The 13th Note

 September 12, 2013

For my final night in Glasgow I went to the last of the veggie pubs in town. The 13th Note is a long-running music venue, playing host to local luminaries like Teenage Fanclub, The Pastels, Belle & Sebastian and Franz Ferdinand. It was started by the guy behind Mono, Stereo and The 78 although it has since been taken over by someone else. It still has a very, very similar vibe to the other venues - there's live music, a relaxed bar area and a pub-style veggie menu.

Unlike the other venues, the 13th Note isn't entirely vegan - there are a handful of well labelled cheesy options - but the vast majority is animal product free. There's a wide range of snacks and starters, covering cuisines from all around the world - including dhal (£3.95/$6.95), salt and pepper tofu (£3.95/$6.95), sweet potato fritters (£4.25/$7.25) and Greek salad (£3.70/$6.30). The mains are similarly diverse, with a mix of burgers, curries, noodles and the quintessential Scottish haggis, neeps and tatties (£6.95/$11.85). I was still a bit full of soup and sandwiches, so I wound up choosing a couple of things from the starters menu.

The herby meetballs in napoli sauce with garlic bread (£4.25/$7.25) were hard little spheres of TVP drowning in a pot of tomatoey sauce. The garlic toast was nice and crunchy, but otherwise this wasn't the most exciting dish.

More satisfying was the vegan spanakopita served with a smoked paprika dip and a basic salad (£4.25/$7.25). The vegan cheese was a pretty reasonable imitation of feta - salty and a bit rubbery - and was combined with spinach and pine nuts in a crispy pastry cigar. It would have been great to get a bit more spanakopita for the price, but that's the risk of ordering from the snacks menu I guess.

After two starters I found myself still a bit on the hungry side, so I explored the dessert options, choosing the vegan cheesecake with chocolate sauce (£5.65/$9.60).

This hit the spot nicely - tangy cheesecake with a hint of lime and a distinct lack of the occasionally problematic tofu-aftertaste. 

The 13th Note would be a standout venue in most cities, but in Glasgow it's competing with a bunch of other places working in a very similar style. I quite enjoyed my visit - the staff were lovely, the music great and the general vibe welcoming and relaxed. Sadly, the food fell a bit short of the standards set elsewhere around town - it's worth stopping in while you're in town, but I'd prioritise Mono, Stereo and Saramago ahead of it.

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The 13th Note has been well-reviewed by glasgowfooddiary, Shiny Bubbles, Taste of Glasgow, Tea_eagle's blog, Gluten Free Traveller and Jen the Vegan.

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The 13th Note
50-60 King Street, Glasgow
0141 553 1638
snacks and starters £2.70-4.75~AU$4.60-8.10, mains £6.90-7.50~AU$11.75-12.80
http://www.13thnote.co.uk

Accessibility: There's a flat entryway into a spacious interior. You order and pay at a high bar. I didn't visit the toilets.

Saramago

September 11-12, 2013

From the bits and pieces of internet research I've done I couldn't quite figure out if Saramago was run by the same people who had been very effectively serving my vegetarian dining needs in Glasgow. Based in the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Saramago has a pleasant courtyard and a cosy bar area and would work either as a place for drinks and snacks or somewhere for a proper sit-down meal. There's a music venue through a side door and the walls are dotted with posters for upcoming gigs. Whether or not it's run by the same people as the other three venues, it's clearly going for a very similar schtick.

The menu also follows a similar format to places like Stereo - there's a diverse array of tapas, some sandwiches and salads plus a selection of mains. There are a variety of specials - at lunch time you can get two courses for £9.50 (~AU$16.15), a three-course early dinner will set you back £12.95 (~AU$22.10) or you can grab four tapas for £10 (~AU$17) after 7pm. 

