Someone recently asked if I get bored of eating scallops with black pudding all the time. Actually, I can't remember the last time I had that particularly retro combination although my heart does sink when I am offered chicken liver paté or beetroot with goat's cheese.
Burgers and chips pileed with soggy stuff are another big yawn. The economics of the hospitality industry plus our risk-averse palates equals predictable and same same samey menus.
Then somewhere new and original, such as Ka Pao, arrives with enough confidence and ambition to persuade Glaswegians that they really want crispy pork skin and sea trout curry for Sunday lunch.
Ka Pao is the south-east Asian outpost of the group behind Glasgow's Ox and Finch and Edinburgh's Baba. It first appeared as a fleeting pop-up in SWG3 and now has a smart, permanent home in the basement of the listed Botanic Gardens Garage building in Glasgow's Vinicombe Street.
What a treat to go to a restaurant run by people who know what they're doing and are prepared to invest in staff, in developing the menu, in putting Aesop handwash in the toilets. Who know how to make eating out pleasurable. A groovy hole in the wall is great until you're ancient and creaky and need to sit on a comfortable banquette.
Ka Pao's menu zips around Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and points in between. It is helpfully arranged into snacks, light dishes (old people might recognise these as starters), plant-based mains, fish, meat and sides. The waiter recommended five or six between two.
They are designed to share. It's a sign of how much I liked Ka Pao that, instead of annoying me, this made me glad that I could try more dishes.
From the snacks section, peanuts and cashew nuts fried with chilli and lime leaf were addictively hot and sour. Paired with a lime leaf negroni from an interesting cocktail menu, I could almost have forgotten to order proper food. Almost.
I quibbled over the corn ribs because they are not in season and - principles. But food miles be damned, these are a spectacular combination of sweet, savoury and salty. Corn cobs are quartered lengthwise, griddled, topped with shredded, toasted coconut and dried shrimps, then drenched with some kind of wickedly sweet-but-sour liquid to keep them toothsome and juicy.
Are they elegant to eat? No. Did I care? No. Silence descended on the table when the chicken curry and bone marrow and shitake mushroom rice arrived.
The curry sauce, brown and spattered with hot red oil, is the kind of dish that the bus driver eats while the tourists get a white bread version at twice the price. It had fat chunks of corn-fed bird and tiny potatoes that disintegrated at the touch of a fork. The garnish included a calamansi, Thailand's bracing doll's house-sized lime. It was rich and splendid on its own. Combined with the unctuous rice, it was umami magnificence.
Mushrooms and rich meaty marrow juices made the rice a powerhouse of flavour. Shallots, fennel strands and a regular-sized lime cut through the savoury heft.
Half of a substantial hispi cabbage had more of a street food vibe. It was griddled then topped with creamy matter that the menu suggested was based on cashew nuts, squibbled with Sriracha then laden with crispy brown fried onions. I cut a third off, imagining Carb Boy would do the same. No, he hefted the remaining two thirds on to his plate and made animal noises while finishing every molecule.
That was a lot of food. But as we considered the small dessert options I saw Carb Boy's eyes jump longingly back up the menu. He could, he admitted in small voice, still manage a sausage.
The waiter, used to men and their appetites, brought him a substantial Thai pork sausage with a sparky dipping sauce.
With a heap of pickled white cabbage, green herbs and salted a peanuts, this is the dish the bus driver might have if he didn't fancy the curry. Simple but seriously good. I managed a quarter of sausage out of sheer piggery.
There are three dessert elements on offer: slurpy pandan ice cream, lime-spiked mango sorbet and banana fritter.
We chose the two frozen options, swirled together in a Mr Softee-style spike. After chilli heat and shiver-inducing citrus blasts, I was ready for something soft and sweet. Carb Boy plans to have the banana fritter next time.
We left as full as we were happy.
In a world of loaded fries, we all need more Ka Pao in our lives.
Bill for two: £54.40
| KA PAO, 26 Vinicombe St, Glasgow G12 8BE |
| Phone: 0141 483 6990 |
| www.kapaogla.com |
| Disabled access: yes |
| Opening hours: 12 noon to 12 midnight |
| Marks 23/30 |
| Food: 8/10 - All killer, no filler |
| Decor: 4/5 - Smart & modern |
| Toilets: 3/5 - Love that Aesop handwash |
| Service: 4/5 - Slick & warm |
| Value for money: 4/5 - Impressive |
