Ron Mackenna

I HAVE issues with the Kirkhouse Inn, not least that they have possibly the world’s most annoying table booking system.

The restaurant is slap-bang in the middle of Stirling, down some steep hills, windy wynds, and across those cobbles they seem to have everywhere. It’s busy as we slide into a big booth near the back, take in the decor (you don’t come here for the decor) and pore over the the three-across, five-down menu.

Sole Club, Argyle Street, Glasgow As in all the children of Six By Nico restaurants I’ve been to over the years, and I can tire of their constant reinvention, the commitment to highly professional presentation does not mean they forget the stuff’s still gotta taste good.

I’LL crack the jokes, is what I suspect the server guy’s thinking all-to-himself after I respond with a somewhat obvious quip on hearing the price of the bottle of Mexican coke that I already clutch in my pudgy hand.

It’s one of these special Glasgow days when this end of Dumbarton Road, way out in the tenement boonies since you ask, is being given the full Holywood tint by blazing sunshine and long, low very golden Ray-Ban rays.

La Masa, Renfield Street, Glasgow: The table bears the scars of a meal just finished. Slurped cocktails, burst tacos, you’ve seen the movie. Burnished ceramic dishes with saucy smears, random scatters of fine diced onion, erratic and tiny tomato cubes and some de-corned cobs languishing as lazily as you would if your work for the night was done.

What do the Chinese people order, I ask the waitress while looking round conspiratorially at the other customers on this dusty Glasgow lunchtime amid the faded 1970s splendour of the Savoy Centre.

During a kind of perfect Saturday afternoon which has involved doing the square root of, well, you know, I’ll end up buying a Strawberry Bakewell and a Raspberry Crumble for later and being offered, there and then, at My Home Bakery hugely discounted and juicy looking chicken and basil mayo sandwiches. It being that closing up time of the day.

Piggs Bruntsfield, Edinburgh: It comes to me during a fat food critic moment pretty early on in this meal that the genius of Piggs surely can’t be the food, or the menu, both appearing surprisingly ho-hum. So it has to be the service.

Brett, Great Western Road, Glasgow: Sit, like me, up at the counter watching the show unfold in that open kitchen, mere inches away, an altar in chrome and shiny stainless steel. Magnificent slabs of steak forked on the gas-charcoal grill, smoke rising, flames crackling, plates being plated, juicy aromas going barrelling by, oui-chefs pinging to and fro, it’s an eat-o-rama-plus.