Stravaigin' in Glasgow

I am really getting to love Glasgow. Every time I go there I learn something new. My favourite pub in the whole world, the Station Bar, near GCal and the Concert Hall is there, and last night I went out with my sister, my second cousin, my gorgeous niece Laura and her friend Beth. The girls went to a Mystery Jets gig. I'd never heard of the Mystery Jets, but I guess that's how it is with 16 year olds and 40 something aunts.

Honor, David and I hit the West End, starting off in the Ubiquitous Chip where we got a table and were served immediately with some decent red house wine. We then went to eat in Stravaigin 2 on Ruthven Lane. The food was marvellous, probably one of the best meals I'd ever had in a restaurant. I started off with a Vietnamese dish made with pork mince, vermicelli noodle and packed full of flavour with lemon grass, chilli, coriander - it was truly fabulous. David loved his duck pate and Honor's haggis was wonderful.

We all had steak for main course. I am very wary of where I eat steak, but David's confidence inspired me. It came perfectly cooked, they remembered whose was the medium and whose was the medium rare, and it came with a delicious rich celeriac and beetroot dauphinoise, chanterelles and kale.

I was persuaded by the others to try a pudding. They both had lemon and almond cake, while I plumped for the bitter chocolate and grand marnier tart which was smooth, velvety and very rich.

Sometimes menus don't live up to their promise - this exceeded it. The service was unnintrusive but extremely good and the atmosphere in the place was perfect. We had such a laugh.

Just as we'd finished eating, the girls rang to say that their gig was over. Laura was in a state of sheer bliss after meeting the band and having them sign her new t-shirt. She reckons it was the best night of her life.

We took David home to his flat on the South Side and then had fun with my sister's satnav. I think I did a better job of finding our way home than the disembodied voice did - it kept turning us to turn left now when there was nowhere to turn left and when we took the next road, we'd get so far and then it would say "make a U turn".

It was the best fun I'd had in ages and a welcome break in my Glenrothes activiities, which resume very shortly..........


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