The Tasty Byte @ Night and a pub atmosphere

189 Tasty Byte @ Night was our destination on Saturday night, a very nice little bistro that serves as a cafe by day and turns into a rather cosey little restaurant at night, complete with resident chef and friendly waitress. Ka and myself had decided to treat ourselves to a meal and travelled into Glasgow, via the trusty Number 20, starving. Upon entering we were greeted by the pleasant lady/owner/waitress who informed us quickly, without delay and with a probably regularly rehearsed speech that they did not hold a license to sell booze.
I don't think I'd ever been to a BYOB restaurant before. In fact, when the waitress greeted us talking of a BYOB I paused, momentarily puzzled, believing it to be some sort of street language, Urban Dance acronym or some kind of new fangled text word.
As Ka prepared to sit down at our given table anyway, I froze, alarm bells ringing in my head. No wine? No beer? Not even a shandy? Is there still time to walk out without causing a fuss? Can we turn on our heels and escape before she sees our faces in any great detail? Damn. Yep, she's giving us plenty of eye contact. She's seen our faces and knows what we look like. There is no escape now. After a brief moment of panic, I wondered why I was suddenly thinking like an alcoholic and shouldered my jacket off. Of course I can go without booze. We don't feel the need to drink with meals at home so why should we sitting in this pleasant little restaurant?
The lady went on to say;
"For those diners who do turn up without and do wish a drink with their meal, we do have an arrangement with the Pot Still across the road. Most people nip over there and buy a bottle over the bar. You could always do that if you wish?"
Feeling a slight but sudden breeze as she finished, she looked down to see an empty shoogling, wooden chair, where I had been sitting.
Although Saturday was the first I'd heard of it, The Pot Still is one of Glasgow's most famous whiskey pubs. On entering the bar you immediately see the well stacked bar to your left, covered and surrounded by bottles of all shapes and sizes, each filled with their own particular shade of amber, ginger or wood coloured spirit. One of those old bars that looks just as how you'd imagine a medieval Potion Maker's Laboratory to be like. The wooden panelled furniture, together with the old decor, the racks of bottles and the instantly recognisable regulars shouting and guffawing at each other, milling around the bar immediately reminded me of the Auldhouse bar, where I used to work as a student, not to mention more than a few other whiskey bars I'd been in over the years. That great, undefinable quality some pubs have. The pub atmosphere. Full of character and charm.
As one of the locals belched in my face, I ordered a couple of Budvar beers and then ran back over the street to the Tasty Byte to be greeted by my lovely wife, patiently sitting at the table, where I'd abandoned her.
Salmon was the order of the day, both Ka and myself going for different options after starters of prawn cocktail and soup. The chef even cooked up a special tagliatelle especially for Ka since she had to refuse half the menu due to her pregnant, dietary needs. Afterwards, for some real over indulgence, we went for dessert. Cheese cake and Ka went for the chocolate fudge cake. Possibly the best cheese cake I'd tasted in years and certainly the best bill I've had for such a great meal in years.
We promised the waitress good reviews on 5pm.co.uk and left crossing the road once more to a considerably busier Pot Still where we spent the rest of the night relaxing upstairs, sitting back, enjoying it's surprisingly great music.
After taking our seats I realised one of the guys, sitting at another table nearby, closely resembled a worker from the Auldhouse. Unfortunately I wasn't 100% sure. Tempting as it was to go up to the guy, interupt his conversation with his mate, and ask if he was indeed, 'Stuart who used to work behind the bar in the Auldhouse, but had now put on the beef', I considered better of it. He obviously had not recognised me sitting at the next table and, knowing me, it could only end in disaster, or at least, embarrassment as the guy would look up blankly from his whiskey, ask who I was and why such a weirdo would interupt his conversation with his mate.
A pair of ridiculously drunk middle aged couples also stoted in at one point and plonked themselves at the next table. They sat arguing, joking and then arguing again whilst yelling at a pair of amorous young snoggers in the corner. Unfortunately this was not Ka and myself but a couple of a slightly, dare I say it, younger age. After they had successfully scared that younger couple away another soon came up and took their place, the girl with a considerably shorter skirt than the last. The guy nearest me passed me his 3D cinema glasses with a nudge.
"Use the glasses man, use the glasses!" he was yelling at me as he winked towards the girls' legs. Nodding and laughing politely, I wondered what would possess these guys' wives to fall out with them. Around ten minutes later, this guy nudged me again, winking towards the girls' legs.
"Use the glasses man, use the glasses" he mock whispered, grinning. He'd obviously forgotten he'd already performed that joke. Either that or he thought it was funnier than I did and worth a second shot.
Did he know how 3D worked? Where did he get the glasses anyway? I doubted that these two drunken couples had just stumbled out of 'Avatar the Special Edition'?
It was then that I realised there weren't even any lens in these black spectacle frames. I hope they hadn't been wearing them through their Avatar viewing. Though it would account for the fact the four of them were sitting there rocking from side to side, their eyes staring dazedly into the pub's atmosphere.