The menu is very, very compelling. Some examples: asparagus with sesame oil, ginger, orange and cashew nuts (£3.95~AU$6.75), harissa potatoes with red onion and black olives (£3.95~AU$6.75), curly kale with soy, ginger and garlic (£2.95~AU$5.00), felafel, beetroot tatziki, spring onion and mixed leaf sandwich (£5.00~AU$8.50) and paella with roast red peppers, porcini mushrooms, and artichoke hearts (£8.50~AU$14.50)... look - just go and read the menu yourself, to save me typing all these out.

My first visit was for dinner - after some discussion with the staff I decided I'd probably struggle to work my way through four tapas on my own and decided to just order one of the mains. The pizzas tempted me, but in the end I went for something a bit different - Moroccan squash, chickpea and puy lentil tagine with pomegranate tabouleh, flatbread and shaved fennel salad (£8.50~AU$14.50).

This was an excellent dish - the tangy fennel salad and the pomegranate tabouleh were great sides, and the tagine was a textural delight. The flavours were pretty mild, but it was a very satisfying meal - lots of protein, warm herbiness and the combo of soft pumpkin and crispy toasted almond flakes. 

I was so impressed with my dinner that I returned to Saramago the next day for lunch. The weather had warmed up enough for me to enjoy the courtyard, but I was really there for the sandwiches. In particular, the tofu sausage sandwich with tomato and chilli jam and mixed leaves on toasted bread. For £6 (~AU$10.25) you can combine a sandwich with a soup, so I added in a bowl of the hearty-sounding mushroom and ale soup.

The soup was okay - rich and filling, but maybe a smidgen under-seasoned. The sandwich was bang-on though - the sweet and spicy chilli/tomato jam adding flavour to the slightly salty chunky tofu sausages. It's possible the sausages were straight out of a packet, but they were unlike anything I'd had in Australia - very much tofu-based, with a decent skin that the Saramago peeps had managed to fry up into a lightly browned crisp. Yummo.

I feel like I'm being ridiculously positive with my Glasgow reviews, but the approach taken by Glasgow's vegan restaurants (great music, hipster vibes, good booze range, awesome food) is just utterly up my alley. Saramago was another gem - the staff were helpful, the menu incredible and the dishes I sampled were top notch.

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I could only find only two blog reviews of Saramago - both girl-e glasgow and East Meets West Veg were fans.

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Saramago

350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow (the cafe entry is up the side on Scott Street)
0141 352 4920

starters and sides £2.50-3.9~AU$4.25-6.75, sandwiches, salads and mains £5.00-8.50 ~AU$8.50-14.50

http://www.cca-glasgow.com/saramago-caf/saramago-caf-bar

Accessibility: The side entry is up a small flight of stairs, but there's elevator access if you enter via the main CCA entryway on Sauchiehall Street. Things are quite spacious inside and ordering and payment takes place at the bar. I didn't check out the toilets. Full accessibility information is available here.

The 78

September 10, 2013

The folks behind Mono and Stereo have developed a mini empire of vegan eateries in Glasgow and I figured I might as well complete the set by visiting their 3rd venue: The 78. It's working in a very similar vein to Mono and Stereo - part pub part restaurant with a strong focus on music. It's probably the most casual of the three, with the crowd drawing heavily from the West End's student population.

The menu is pretty straightforward - spring rolls, samosas and the like to start off with and a burger-heavy main menu. Having hit up a few burgers already I briefly considered branching out and trying the tagine with coconut quinoa salad (£8~AU$13.75), but I couldn't resist the lure of chips and went with the special burger (a bulgar wheat and carrot patty, served with beetroot slaw, hummus and chilli jam, £6.95~AU$11.90).

The burger tasted pretty great, but it was the most falling-apart patty I've had in a while - I had to resort to using cutlery! The chilli jam had a sweet spiciness and the chips were top notch (plus they came with vinegar!). 

