Food Fun

After being disappointed, in my curry quest, by the changes in Gibson Street, I headed along University Avenue. Much of it was just the same as when I was there - a few concrete buildings more discoloured, the stone ones looking the same and still uncleaned and a few new ones...

I recall Byres Road as having shops, banks, pubs but no memorable restaurants. I was therefore surprised to see The Curry Leaf between University Avenue and Hillhead Subway station. It described itself as offering "tapas" and 'modern Indian cuisine' so I was curious to see what that entailed.

Inside there is a clean appearance with a reasonably modern decoration of the victorian building. I sat at a table near the window but there is an upstairs level as well. The Anglo-Indian waitress who told me about the menu said that Indian food is often served as a series of smaller portions much like tapas. So the idea of the tapa portion is quite authentic and not copying the Spanish. However as is commonplace in Spain many dishes are offered on the menu in 'tapa' or 'main course' portions.

While I wanted to try out the 'tapa' idea I wanted to try their pakoras. Pakoras were always a feature of eating in a Glasgow curry house and are not the same as onion bhajis offered south of the border; and I enjoy making pakoras myself.

Normally I would go for plain old vegetable pakora but on this occasion tried the mixed plate for £3.95. I was served a mixture of finde vegetable pakoras, chicken pakoras and aubergine pakoras. They arrived nice and hot with a crisp batter.

Dining alone is often boring on a business trip. I appreciated being offered a newspaper to read - a courtesy often shown to me in Germany but rarely in Britain - I had not read the Glasgow Evening Times for years!

I then ordered two 'tapas' - a bhuna lamb (£4.50) and a fish curry (£4.20)  - with two chappatis (2 x £1.10). The lamb bhuna was tasty and the fish curry was subltly spiced haddock. I find curried with white fish are difficult to prepare as the spices can easily overpower the white fish. The portions were jus the right size to be eaten by hand using pieces of chapati.

By this stage I had eaten enough but was overcome with curiosity to try a vegetarian tapa.

I went for the charna masala (£3.50) as I find chickpeas more challenging to cook right than say lentils or meat. The result was very tasty but by this stage I had over-eaten - to my shame!

Overall I found the Curry Leaf a pleasant place to site, with friendly staff and tasty food. However I do not actually recall seeing curry leaves in the dishes!

I am making a brief return to blogging now that I am visiting a conference/exhibition in Glasgow. I went to uni for 7 years in Glasgow in the late 1970s/early 1980s. There are a lot of food memories from that time as I went to university having little idea of how to cook and being used to typically bland 1970s UK food. I was taken out to an authentic Chinese New Year dinner and realised that the high street chinese was not reconisable to my fellow students from SE Asia. I was introduced to my first curry at the Agra - then an affordable place for students - on Gibson Street just south of the University campus. Later Indian students taught me to make curry and pakora. I expected Gibson Steet be a sort of West Glasgow equivalent of Drummond Street but was left wondering what had happened?

After today's conference sessions, I went to Kelvinbridge station on the "clockwork orange" underground and headed for a journey down memory lane. I started with Great Western Road where I recalled a greasy spoon cafe and a wholefood shop called "Grass Roots" opposite the end of Oakfield Avenue. Grass Roots sold things like oat, wheat and barley flakes or dried fruit out of big bins. I made my own muesli from what I bought there. I think that there is a betting shop now roughly where Grass Roots was and the cafe is now considerably upmarket from 28-30 years ago if it is in the same place.

Grass Roots created a spin-off called Roots and Fruits which was an eco-friendly fruit and veg shop. It is still there but looks a lot posher than in the past.

Gibson Street used to be regarded as the centre of South Asian eating in Glasgow (at least from my student-centric view). I was keen to report an update on the curry houses as I liked the Glasgow food which as a bit different from what you get in England. Most English Indian restaurants are run by Bangladeshis, while Gibson street seemed to be run by Punjabis from Pakistan and India.

In the past there were two major and two minor establishments. The Shish Mahal was closest to the University not far from the former church that was used for University exams. That used to be the post popular place with a queue outside at weekends. I liked the food but disliked the service/queue management which meant that your main course was thrust in front of you after you had just started on your pakoras. You did not feel welcome to stay long.

If I am not mistaken the whole tenement block which included the Shish Mahal is now gone (above). I then walked down to the bridge over the Kelvin where on the east side of the street the other big establishment - the Koh-i-noor - used to be. I recall that they were also very successful and even got their curries in frozen form into the Bejam freezer food shops around 1980.

I think that the restaurant block has also been demolished and replaced by UNITE private sector University accommodation. The only reminder of the past was this little takeaway with the Koh-i-Noor name.

Between the Shish Mahal and the Koh-i-Noor there used to be two smaller establishments - the Shalimar on the South side of the street and the Agra on the North side. The Shalimar seemed to keep going despite its small size whereas the Agra seemed to change owners from time to time.

Today there is a near eastern offering roughly where the Shalimar used to be. On the left Pars is a Persian Restaurant while on the right Falafel is Lebanese. Despite both of these looking interesting, I was firmly in a curry mood so walked further towards Byres Road.

If anyone can fill me in on what happened in the last quarter century of restaurants on Gibson Street please post a comment!

My very first posting (I see now that older postings cannot be referenced by a single posting URL but only through the archive month page) was about making sushi on a Cornish campsite. I fancied some home made mackerel sushi and had taken my bamboo mat and some sushi nori with me; I unfortunately forgot to take Japanese rice.

Since healthy eating of raw fish depends on real freshness, I went across to Trelawney's at Newlyn to buy freshly landed mackerel.

I also bought a piece of salmon - which I suspect was not landed in Newlyn - and some samphire. Plan A was to make some sushi rolls with our supermarket rice, however since that was quite inappropriate and did not stick we had to go to plan B - ceviche.

Ceviche is raw fish with a citrus-based marinade. I have never been to South America but like the ideaof ceviche; but absolutely no authenticity is claimed for what I did. Citrus juices can chemically cook raw fish so the taste will depend on how long the fish has been in the marinade. Leaving the marinated for say 10 minutes gives a raw fish texture while leaving it for an hour or more gives more of a cooked texture.

The following is what we did:

Serves 3

Ingredients

4 mackerel fillets
1 small salmon steak
half red pepper
4 spring onions
50 g samphire
handful of coriander leaves
handful of parsley leaves
1 lime
half lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp soya saucee
1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
1 clove garlic

Method

1. Remove scales from mackerel fillets. Take a sharp knife and start to separate the flesh from the scales starting at the tail. After a few centimetres the scales can be pulled off. The transparent scales are not edible while the silvery skin underneath is.
2. Remove skin/scales from the salmon
3. Finely cut up the fish and put into bowl.
4. Finely chop the pepper, spring onions, samphire, coriander and parsley and add to bowl.
5. Squeeze lime and lemon and mix juice with olive oil, soya sauce and finely chopped garlic
6. Add chilli flakes if wanted. Add liquid to bowl and mix gently.
7. Leave for at least 10 minutes and longer if you want a more 'cooked' texture to the fish. We left it one hour in our camping fridge waiting for my son to return to the beach.
8. Serve with a light summery wine like Frascati or vinho verde and tiger rolls with sea salt and black pepper (Tesco's in our case)