IT’S one of those Glas-Vegas nights when even a full-fat Markies polyester suit cannot withstand this city’s high penetration raindrops, their icy impact lowering my core temperature to critical, beep-beep-beep as I stomp up and down Dundas Street.
Looking for an invisible restaurant. Hot-dam, it’s closed, I mutter staring at a black facade with a prominent grill across it. Cue: jabbing texts to the genius whose idea this was.
No, there’s a stair here, a metal one weirdly, which I climb up, clang, clang, clang thinking I may be entering an abandoned tenement, or a secret spaceship.
But suddenly I am in a genuinely surprising space, all airiness and brightness and, wow – hugeness.
Plinky, plonky techno jazz suffuses from hidden speakers, plush booths all along that wall are fully occupied and over there grinning alarmingly is Garry, whose idea this was.
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Fast forwarding then: we’re fully boothed, warmed over even, the menu has been scanned, food randomly ordered and we are now discussing whether this is Ethiopian or Eritrean.
As though we would know the difference, lol. Let’s ask the waitress when she comes back, a warm, smiley and friendly young woman.
But when she does return we’re distracted, bamboozled actually, by what’s she’s carrying. It’s a serving platter the size of Captain America’s Sunday shield, draped in what looks like brown dishcloths but which are in fact aerated and wafer-thin pancakes, their limpness spilling ... well, limply, and there’s a towering inferno too.
Standing right in the middle of pancake land, flame burning fiercely, and atop that in bubbling oil? Dark strips of dark meats. Sheesh. More dishes are on the ground floor aka pancake level: lamb, beef jerky, a platter of rice, even a salad. Hold hard for a moment here.
I’ve been doing this eating thing for a while now and I can exclusively reveal that I have genuinely never ever before had to ask: how do we, er, consume this?
But then Garry starts to tear the first never-ending piece of springy pancake. Trying to coil it around hunks of juicy meat, sending pancake ripples coursing, juices flicking setting dishes akimbo, and all while using his – wait for this – bare hands.
Eek. I call for help. Here’s what happens next. Every single dish is removed from the pancake plateau for us idiots, and its contents are immediately tipped straight back onto said pancake plateau; rice, salad, that chewy, tasty, sizzly, steaky stuff, the little nibbly bits of meats, the jerkies, gravies, rices, salads.
It’s like a food bomb. And here come the instructions: tear pancake, scoop food, insert in gob. Ah.
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As I’m obviously more middle-class than I like to admit I’ll confess to raising my hand at this point and asking for – boo, shame – cutlery. Then we remember the starters. Sambusas. Oh yeah. Little fried pastry triangles stuffed either with lamb or lentil.
Crunchity, munchity, munchity, pause. Hmmm. Nice these; light too. And they’re gone. Back to that mountain then.
OK you’ve played along with this so far but you knew, didn’t you, the pancake is actually injera?
It’s fermented flatbread, with a spongy texture, a bit like sourdough. “At home we eat this with everything,” one of the waitresses had said when she wandered over to see if we had mastered, um, eating.
The injera provides a distinct and fresh tang when wrangled round the Quanta fit-fit – that will be the spiced beef jerky in shredded bread with berbere spices and seasoned butter. Though honestly? I thought it was chicken.
More spiced butter has sautéed the lamb Tibsi, those juicy cubes of meat in a rosemary and chilli gravy.
We have Zilzil too, with a hot Awaze sauce. But I would be lying if I said I could really tell which was which in the glorious food fest that follows.
Do we finish it all? Nope. But then there are three main courses in amongst what is actually a completely orthodox way to get your injera fix.
How to sum up the full Mosob experience?
Crikey. It’s definitely different. Yet really enjoyable.
Mosob
56 Dundas Street
Glasgow
Tel: 0141 237 5260
Open: seven days til 10pm
Menu: Eritrean Ethiopian we forgotto aks but beef Zilzils (marinated), Lamb Tibsi (cubed), the wonderfully named Quanta Fit-fit and all wrapped in huge Injera. Certainly interesting. 5/5
Service: Warm, friendly and very relaxed waiting staff. Food came pretty quick too. 4/5
Price: We’re deep in bargain territory here with main dishes hitting a tenner, Injera (which seem to come with the mains) £1.50and those starters £4. 4/5
Atmosphere: probably Glasgow’s least welcoming entrance but when up the stairs it’s vast, airy and comfortable. 3/5
Food: it’s all hands on the Injera eating, scooping meats and rice, spices and flavourings, pretty much completely different and pretty enjoyable. 7/10
Total: 23/30
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