All the booze at The 78 is vegan as well (except for one cask ale that's clearly labelled) and the staff are friendly and helpful. Things were humming early on a Tuesday night, so I imagine it gets pretty busy later in the week. The 78 was probably a bit less exciting than Mono and Stereo, but it's pretty much the perfect local pub - solid vegan food, a good range of booze, great music and a lively atmosphere. Worth a visit.

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The 78 has been well reviewed by Vegan Alley, 365 pubs in 365 days, Wine Splodge, Kris' Cruelty Free Kitchen, The Vegan Word, Fat Gay Vegan, girl-e glasgow and violetfizz.

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The 78
10 Kelvinaugh Street, Glasgow (West End)
0141 576 5018
snacks and starters £2.50-4.65~AU$4.30-8.00), mains £6.50-8.00~AU$11.20-13.70
http://www.the78cafebar.com/

Accessibility: There's a small step as you come in, but the interior is flat and reasonably spacious.  Ordering and payment occurs at a high counter. I didn't visit the toilets.

Mono

September 8 & 10, 2013

When doing my (food-related) research for this trip to Glasgow, I was struck by the incredible number of vegan pubs on offer. Once I got here I started to join the dots - they're mostly run by the same group, which seems to have made it its mission to bring vegan food to Scottish hipsters. Mono is a sister venue to Stereo and goes in for a similar vibe - it's not quite as stylish, but it really brings the hip, incorporating a zine store, record shop and live music space alongside the bar and cafe. It's a bit tricky to find, tucked into a weird little strip mall off King Street. I did a few laps of the block before I finally figured it out.

At lunchtime on a Sunday things are pretty quiet - there's a steady trickle of people wandering in for lunch, but the stage is packed up and the vibe is very relaxed. The bar has a reasonably good range of booze, but also offers up four different home-brewed softdrinks - given the state of my jetlag I decided not to risk lunchtime alcohol and sampled one of the ginger beers instead. It was excellent, spicy and refreshing without the syrupy sweetness that you often get in the commercial versions.

The food menu is brief but varied - there are a handful of sandwiches (e.g. smoked tofu, pesto mayo, tomato and spinach, £5.25~AU$9), some salads (e.g. chickpea, fried potato and sundried tomato salad, £6.50~AU$11.20) and then the mains - two burgers, a risotto, a nasi goreng and whatever's on the specials board. On my first visit I hit up one of the specials - to-fish and chips with minted mushy peas and tartar sauce (£7.95~AU$13.65).

This was just incredible, probably the best meal I ate in Glasgow. I spent the whole time kind of bummed out that Cindy wasn't with me though - given her deep and abiding love of tofu-based fish and chips and tartare sauce it just felt cruel to be enjoying such a great dish without her. Still, I soldiered on. The tofu was the highlight, with a crisp batter dotted with mustard seeds coating a surprisingly fishy centre (partly the nori, but the texture of the tofu was intriguing as well). But the trimmings were excellent as well - great mushy (but not too mushy) peas, decent chips and a tangy, thick tartar sauce stuffed with pickley bits.

Inspired by the fish and chips I headed back for lunch on Wednesday, finding a similarly low-key vibe. This time I ordered off the menu, going with the seitan burger, served with barbecue sauce, mustard, dill pickle, red onion and tomato and a side of fries (£8.00~AU$13.75). I added some jalepenos just because I could (60p~AU$1). 

I love a good seitan burger - there's something about the texture of well made seitan that works perfectly as a burger patty. And this was a pretty good version - the seitan had a slightly crunchy exterior and was a bit soft and stretchy inside. The 'shoestring fries' weren't really what I was expecting, but they still hit the spot nicely. 

Mono is just as impressive as Stereo, with great food, friendly staff and a lovely atmosphere. The people behind this mini-vegan empire really know what they're doing (up next: the third place they run, The 78).

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Mono is well-loved, with rave reviews on The Fun Side of Veganism, Squeaky Clean Vegan Bean, Displaced Beachbums, Shiny Bubbles, Adventures in Veg, and Cherie City, while Food and Drink Glasgow are a bit less enthusiastic.

