The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Ron Mackenna
More misses than hits in fast and furious game of tapas roulette
‘By now you will have worked out we’re deep in a game of tapas roulette, click, click, bang, bang, bang’
WHEN I think back to where this meal went so wrong I can pinpoint it down to the minute. There we were, Gordon and myself, at a tiny two-seater window table, with him muttering that on his side there really wasn’t much space for the more robustly upholstered gentleman.
And me thinking, “I would be saying exactly the same if the table was turned – but it isn’t.” So I’m scanning the specials menu, counting the number of dishes, remembering this is a tapas restaurant and in a bid to get this show on the road am just about to order them all. Every damn one of them. Seven or so. When just at that very point, the waiter who is bouncing up to us suddenly says, “Those specials are all vegan”.
Good God, man, I think you’re right, says I – or that would have been my reply 20 years ago. It being the early 21st century, I simply say, “Glasgow’s gone completely vegan bonkers, hasn’t it?”
And with that we forgot the specials, turned to the a la carte menu and thereby condemned ourselves to the litany of mediocrity that followed. For a fraction of a second I did think this: turning down specials, ordering from the a la carte, hang on – am I mad?
But then I saw seitan with mushrooms on those specials, and a vegetable omelette too, so maybe not. And even though Glasgow seems to be the vegan capital of the Western world these days (a good thing), most people must surely be ordering a la carte in here tonight in this expensive-feeling, twinkly-lit, neon-glowing Finnieston Strip diner.
So the kitchen will be geared up for it? Answers on that Herald postcard, please. Geared up the kitchen certainly are, the waiting staff too, in a way that’s not really – how can I put it? – relaxing.
If I fast forward here I can tell you we will have polished off eight or so dishes, two desserts and be on our way out the door in way less than an hour.
And the wallet a good £70 or so lighter, excluding drinks.
During that time food will have come firing out that kitchen tapas-style – in other words, whenever it suits them, in clumps, in singles, piling up, almost flung onto the table by staff who had usually turned and were well off their mark by the time they’d landed.
Yet it had all started quite well. There was that brightly-coloured and stickily sweet tartare of salmon with date syrup (£7.90) that we both tasted, savoured and quite liked; then very good light, crispy and creamy croquettes of gruyere and spinach (£5.50); and in the same batch 32-hour roasted suckling pig with apple and cinnamon (£8.90). This was hardly the showstopper it could have been, but was otherwise okay-ish.
Then the wheels start to come off, fast and furious. That ceviche de lubina (£7.90), or marinated sea bass with fresh lime, has had so much lime poured onto it that it is cheek-bleachingly strong.
“Poplo y boniato, asada, Senor?” Oh, go on then. Octopus, wild broccoli and sweet potato (£7.90) to you, mate. This strange meeting of apparently unrelated ingredients sinks without trace on discs of octopus that are so rubbery they’re like chewing gum.
Better luck with the huevos rotos con jamon iberico (£5.90), a chef’s witty take on ham and egg and chips; a good slow-cooked egg, some tired-looking fried ham finished off with sad and soggy chips.
Frankly, a bit more care in preparation would have helped.
By now you will have worked out we’re deep in a game of tapas roulette, click, click, bang, bang, bang. But what else could it be?
I now count at least 30 dishes on offer across tonight’s various menus excluding, of course, the obligatory paella.
What kitchen could handle that, freshly and carefully, on a Tuesday night? When everyone else is eating from the specials?
Which, yes, we possibly should have done.