A round in Mosquito

Kenny stood in the centre of the Mosquito bar in Glasgow on Saturday night practising his golf swing. After pulling on his newly bought Pringle jumper, polo shirt and cap he found a small clearing in the centre of the bar and readied himself for a shot. Dad had taken the family out to dinner in the excellent La Laterna Restaurant on Hope Street and treated us all to a slap up three course meal with a good few glasses of wine, finishing with a liqueur which Kenny ordered with a flourish of the hand receiving only an nod from the miserable looking waiters. Perhaps taking slight assumptions as Dad was picking up the bill.
Mosquito was busy, the clientele it's usual mix of ages, from students to older blokes, like me. Ka, Kenny and myself headed in after leaving Mum, Dad and Lynsey to jump on a 66 and met up with Andy for a few drinks. It was then that Kenny decided to pull on his newly bought Golf gear and start practising his golf swing. His shot was not up to much, probably due to the fact he was using an invisible club and ball, but the Dr. Pepper shot was better. A Dr. Pepper was a glass of Amaretto dunked in a half pint tumbler of coke. Very nice to drink and not in the least unpleasant but for some reason we had to down it in one which I did not quite manage and deserved a slagging for. After three Kenny and Andy left Ka and myself standing outside Mosquito after some drunken goodbye cuddles and danced off down Bath Street with their carrier bags of golf jumpers. We called a taxi and unsurprisingly Raymond from the Auldhouse came out to pick us up. Raymond was one of the regulars from the Auldhouse Arms, when I worked there, and now drives a taxi having rescued us from the chaotic, post club hour, streets of Glasgow after a night out on many an occasion recently. As we waited outside the Kings Theatre, watching the road for a Mondeo, a countless number of near collisions between taxis, other passing vehicles and chip eating drunkards entertained me. A growing throng of passengerless taxis piled up as they turned the corner from Elmbank Street swerving, honking and growling as the Glaswegian mini skirted zombies milled around the kerbs of the theatre. Luckily within ten minutes Raymond sped up in his big Ford, various bodies getting knocked to the side as he pulled over after spotting us. Ka and myself dived into the back seat as a few members of the surrounding crowd clocked on to the waiting taxi and we sped off on to the Kingston Bridge. A bad choice of place to get our taxi, Raymond told us. I must owe him a few drinks now for the amount of times he has rescued us from the streets of a Saturday night. I never heard if Kenny and Andy made their midday teeing off timeslot...

