of puzzling later, or even right now, of what’s written on the detailed receipt will clear it up.
Let’s just say the waitress brings a bowl of gooey white stuff. I’m thinking tapioca, there’s stuff to shake over it and dip into it, but it’s still tapioca to me, which we freely admit as she laughs and tells us it’s very popular with her older customers.
Then there’s another dish which might be mango pomelo sago – or might not be. All I can say is there was a mention of Malaysian
We finish off the deep-fried boiled eggs with chilli sambal sauce – much, much better than they sound
sweet soup and then she went to the end of the counter to whir and grind and crush, bringing back a soup bowl which contained a yellow soup with globules … and it tastes like heaven, being ice cold and having mango and other fruits and smoothness with occasional pops on the palate as the globules explode.
Do we like it, the dad chef guy asks. We do. All of it.