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Mono

12 Kings Court, Glasgow
0141 552 9458

starters and sides £2.00-3.60 ~AU$3.40-6.10, sandwiches, salads and mains £5.25-8.00 ~AU$8.90-13.60
http://www.monocafebar.com/

Accessibility: Pretty good - the entryway is flat and the interior is quite spacious. There's a section of seating up a few stairs, but plenty of tables on the entry level. Ordering is at the table and payment at the bar - I didn't visit the toilets.

Stereo

September 7-8, 2013

I had the ridiculous good fortune of being invited to Glasgow for some work-related shenanigans and managed to squeeze in a few free days to explore the city, its museums and the incredible range of veggie dining options on offer (Glasgow has just been adjudged Britain's most vegan friendly city, and I can see why). Let's start with Stereo - part music venue, part bar and part vegan restaurant. It's all stylish, housed in the old Daily Record building, designed by Glasgow's famous designer/architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Downstairs is the music venue, where local luminaries like Mogwai, Franz Ferdinand and Camera Obscura have all strutted their stuff (assuming the old posters on the walls are accurate), while upstairs is the restaurant and bar. Half of the tables are set aside for diners, but you can eat anywhere you can get a seat. I had no trouble on either visit, but then I was looking for a table of 1 at a time that would allow me to indulge my crippling jetlag by getting to bed at 8pm, so your experience may vary.

The menu is completely vegan and broadly broken up into small plates and main meals. Cuisine-wise they cover all bases: there's burgers and pizzas, nachos and quesadillas, felafel, tempura, even vegan haggis. The bar side of things means there's a great range of booze - I think it's all vegan friendly as well.

On my first trip I stuck with the tapas menu (full disclosure, I'd already had some nachos at the incredibly charming but pretty low-key Flying Duck). I couldn't resist the lure of the local specialty, ordering the haggis fritters alongside the decidedly un-Scottish veggie tempura (£3.75 ~ AU$6.44 each).

The haggis fritters were crispy logs of mystery - the filling included lentils, onion and carrot at the very least but, according to the waitress, they're made up of about 100 ingredients, "everything except meat." They were lovely anyway - like more complex flavoured tater-tots, with the harissa tomato sauce spicing things up a bit. The veggie tempura was pretty nicely done as well - eggplant, zucchini, onion and sweet potato coated in a delicate batter with a sesame, soy an ponzu dipping sauce.

On my second visit I managed to avoid having a pre-dinner plate of nachos, so I could sample one of the mains. I wavered over the haggis pizza and the quesadillas, but in the end fell back on my standard pub option: the burger. Stereo's version is a baked mushroom and chickpea patty, served with lettuce, tomato and mayo in a pita pocket. The side salad comes by default, but it costs you extra to add chips (£7.00 ~ AU$12 without, £8.25 ~ AU$14.16 with). I added chips of course. I also added vegan cheese (£1  ~ AU$1.72) out of the range of add-on options provided (jalapenos, onion rings, hommous, chilli jam etc).

I wasn't that psyched about the pita approach to the burger, but it worked better than I expected. The patty was pretty dense - slighty reminiscent of The Fox veggie burger but a bit less mushy. Throw in some pretty great chips, a slice of vegan cheese that was vaguely melty (I forgot to ask what brand they use) and some salady bits to add some freshness and you've got a pretty satisfying meal.

I really fell in love with Stereo - I wanted to squeeze in a third trip, but there were just too many other temping places to sample around the city. The staff are lovely, the music's great and the whole atmosphere is buzzy without being too noisy or messy (again, this is pretty early in the evening - it might be a bit more intense at 10:00pm). A definite winner.

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Glasgow doesn't seem to have a thriving food-blog scene - in Melbourne there'd be twenty reviews of a place like this. I could only dig up a handful, at Nac Mac Vegan, Squeaky Clean Vegan Bean, i ate all the burgers, Shiny Bubbles, Fat Gay Vegan, and Food and Drink Glasgow.

