Listen, I don't want to come over all Jilly Goolden here with mad 1990s wine taster drivel.
You know: "Ooh, I'm getting forests, trees, Oz's socks and underpants." But the stinging nettle puree gives off such a cloud of intense, summery flavours that it really does remind me of that path past the golf course in Pollok Park. When it's raining.
OK, OK, I'll give myself a slap now and have another slice of that Aberdeen Angus corned beef terrine which tastes, genuinely, of old tractor. No, I'm kidding. It actually tastes of very good corned beef. Baby salt-baked turnips, sweet ox tongue too, a gooey yolk all on its own-eo. Funny thing is, as soon as we came in and sat down we said: "How refreshing to see a menu with something completely different on it." And it is completely different. There's a fillet of mackerel, blackened, very, very raw a la the continent, super fishy, little fennel seeds popping with liquoricey intensity, a light fennel pollen muffin full of more fennelly flavours, a saucy fresh dressed crab, a super juicy, sharply orangey bergamot segment. These all on the same starter plate too. Phew.
Around us we've got bare brick walls, large spacious tables, chefs labouring away through the hatch. Outside, beyond the plate-glass window, people pad relentlessly by on a stretch of Great Western Road that somehow retains its small-shop 19th-century sweetness. We wonder aloud about the restaurant name with the waitress. Turnip? Uh? A rebranding, apparently. This was a cafe called Enjoy, and that's what it still seems to be called everywhere, except on the internet. There's a new chef with good ideas; it's still a bit of a work in progress.
I phoned several times over two days to book. No answer. No answer. No answer. Then finally and suddenly a startled woman on a mobile sounding like she was in her house telling me the phones hadn't been switched and to phone back again. Again? Immediately engaged. Engaged. Engaged. And I eventually got through.
Tonight it's relaxed, grown up even, though there's cafe music playing at conversation-destroying level from two speakers by the till: "We walked in the cold air/ Freezing breath in the air/ Oh Vienna." I mention this politely while trying and failing to avoid looking like a moany old geezer. It's turned down a modicum.
We turn to the mains. The music turns to Europop. There's oyster and ox pie, salty, meaty, delicious and balanced by the weirdly negative flavour of celeriac puree, then faintly charred asparagus, cubes of salt-baked celeriac, metallic spinach and - perhaps a cheffy technique too far - a strangely firm rib-eye. Has it been cooked sous vide first? Anyway, Debs has a creamy hunk of cod topped with a deep, crumbly almondine crust, new potatoes and space-age looking romanescu - the second time in a week I've seen this previously unusual vegetable in Glasgow restaurants. There are also handmade sweetly and tangy nettle and pine tortellini on a sea of soupy squash veloute, curds and pesto.
Honestly? We're only on the second course and we've had a couple of different meals on each plate. Could the chef have stopped with the ox and oyster pie, the steak being actually unneccesary? Wouldn't the tortellini have been great on their own? A light sauce instead of that veloute? And the cod would surely have thrived if it had swam free instead of being hemmed in by a landslide of spuds. Hey. What do I know? At no point has it been anything but interesting.
There's an absolutely, utterly perfectly balanced lemon tart with handmade biscuit and a zillion other things including rhubarb and hibiscus ice-cream and tiny meringues. There's also a chocolate torte that's so incredibly intense that, like all chocolate tortes these days, it tastes mainly of Bovril. There are great skills and huge potential here, but it all needs ruthless refining. Less in this case would definitely be more.
Turnip & Enjoy
393-395 Great Western Road, Glasgow (turnipandenjoy.co.uk, 0141 334 6622)
MENU Stinging nettle purees, beef and oyster pies, blackened mackerel, Aberdeen Angus corned beef; pressing all the right buttons, but should the dishes be simplified? 4/5
ATMOSPHERE Pleasant glass-fronted, stone-walled restaurant. There's a problem with the mad cafe music but that's easily fixed. 4/5
SERVICE The chef's partner works front of house and it works as well as it should. It's a new venture and a few kinks need to be ironed out. 5/5
PRICE Starters bounce around the £7 mark, mains jump from £14 to £24, but at this standard it's not a problem. 4/5
FOOD Skilled chef, extremely interesting tastes, it's all a bit experimental and could possibly do with refinement by simplifying dishes, but well worth a try. 7/10
TOTAL 24/30
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