Volatile thoughts and hot ice cream

Hot ice cream?! That's impossible! Ice cream withstanding oven temperatures?! How can this be?! The answer, my friends, is Baked Alaska. A layer of ice cream protected in a meringue shell atop a fruit and sponge base. A dessert, I like to believe, only a few can successfully recreate. My very own multi skilled mother being one of them. After much shouting, blending, stirring and beating Mum emerged from the kitchen with a Baked Alaska which only just made it to the dinner table after a failure of kitchen blending tools. Thankfully Dad came to the rescue in building the new advanced blender at the last minute, a new piece of equipment that had lay dormant in the kitchen cupboard until last night, when it answered the emergency call. Mum is still bemoaning the breakdown of her old blender - her original number one blender and presumably this was why she has never used the new device considering the original, the best. I asked her if she buried it in the back garden and surprisingly she nodded with a yes. A vision came into my head of her holding a service for it, a gathering in the garden, singing 'Blend us together lord'.
Before all this Ka and myself had the laziest Sunday Ever. Nothing. Sheer, unadulterated, nothing was done. No gym, no painting, no shopping, no visits, no internet, zilch. Merely the odd chapter of my latest read. We did not get to bed till half six this morning mind you getting back to the flat at approximately half four only to find the living room overrun by Ka and three of her mates after a work night out, all lounging around the couches drinking vodkas, eating pringles and generally putting the world to rights.
Before this Chaz and myself had been in Glasgow, starting off in the Merchant City and ending up in Glasgow's Royal Exchange Square having a catch up over some drinks where discussions got slightly dark and deep with subjects such as life, death, religion, Richard Dawkins and Sambuca. Well, the sambuca wasn't so much talked about, just drank, quickly and sent my stomach into strange, volatile movements with which it slowly recovered after some medicinal vodkas. A trip to the casino followed and then a taxi journey home with Big Raymond from the Auldhouse at the wheel. Raymond was one of the locals from the Auldhouse bar, the famed small country pub I used to work in through my student years, and we done a bit of catching up with him on the way home. Once again the main subject of the conversation being the cheery "who was now dead and who wasn't" like that rather melancholy game they used to play on Radio 1 when listeners had to phone in and tell Simon Mayo if a certain famous person was dead or alive - a major kick up the arse to any work quiet, listening celebrities that were accused of having passed away.
Obviously, since the events of last week, the subjects of death and loss have never been far from my mind. Hopefully thoughts and conversations will get a little cheerier with time.

Auldhouse folk

Off work this week and have just finished another spot of DIY home improvement. Tim Allen would be proud. Yep, you guessed it. More painting - but not of the canvas variety.
Apart from that I've been spending most of my time suffering from a cold. Olbused to the hilt and drinking hot drinks regularly while the skin of my red nose crumbles away. Very attractive. Yesterday I very much lazed about after the weekend which included a visit to Troon on Sunday, visiting Tom and Linda with Gran and a meal out in East Kilbride on Saturday night in Chows, a great little Chinese restaurant in the old village.
We decided to roll out the barrel and go down to the Village in a cab just so we could both partake in a little glass of wine with dinner. The taxi pulled up outside and as Ka and myself clambered into the car's backseat I realised I recognised the driver. It was Raymond, or Big Raymondo, as he was sometimes known, from the Auldhouse. He is not literally from Auldhouse, he was a regular in the Auldhouse Bar, in the pub I used to work in through my student days and a little beyond. Auldhouse is a very small village just north of EK and has a pub, a school and a small assortment of cottages and houses. So little houses and cottages in fact that the only people who came to the Auldhouse for a drink were all from down the road in EK. Anyway, both pleasantly surprised to see one another, we had a quick ten minute catch up as he drove us down to the Village. You know the kind. How are you doing? Where are you working now? You'll never believe who is dead? etc. Whenever I meet these kind of people with Ka and chat away, I sometimes forget to introduce her leaving her to guess who the hell they are. She quite often gets it right and before I can say anything on departing from the meeting she'd nod and say 'Auldhouse folk'. The majority of the folk up there were all regulars and mostly a good bunch and a good laugh, making the shifts pass a little easier after days full of uni. Wallace Cameron the mandolin player with his cigars and Bunnahabhain, On eyed Alan, Wee Raymond the pipe smoker, Statler and Waldorf (can't remember their real names), Scott and his crazy wife, Nigel the mustachioed teacher from across the road and loads more. A lot of characters which I could sit and writie about till the Auldhouse cows came home.
After yet another promise to one day visit Auldhouse again and show Ka the wonders of the old pub we jumped out the taxi and into the sunny evening in the Village. I've always known it as the Village but these days there are more and more people calling it the Old Village as if there is a new one somewhere else in EK. It is the oldest part of East Kilbride, where it all started around eighty years ago. From then the Village grew and mutated, spreading out over the surrounding lands and in 1947 become one of the official 'new towns' of Scotland with the growth in Industrial development and the town's divisions into seperate residential areas (Westwood, Calderwood, etc). One of the oldest buildings in the whole town is one of my Dad's haunts. The Montgomerie Arms. We popped into it after the chinese for a wee drink on our way up the road for the bus and were pleasantly surprised by the friendly, lively atmosphere. There are three main sections in the 'Monte', the main downstairs bar, the side lounge bar and the upstairs cocktail bar. My Dad occasionally drops by on a Saturday evening, drinking in the downstairs lounge area with his mates and I made sure I had a quick scout about just incase he was around. Recognising a few of his mates I nodded in greeting but moved on upstairs. The upstairs is called a cocktail bar but I'm not sure why. The only difference I can see between the upstairs and downstairs is that it has a carpet and a few more cushioned benches. With no cushioned benches left we sat at the bar and as I stood, looking around I spotted more than a few familiar faces from who knows where. Folk I knew to see but could not remember from where. Probably folk from the Auldhouse days.

