Indian street food meets fine dining And now for something completely different …

HORN PLEASE

IAM not exactly cross channel as I write this, more just at the point where the ferry is pulling away from Newcastle amid a sea of Dutch people drinking Old Speckled Hen in the ferry’s Sky Bar. I can’t help noticing that when we get old we British splash out on garish electric wheelchairs and collect plastic carrier bags while the Dutch seem to grow their hair very long and buy Harley-Davidsons.

Talking about the great thing that is cultural diversity, it’s been about three days since we went to Horn Please, a fast, at times bewildering experience where we found ourselves having ordered, eaten, paid and been fired out the door in about an hour. It was their first night, though.

The waitress, Spanish in an Indian restaurant, tells us that a few days ago they had had all the press and bloggers, including that newspaper The Herald, in for a private launch. Crikey, I think as I momentarily look up from my to-be-paid-for-myself gram flour and yogurt curry with crunchy masala okra, still wondering what the bloody hell this dish is. Actually that’s why we called the waitress over. Delicious is the short answer. Not so universally appreciated at our table are the big square cakes of fermented rice batter, split chickpeas and coriander chutney.

Ugh, says my wife. Groo, says my son. Wow, says I, as I bite into yet another piece of its pungent, crumbly, curry-leaf-scented, chutneyed-out-its-face fabulousness. I could eat this all night, though I concede it is Very Big Voodoo in the flavour stakes.

Nice, safe spinach and paneer pastry then? Not a crispy triangle of refried Greekism but soft, textured, rolled and very good. High fives all round, too, for the deep-fried purses of turkey, potato and filo pastry, punchy Indian spicing throughout, coriander seed still popping moments later.

It transpires, because the waitress is still chatting, that a lot of people from Cubitas, that excellent tapas bar upstairs or round the corner, went to Delhi or Bombay then decided to open a restaurant in Glasgow with some Indian people. As you do. Or as we all should do. In a basement that being all empty fireplace, reclaimed stone and wood-from-fishboxes reminds me somehow of a croft.

Anyway, back to Delhi and the bread pakora with fish and meat fillings. Imagine a cheese and ham sandwich, dipped in gram flour batter and deep fried. It ain’t pretty, but it does taste pretty good. Until you get to the fish ones. Yuck, was the official reaction from across the table.

Hey, I’ve been to Babu Bombay Street Kitchen on Glasgow’s West Regent Street. I know Indian street food can seem reassuringly British. But right in the midst of this sandwichy sensation, the lamb arrives and suddenly we are into fine dining.

A rack of lamb, perfectly cooked – and I really mean that – so it is not only meltingly tender but the right kind of pink inside, served in a great coconut and tomato sauce with a spiced crust.

A similar wide-rim soup bowl that wouldn’t look out of place in a Michelinstarred restaurant serves up the cod in a fish reduction encrusted with Indian spice and served with, er, shiitake mushrooms. What? The sauce looks a little grey, but like everything we have eaten in here it is packed with flavour.

Yada-yada-yada, goes my wife. Yadayada-yada, goes the waitress. Munchity crunchity, go Luca and I, now decimating stuffed mini dosas with bottle gourd and

PHOTOGRAPH: COLIN MEARNS It’s early days at Horn Please but there’s ample evidence within the cooking of enthusiasm, technique and character