Review by test, Food:
Service:
Atmosphere:
The newish Left Bank café-bar/kitchen in Glasgow's Gibson Street is
one of those rare eating places that ticks every possible box. Food?
Double ticks here. Decor? Amusingly pretty butterfly lighting.
Beautiful wallpaper from the stylish Timorous Beasties design
emporium. Another tick for original style. Ambiance? A buzzy pub but
not oppressively rowdy. More ticks. Service? You get new glasses
halfway through a meal and water topped up even before you notice that
it's running low. Further ticks. Value? A cluster of ticks here. Every
main course would serve two, and with food this appealing you won't be
complaining about being super-sized. But the most amazing thing about
the Left Bank is the prices, which are roughly half to two-thirds of
what similar dishes might command elsewhere, even if they weren't
nearly as good. Its wines are charitably priced too. No wonder it has
got off to a flyer.
The Left Bank is the very antithesis of those bars where the food is a
mere addendum to the booze. It appears to be run by a partnership of
real people who actually know about restaurants, not the more common
line-up of property speculators and would-be tycoons who haven't a
clue about food and are just looking for a nice little earner. The
head chef – hurrah! – is a woman, Liz McGougan. She has a very strong
second chef in Adam Barnes. Both have an impressive curriculum vitae
of restaurant experience under their belts, seasoned with culinary
ideas gained from foreign travel.
The cooking at The Left Bank is bold and spicy. Some dishes do plough
a more European or Western furrow, but the condiments and seasonings
of south-east Asia and the Indian sub-continent are never far away.
Unusually, given that it is white Westerners who are cooking rather
than natives, the kitchen uses potent flavours confidently and with
great accomplishment.
This is why I just had to have the garlic fried masala seafood with
coconut and squash Malabar curry. Its aromas wafted over from the next
table, and I was hooked. It was a brilliant dish loaded with nuggets
of prime white fish, squid, mussels and prawns in a rich south Indian
sauce thickened with the squash and coconut milk. It came with
fragrant rice dotted with mustard seed and a sensational fresh pickle
of green mango and crunchy 'chips' of dried fish – a speciality of the
Maldives. All this for £8.95 !
More flair with spice showed up in a mountainous starter of fleshy
mussels cooked in rasam, the hot/sour tomato and tamarind broth of
south India, this one exuding the earthy pungency of fresh curry
leaves. A Thai-inspired salad of tender baby squid, anointed with lime
juice, sesame oil, fish sauce and fresh chilli was beyond reproach.
Deep-fried rounds of sweet potatoes, with their skins intact, were
worryingly addictive when dipped into a home- made aioli (garlic
mayonnaise) spiked with smoky Mexican Chipotle chillies.
Even choosing the more pedestrian, less globetrotting dishes, the
cooking was far from plodding. The Left Bank burger made with Scotch
beef was clearly so packed with lean steak mince that it was almost
too bouncy and firm in the mouth. But it had a sound flavour and
everything else on the plate was worth having; slices of crunchy dill
pickle, more of the excellent chipotle aioli, a fiery, agreeably
medicinal green peppercorn sauce. As for the thin, crisp, home-made
chips made from unskinned Ayrshire potatoes then dusted with sea salt
and a hint of rosemary: well, put it this way, you wouldn't want to
share them.
I arrived a few days too late to try the gooseberry and elderflower
fool that I had spotted on the menu. That's seasonal food for you. It
comes and it goes. Although the Pakistani honey mangoes were still on
offer. But we plumped for the peach melba mousse, in truth, more of a
layered construction of cream, raspberries, peach and runny honey than
a mousse, but quite likeable. A warm, crumbly chocolate and raspberry
brownie with vanilla ice cream disappeared in a flash.
I want to go back to The Left Bank. I hear its 'super salad' is
fantastic too. Can't wait to try it.
13 August 2006
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