Left Bank, Glasgow

In recent weeks I have been doing alot of eating at home with Mum and Dad and have been to surprisingly few Glasgow restaurants. After weeks, months, of gadding about all over the place it is nice to do not so much. There will be plenty of opportunity for revisiting the old places and trying out the new ones when I'm in gainful employment, have a home to go out from and my usual dining companion in the same country. Meantime a steak pie from the farmers market (the pastry was flaky, the meat was endless and tender and the gravy was rich and tasty), a pot of smoked mackerel pate (ingredients were mostly smoked mackerel and cream cheese - it was a little too fishy for my liking and would have done well to being lightened with some yoghurt stirred through) and the regular coffee trials are more than sufficient to keeping me amused.

All that being said I did get to try out a new (to me) restaurant on friday night; Left Bank on Gibson Street in Glasgow. It wasn't around before I left town but appears to be fairly established on the local eating scene now. My dear friend Kaizer Suzy took me along and we had a jolly nice Kashmiri Chicken dish each, specifically the "corn fed kashmiri chicken with roasted almonds, honeyed yoghurt, garlic and ginger chutney and caramelised lime". The chicken was cooked to perfection, the spices were delicate and there was a lovely honey end note. The chutney had sweet potato with enough savoury bite to it to meet the other flavours. I only can't remember the caramelised lime and it didn't jump out at the time, which was a shame as I was curious. On the side we had a good salad that was filled with strings of carrot, beetroot, pea shoots and all sorts and a bowl of tasty twice cooked ayrshire potato chips. There was a lovely bottle of french shiraz rose and in place of desert I had a glass of a torrontes tardio (you are!) dessert wine which was dry, floral and sweet all in one go and the nice waiter brought, on request, a dish of almonds to round us off.



I really enjoyed my evening catching up with my friend drinking nice wine and eating a good, fresh and tasty dinner. It would be easy to get side tracked by alot of things about the restaurant and have that detract from an easy evening: the decor is sleek glass and dark wood, almost glitzy; the bar is a big open space which isn't filled in the way that the tables on the mezzanine levels that climb the back wall are; and the menu includes every meal of the day as well as the wine list and desserts and there is simply too much on it. That being said we managed to have the sort of evening you would expect to enjoy in a favourite haunt and I would certainly be happy to drop back in there for a friday night dinner anytime. So either they are simply getting it right, or you must also take the Kaizer along with you when you go.