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Stereo

22-28 Renfield Lane, Glasgow
0141 222 2254

tapas £2.60-3.75 (AU$4.40-6.40), mains £5.25-8.50 (AU$8.90-14.40)
http://www.stereocafebar.com/

Accessibility: The restaurant/bar area is up a flight of stairs, but there's lift access. Once you're up there things are quite well spaced out. Ordering is at the table, while payment is at a high bar. The toilets are a unisex area with reasonably sized cubicles divided into male and female.

July 8-11, 2008: St Andrews

After more than a week of walking and eating and discovering, I was obliged to fulfill my work commitments. First up, I was attending a conference at Scotland's oldest university in St Andrews. This glimpse of the town from the bus station was all I saw of the outside world for a couple of days. I merely oscillated between two of the newer buildings on campus, sleeping and listening, note-taking and occasionally talking, subsisting on catered food. The one break in my temporary routine was watching the rabbits - when I opened the window in my room in the mornings I could usually see a dozen of them, and there were many more on the lawns between our accommodation and meeting rooms.

On the second night I had a chance to wander around town with a colleague I hadn't seen in years. The chilly breeze and grey skies were the perfect setting for the castle and cathedral ruins.

But this is a food blog, isn't it? While the catering was adequate it was nothing to write home about. I did, however, have a lovely meal at the local Bangladeshi and Indian restaurant, Balaka. Their vegetarian thali plate, though outrageously expensive, was delightful. The dahl was one of the best I've eaten, and the spinach curry was studded with the sweetest, softest segments of onion. Though the serving of raita was overly large, I needed a good portion of it to counteract the heat of the third curry!

The Brits are incorrigble - it seems a crime to me that a restaurant like this should be obliged to offer chips as a staple carbohydrate as well as rice.

I didn't have an opportunity to visit St Andrews' most famous landmark, but the town left a pleasant impression on me nonetheless. Though I'm incredibly grateful for the travelling opportunities my job provides, there's always a twinge of regret that I've not been able to get to know these places better.

July 8, 2008: Edinburgh

Tuesday was our last day of shared holiday time, with Cindy heading to St Andrews in the evening and me to Tokyo the next day. We were a bit done with sightseeing, but mustered up the energy (helped by an absurdly gigantic vegie breakfast at some pub near our hostel) to tackle Edinburgh's Camera Obscura.

The Camera Obscura, built in early 1850s, uses a combination of mirrors to project live images of the city onto a white table. It's not particularly technologically sophisticated, but it's still pretty impressive to see live - it's like someone is training a video camera on the streets outside. The mirrors are adjustable, so you get a run through Edinburgh's history as the operator guides the camera across the inner city. It was great fun, and it's well worth ignoring the cheesiness of the exterior and giving it a look.

As well as the camera obscura itself, you get great views across the city from the roof of the building.

Back up the Royal Mile

Across the city to the Firth of Forth

The rest of the building is filled with an array of wacky optical illusions and the like: bendy mirrors, Escher-esque pictures, those frustratingly impossible magic eye 3d pictures, pinhole photography etc etc. Some of it is pretty cool, but it all gets a bit overrun with kids and noise after a while.

By the time we'd found ourselves an internet cafe and had a bit of a sit down, it was time for Cindy to pick up her stuff and head for the train station. This left me camera-less unfortunately, so the rest of my Edinburgh adventures are visually undocumented. This is a particular shame as the first thing I did was tackle the walk up Arthur's Seat - it only takes an hour or so of reasonably strenuous walking, and the rewards are magnificent. Edinburgh is laid out beneath you in one direction, with the Firth in the other. There are some photos on the web here, but they don't do the actual view justice. I took the long way on the walk back down, getting some great views of hovering kestrels, and a few new small birds. Some sort of falcon came flying through at great pace as well - pretty exciting stuff.

