Angie’s Cafe

Glasgow

I HAVE been doing this long enough to sense when I’m slipping over the edge of the cashless society cliff and sure enough as I’m about to sit down I suddenly ask: do you take cards?

The waiter shakes his head. I suppress a deep sigh. And I head back out under the hulking shoulder of the St Enoch Centre to navigate the Yuletide shoppers, the Christmas market with its kiss-me-quick food stalls, the merry party crowds and to somehow find a cash line.

I do, of course but as I walk back onto Howard Street – surely one of Glasgow’s grimmest side streets – and look at the steamed windows and handwritten signs of Angie’s Cafe I wonder how they make money stuck away round here. On a corner to nowhere. On a street that flows like a dried up river. The answer isn’t exactly on a postcard. More on a little flipbook of food photos that’s handed to me as I sit down once again. As I look around a place that seems to be half full of large tables of families of Chinese origin and half full of people who have just wandered in off the street, some from the office party.

Pork chop or chicken steak with noodles is just £4, fried rice rice £2.50, did I see a sign saying two courses for a fiver? Yes, all the usual Chinese-Scottish restaurant dishes are here. They’re actually cheaper than at the pop-up stalls in the festive food market round the corner.

There’s also a separate menu in Chinese where the dishes are exotic, more expensive and judging by the platters of them at the table across from me, they’re served just for sharing. Nine pounds a pop is the going rate.

I flip my way through the photo-book and random order. broccoli with garlic; pork chop with fried white noodles (dry).

I toy with five spiced beef flank with oil noodle in soup, linger momentarily over fried green bean minced pork preserved olive but finally settle on the strangest dish I can see: curry fried crispy wonton in soup.

The waiter delivers the traditional warning about portions being very large. I mumble the traditional reply about stomachs being expandable. We both move on.

In the few minutes before my food starts to come flying from that little kitchen tucked in the corner I decide the following: Angie’s Cafe is more of a canteen; they’ve not done much with the old place, but like most eateries with a steady stream of customers it’s got a warm buzz.

The fried white noodles arrive, bringing that sweet smoky smell from the flashing wok, they’re vermicelli, super-fine, hot, oily, laced with onion and scallion, soy sauce too, the pork sliced crossways but also crisped and sparkled with seasoning into interesting mouthfuls. Nothing fancy.

The platter of broccoli is pretty much what it says on the menu: fresh, vibrant, doused in garlicky flavours and far too much for even me.

I look up, chopsticks in hand, noodles slithering down, table spread with plates and suddenly Nice Guy Eddie from the courts across the river is standing right in front of me.

I saw you sitting there as I passed, he says, goggle-eyed at the spread. Is it good, he asks. It is, I reply. He muses momentarily over bringing his daughters for tea and then goes off to do the gymnastics run – he’s a martyr to those gymnastics.

I turn my attention to the huge bowl of noodles. Normally I don’t bother asking what’s in won-ton because the answer is usually this: nothing. These, though, are huge, floating on a lake of coconutty curry, buoyed by a sargasso sea of Udon, very crisp, even though they’re semi-submerged. I taste: minced pork. I taste again. Is that prawn? I have a wee cheeky look, real prawn too. I stop the passing waiter. Yes, pork and prawn, he confirms. I eat more. The place is pretty good.

Angie’s Cafe

82 Howard Street

Glasgow

0141 222 2632

Menu: Traditional Scottish-Chinese restaurant food and a separate menu of much more exotic Chinese dishes. Interesting. 4/5

Service: Fast, friendly and pretty helpful if you ask. 4/5

Atmosphere: Don't go for the decor, unless you have a thing for wham-bam canteen style. Has a buzz though. 3/5

Price: Possibly the cheapest Chinese restaurant in town with two courses for virtually nothing, proper platters at £9 or so still a bargain. 5/5

Food: They knock out a mean pork chop with fried white noodles and an interesting curried soup won-tony thing. It’s the fast and the furious and probably better for it. 7/10

23/30