Horn Please, Glasgow
I’M not exactly cross channel as I write this, more just at the point where the ferry is pulling away from Newcastle amid a sea of Dutch people drinking Old Speckled Hen in the ferry’s Sky Bar.
I can’t help noticing that when we get old we Britishers splash out on garish electric wheelchairs and collect plastic carrier bags while the Dutchers seem to grow their hair very long and buy Harley-Davidsons.
Talking about the great thing that is culture diversity, it’s been about three days since we went to Horn Please, a fast, at times bewildering experience, where we found ourselves having ordered, eaten, paid and been fired out the door in about an hour. It was their first night though.
The waitress, Spanish in an Indian restaurant, tells us that a few days ago they had had all the press and bloggers, including that newspaper The Herald, in for a private launch.
Crikey, I think as I momentarily look up from my to-be-paid-for-myself gram flour and yoghurt curry with crunchy masala okra. Still wondering what the bloody hell it is.
Actually that’s why we called the waitress over. Delicious, is the short answer. Not so universally appreciated at our table are the big square cakes of fermented rice batter, split chickpeas and coriander chutney.
Ugh, says my wife. Groo, says my son. Wow, says I, as I bite into yet another piece of its pungent crumbly, curry-leaf scented, chutneyed-out-its-face fabulism. I could eat this all night, though I concede it is Very Big Voodoo in the flavour stakes.
Nice safe spinach and paneer pastry then? Not a crispy triangle of refried Greekism but soft, textured, rolled and very good. High fives all round, too, for the deep fried purses of turkey, potato and filo pastry, punchy Indian spicing throughout. Coriander seed still popping moments later.
It transpires, because the waitress is still chatting, that a lot of people from Cubitas, that excellent tapas bar upstairs or round the corner, went to Delhi, or Bombay and then decided to open a restaurant in Glasgow with some Indian people. As you do. Or as we all should do. In a basement that being all empty fireplace, reclaimed stone and wood-from-fishboxes reminds me somehow of a croft.
Anyway, back to Delhi and the bread pakora with fish and meat fillings. Imagine a cheese and ham sandwich, dipped in gram flour batter and deep fried. It ain’t pretty, but it does taste pretty good. Until you get to the fish ones. Yuck, was the official reaction from across the table.
Hey, I’ve been to Babu Bombay on Glasgow's West Regent Street, I know Indian street food can seem reassuringly British. But right in the midst of this sandwichy sensation, the lamb arrives and suddenly we are into fine dining.
A rack of lamb, perfectly and I really mean that, cooked so it is not only meltingly tender but the right kind of pink inside, served in a great coconut and tomato sauce with a spiced crust.
A similar wide rim soup bowl that wouldn’t look out place in a Michelin restaurant serves up the cod in a fish reduction encrusted with Indian spice and served with, er, shitake mushrooms. What? Frankly? The sauce looks a little grey, but like everything we have eaten in here it is packed with flavour.
Yada-yada-yada goes my wife. Yada-yada-yada goes the waitress. Munchity crunchity go Luca and I, now decimating stuffed mini dosas with bottle gourd and yellow lentil curry. Little pillows of gently spiced niceness.
Chocolate cream, spiced sand and white chocolate rocks, a sort of edible Lego dessert island goes down the same way. By that I mean with enthusiasm.
What can I say about Horn Please? Confused but somehow brilliant. Not one for the food snobs perhaps on account of its wacky or perhaps brilliant cultural melding perhaps.
But most definitely one for the food lovers.
Menu: New take on Indian street food with a little bit of Spanish in there. If you can get by the bread pakora the rest is very good. 4/5
Atmosphere: A refurbished stone basement near Glasgow’s West End, Indian music on the hi-fi, something completely different on the menu. 4/5
Service: It was their first night and they weren’t very busy but they were all still very enthusiastic. So far, so good. 4/5
Price: It’s early days but they need to think very carefully about the pricing with small plates at around £6 upwards. Some should be cheaper, some should be more. 3/5
Food: Gram flour and yoghurt curry is a delight. Fermented rice perhaps a hardcore dish. Generally very good and refreshingly different. 7/10
Horn Please
Berkeley Street
Glasgow
0141 573 3021
Total 22/30
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