When I eventually came down, I realised that I wasn't too far from Kalpna, a vegetarian Indian restaurant that ex-Edinburgh resident Johanna had recommended to us. Despite the exorbitant prices, I couldn't resist ordering a royal thali (otherwise I would have had to choose only one curry from the great menu). It truly was fit for a king - including some pakoras, daal, palak paneer, dam aloo gobi, paneer butter masala, seasonal vegetables, rice, naan, raita and a ricey dessert. Throw in a kingfisher beer and I wandered back to the hostel very, very full and very, very satisfied.

July 7, 2008: Plockton to Edinburgh

We had another half day in Plockton before heading back to Edinburgh. I'd finally run out of enthusiasm for cooked breakfasts, so we both started the day with porridge (with a bit of jam mushed on top).

It was a warming start to the day, and I'm sure my heart appreciated the break from fried eggs.

Our original plan was to spend our last couple of hours in the Plockton hotel enjoying their hospitality and free wireless internet. Alas, the internet was broken, so we were driven back out into nature. Following the recommendation of the hotel staff, we headed for a walk up a track in the northern section of the town. Something about the scenery reminded Cindy of a particular scene in Monkey Island, so she spent the whole stroll singing the midi-style tunes that are eternally lodged in her brain. It really added to the highland ambiance.





The weather was a bit crappy, but the walk was still wonderful. A fitting finale to our couple of days in the highlands. Afterwards, it was back on the train to get back to Edinburgh - more great scenery whizzing by, as well as a handful of new birds for me (buzzards, pheasants and some eider, not to mention kestrels hovering in almost every field).


By the time we made it back to Edinburgh, checked in and got changed, it was time to go and find some dinner. David Bann's was the venue of choice - a slightly upmarket vegie restaurant near the middle of town. The menu was chock-full of impressive sounding dishes: a dozen sides/starters and about ten main meals. We started off with vegan Thai fritters: aromatic, spicy fritters of smoked tofu, peas, ginger, green chilli, lime sesame and potato. Served with fresh mango chutney and a plum sauce. These were a highlight: nice and spicy, beautifully textured and with two great condiments included.

After much pondering, we eventually settled on our mains: harissa roasted aubergine, aduki and sweet pepper for Cindy (with a side of chunky chips) and a chilli and smoked cheese tortilla tartlet with chocolate sauce for me. In what was becoming a theme of the holiday, Cindy enjoyed her meal until she looked over enviously at mine - again I'd picked the menu winner. Still, the beany, eggplanty filling stuffed into the sweet peppers was a pretty satisfying meal.


My meal was outstanding: layers of flavours, with a spiced tomato sauce, smoked cheese, fresh guacamole, a variety of beans and a selection of vegies (celeriac, carrot and peppers). All served up on a layer of mashed sweet potato and coriander and the star of the show: a chocolate and tequila sauce.

With such wonderful courses behind us, there was no doubt that we'd be giving the desserts a shot. Bizarrely we didn't order up the dessert assortment plate - I was keen, but Cindy couldn't go past the lime and ginger parfait (with meringue and chocolate drambuie ganache), so we just ordered a single dish each.

The parfait had strong lime and ginger flavours, but was a little bit firmer than Cindy would have liked ("not silky enough" apparently). It combined delectably with the meringue and ganache though.

I got sucked in by the tradition option on the menu: Scottish strawberry pannacotta with a homemade whisky and raspberry chocolate. My memory is a little hazy (either due to the time that has since passed or the bottle of wine that Cindy and I 'shared'), so I'm not able to make specific comments on the pannacotta. The chocolate was dark, rich and flavoursome though - the whisky was surprisingly strong and combined well with the raspberry and chocolate.

It was a fine dinner - one of the best of our trip, and more generally one of the better vegetarian restaurants we've dined in over the years. Anyone swinging through Edinburgh should stop by and check it out.