Vandal’s small plates pack real punch..
But bigger portions don’t live up to eaterie’s edgy name
Not long ago I reviewed Hooligan in Glasgow. So I had to see how Vandal, in Dundee, compared. Where next? Ruffian in Edinburgh? Daft Loon in Aberdeen?
Until then, Vandal inhabits the low-slung space in Exchange Street that used to house Castlehill. On a weekday lunchtime, it was not full but possibly had more customers than the kitchen had anticipated.
We did not realise this at first. Instead, we were doing our wine maths, working out that, with myself, Top Burd and Nippy Sweetie all needing a glass of something cold and white, we should order a bottle.
Who said women can’t excel at STEM subjects?
The menu at Vandal is a mash-up of every fashionable casual dining place I’ve visited in the last few years. Tacos, bao buns, ramen and loaded fries were all there, as well as burgers and fish and chips. Some came as small plates, others as more substantial oneperson portions.
Being a generous and sociable person, I suggested ordering a few smaller dishes for the others to nibble while they awaited their main courses.
I would continue working on these while they tackled one of the heftier options. It all started well with a good, if geographically incoherent, selection.
The halloumi fries, nine Jenga-style slabs, were particularly strong. Feta’s polystyrene cousin takes very well to battering and deep frying and there was a discrete struggle between myself and Top Burd to finish these before they cooled.
What the menu called Lewis’s meatballs – me neither – were another high point. Lewis is a generous guy and these three monsters were tennis rather than ping pong-sized. I detected a mix of beef and pork mince, light and moist. A zippy romesco sauce – it’s a Spanish classic, roast red pepper and almond – was an upgrade from the usual tomato.
These came with a piece of toasted brioche – not the
advertised sourdough, another hint the kitchen was stretched – and would have been enough for lunch.
That did not stop us from enjoying the beef lettuce wraps. These were a distant relation of bulgogi, the Korean speciality of spicy meat encased in leafy greenery. Seoul might not approve but they did the job, with plenty of well-flavoured shredded beef piled on to little gem.
Just when it was all going so well, Top Burd broke into the bang bang cauliflower.
These giant florets, battered and deep fried, did not bang. They barely whimpered. The cauli within was unseasoned and tasted of precisely nothing. The batter had chilli but nothing else going on.
An insipid raita did not bring anything apart from watery yoghurt to the dish. We all had a go to make sure that Top Burd had not had too much sauvignon blanc and lost her tastebuds. She had not.
The others politely refrained from finishing my small plates as they waited for their large ones. Then waited some more. And asked the waitress where they might be.
Eventually, Top Burd’s fish curry, from the “bowls” section of the menu, arrived. On a flat plate. This was not the only disappointment. There was barely more flavour in the salmon and prawns, in a peaky green sauce, than we found in the cauliflower. A pelt of salt helped a little. But this was a timid dish.
Nippy’s chicken burger was overwhelmingly enormous. The towering bun contained two slabs of griddled breast meat, peeping out from a sea of chips. Or skin-on frites, as they call them in Tayside.
“Dry,” she pronounced, prodding the chook and curling her lip. That was despite added avocado, sriracha mayo and Vandal’s own special burger sauce. I filched a sliver and could not, despite swiping it in the swirling condiments, disagree.
Bangless cauli aside, the small plates showed the best of Vandal. They are generously proportioned and well priced. Which makes the disappointments of the bigger dishes a terrible shame.
Dundee badly needs cool, casual restaurants, for locals and students as well as the many visitors who come to the V&A.
Vandal’s edgy name is a good start.
Now it needs to get some consistency, and possibly some more bodies, into the kitchen.