monadh
The family at the table next to us in Monadh Kitchen spans three generations. It’s one of the grandparent’s birthday, a landmark one perhaps. There are presents, then negotiations with small children about what they’re going to eat. The kid’s menu isn’t one of those exercises in cynical defeatism, but it does include chicken goujons. I’ll bet they’re made from scratch on the premises; I know that the chicken here is free-range because I checked. The elders take the conservative path: prawn cocktail, steak, duck. The middle generation orders more adventurously. The kids dunk homemade mozzarella fingers in tomato sauce and demolish spaghetti Bolognese. Everyone is served, solicitously and charmingly, by young waitresses endowed with heaps of west of Scotland affability. It’s a convivial, warm family occasion.
Monadh is precisely the sort of comfortable, accommodating outfit that thrives in affluent suburbs like Bearsden. The decor is quietly expensive, but not off-puttingly ‘special occasion’ or exclusive. Nothing too inner city or outré, swanky enough to feel like a treat, one up on the local competition. ‘Traditional Scottish food with a contemporary twist’? A cliché that doesn’t fill me with confidence. There are little twists then there’s a little twisted, Sainsbury’s style. Please don’t let there be a mini-Heston Blumenthal in the kitchen.
From the off there’s evidence of wise procurement in the form of handmade bread from the local Honey Bee bakery in Milngavie, and top quality butter. Cream of asparagus soup, a little taster, not too thick, encapsulates the very essence of the spears. This being peak asparagus season, I choose it again for my starter. Juicy, fresh green and white spears come from the Wye Valley, the UK’s asparagus top spot. Rapeseed oil mayonnaise, and a large, ochre smoked duck egg yolk cooked to perfection, layer on calm, velour textures, while toasted hazelnuts pick up the nutty note of the blanched white spears. This dish feels so right for the time of year. Hand-dived Isle of Mull scallops are also treated with the respect they deserve in a starter where they sit of a podium of crisply fried shredded pork, atop an velveteen cauliflower purée, with two swirls of smoked roe emulsion sitting at a jaunty angle, the plate glistening with green herb oil, strewn with fronds of dill and leggy samphire. If this sounds like overkill, trust me, it isn’t.
A main course of stone bass exemplifies the same sound judgement and sheer mastery of professional skills: a lovely piece of fish, amber-fried tarragon gnocchi with just the right degree of elasticity, fennel that’s fondant to the point of sweet surrender, one chunky fresh langoustine made into a luxurious scampi, a swirl of shell-pink bisque, an emollient, gentle-mannered aioli. A main course of Ardunan Farm chicken serves up the white in a ballotine-like treatment alongside the naturally tastier leg meat. Leaves of wild garlic bring their colour and allium aroma to the plate, and there’s more of the sumptuous asparagus in a pea, carrot and lettuce fricassée, all moistened by sauce that tastes as if made using the roasting juices.
Chocolate cranachan? A traditional dish radically subverted. In an open-mouthed cocktail glass there’s a relatively modest amount of lightly whipped, whisky-spiked cream, jam-packed with oat granola, honeycomb (the sugary sort, not the beehive sort), dark chocolate drops, heaps of fresh raspberries, tart raspberry coulis, with a punchy raspberry jelly below. Two daringly thin rolled chocolate wafers stick out from it like swizzle sticks in a cocktail, balancing a swirl of chocolate in the shape of Saturn’s rings. It looks pretty spectacular. Blood orange and coconut cake, comforting, eggy, moist with nut, is less of an attention-seeker, but oh so pretty, alongside mango in other forms- sorbet, thick purée, chewy fruit leather. None of this is cloying.
To be frank, in an area like Bearsden you could probably get away with serving pretty average, pretty conservative, pretty unexceptional food at city centre prices providing you understand the formula required. So it comes as a very pleasant surprise that the cooking here is way, way better than I’d expect.
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