I'M back home looking at the Bill's menu online when it suddenly hits me: what happened to the speckled lentil, quinoa and roasted fennel salad? Did I eat it just two hours ago and have already forgotten? Uh-oh.
The halloumi was breadcrumbed, pleasant and there was a dip. I remember that. Gordon had fat, crispy, inoffensive squid rings. I remember them, too, though not much about their taste.
We had a bit of a laugh about the cheeky paper bag they give you with the pencil in it urging you to, 'take a little bit of Bill's home with you.' I looked at the ticklist of items apparently made by some of the "finest small independent producers" including, erm, Jelly babies at £1.95, peppermint tea bags for, wait for this one, £5.95 for 20, and Bill's house dressing for (we're chuckling at the Bill man's audacity by now) six whole quid.
We scanned the bric-a-braccy room, lovely and cool on this sticky summer evening, with its chalkboards containing not specials but homilies. The decor is mashed up, half from the set of Friends, the rest from the potting shed, all chandeliers and distressed boarding. We spotted the obligatory overpriced goodies shelf, just like Carluccios across the road and Jamie's across the square and all the rest of the suddenly-taking-over-Glasgow English food chains.
I recall we were discussing why Bill's, a chain with no strongly discernible character, is so busy. This week alone, three people have mentioned it to me and it's seemingly popular with teenage girls. This fascinates restaurant critics. Certainly me. Then Sheena, from the Watson family, who went to school with the Mackenna family a long, long time ago, came over to say a quick hello. We asked each other how everyone was getting on, and I tell her my mum will be so delighted to hear of them all.
Then? Oh, yeah…Gordon kept saying: "I should have taken the burger, I would have taken the burger, I've had it twice before." In fact, if he said this once he said it 20 times. All the while forking into his fish pie and adding: "it's not that I don't like fish pie, it's just that fish pies are quite boring - though this is a good one." He's right. Fish pies are generally quite boring and this one with prawns and - we think - salmon is fine but a bit boring, even though there's a good flavour to the sauce. Incidentally, it's heated to a nuclear level inside by, I suspect, a cooking machine that goes ping when finished.
But we did we kind of struggle in picking a main courses from mac 'n' cheese; pork ribs; chicken caesar; beer battered fish…yawn.
I remember ordering the confited duck leg. Pretty good, being crispy, lightly salty, and very tender inside, served with feta and spring onion croquettes. I looked at the menu at the time to see what gave the croquettes that lumpy texture and noticed that the salad of watercress, red cabbage, pea, broad bean and basil was about the same size as the dollop of lemon and wasabi mayonnaise. I'm actually having to look up the menu again on the internet right now to remind myself what was in that salad and the mayo.
Desserts? Cinnamon doughnuts with chocolate sauce and a lemon meringue pie cheesecake in a glass thing. The pie was pleasant when I spooned past the cream and into the chilled tart, lemon and biscuit at the bottom.
But that speckled lentil salad? Honestly? I have have to look at the photograph I took to realise that I didn't even have it. I got the halloumi fried in breadcrumbs. An ordering mistake. Probably mine.
You know what? Again it was fine. Kind of easily forgettable, like Bill's food. Avoids being bad, is entirely consistent and predictable and sometimes that's all we want.
Bill's
22-24 West Nile Street, Glasgow (0141 221 6883)
Menu: Chain with fish pies, confited duck leg, burgers; a sort of middle-market nothing you haven't seen before but with pomegranate seeds and edible flowers. 3/5
Atmosphere: There's a set of Friends meets theme-pub meets upmarket garden shed feel to the whole thing which curiously works quite well when busy, which it is. 4/5
Service: Couldn't really be more helpful. They always remember to smile, too. It's formula food so not too demanding, though. 4/5
Price: Kind of their secret weapon, as the main courses are priced to sell at around a tenner, starters and puddings hit the £6 mark. 4/5
Food: Bill's is stealth fashionable and the food is perfectly acceptable, entirely consistent if not exactly setting the heather on fire. Sometimes that's all we want. 5/10
Total: 20/30
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