The long way up

My legs are a little achey today as yesterday Harry and myself climbed Ben Arthur, or the Cobbler, as it's most popularly known. A good walk, 884m (2946 ft) in height and and 5.5 miles in all, though it seems longer. Harry is the expert when it comes to the hillwalking having completed all the Munros south of Fort William, as well as walks in New Zealand and Sri Lanka to name a few. Unfortunately I am a mere amateur. The last time I was on the hills was around three years ago on Ben Vorlich. Harry led us into Arrochar in the morning, the small town that sits on Loch Long, and from the small car park at the foot of the hill we set off. Unfortunately for us it was a very grey, misty day and the clouds hung low over the peaks around Loch Long but the rain held off and the temperature remained pretty warm, with only a slight smir of rain in the air, making it a pleasant climb up the front side of the hill.

We took the harder route up over the rocks and burn descending on its southern side. The mist held fast though and the views and skyline were still completely cloaked at the top of the mountain. The rocks were also quite slippy so, once at the top, we had to opt out of 'threading the needle' which is involves crawling through a hole in the summit rock formation from the north side and climbing up on to the very highest peak, a metre length rock standing over a 100 ft drop. The rocks were just too slippy for any foolhardy attempts.

We rested at the foot of the needle and had our lunch talking with some fellow walkers, who were taking a break from Fir Park. After our short break, Harry led the way down the northern side of the mountain, not hitting the proper path until around a quarter of the way down. We passed many a walker on the way down, all following the walkers code of pleasantly greeting one another as we stomped along on our various routes to and fro. I was even surprised to meet someone I knew from back in the Auldhouse days when I worked behind the bar. Alastair was sitting rolling a cigarette, having a break with his son, his camera tripod sitting at his side. He was going up the hill to try and get some photos. On the trek I managed to get a few shots on the hillside myself but it was just unfortunate the views from the peak were mere cloud. I'll probably revisit it at some point in the near future and try and get a decent view next time (I'll be putting the rest of the photos I did take on reidnet's photo album shortly). As we descended it looked as if the mist was clearing a one point only for it to quickly drift over again and submerge the top half of the hill once more. Even though the views from the top were poor there's nothing quite like a good walk in the hills. It's strange to think that these hills, and fantastic landscapes, sit just an hour outside the chaotic city scenes of Glasgow and home.
In the evening Ka and myself headed to the Shawfield Stadium, for the first time, to the dog racing, and to meet up with Claire and Martin and the rest of the mad squad to celebrate Claire turning the big 3 - 0 . There was also the hope of maybe winning some money at the same time. Claire's brother, William, had hired her a wee surprise. After we arrived and hooked up with Cheryl, Roslyn and Aaron inside, Claire, Martin and some of the others turned up after a few glasses of champagne on the Scooby Doo Bus! All drinking champagne except the birthday girl, herself, of course, who is preggers. Scooby snacks have certainly changed since I last watched the cartoon. Needless to say some fun was had, but alas, Ka and myself were unlucky with all our bets and didn't win anything. Claire's Dad managed to win over fifty quid, Jane managed to win a good thirty pounds but our dogs were pipped at the post (or finishing line in this case) everytime. Can't win 'em all. We all had a good time though and enjoyed the night.