Gillian Glover

Published on Thursday 16 March 2006 01:53

Gamba

225a West George Street, Glasgow

(0141-572 0899)

Not a bad week on the health scare front, all told. Two cups of coffee a day could kill you if your DNA happens to be knitted with a strange Arabica-sensitive strand. The French are so concerned about bird flu wiping out the still-feathered foie gras stocks, they've permitted Scottish beef to come on its holidays to Normandy again - provided each animal knows all the words to the Marseillaise. No. Sorry, that's only if the livestock want to join the Foreign Legion. But, as every Belted Galloway knows, join the Foreign Legion and you get beaten up by Eastern European heifers on the run from international trial for crimes against soya products. Or that's as I understood it from my last conversation with a cow. But then, my Omega-3 fatty acid stores may be dwindling, which a new report suggests could put me at increased risk of Alzheimer's. So if I want to grasp what is really happening to the chickens, the geese and the cows I should eat more fish.

I suspect you may now be reaching for a tin of sardines yourself. Add tins of pilchards and a poached salmon, and that first paragraph will suddenly make perfect sense. You will also be able to explain why EFor the virtues of fish are almost limitless. Low calorie, zero carbohydrate marvels of complex nutrition. And so politically correct - give or take the occasional cod war. And no, there's no need to discuss whaling. Now that you've had your pilchards, you will recall that whales aren't fish.

So when I suggested to my sister-in-law that we dine at Gamba, Glasgow's celebrated seafood restaurant, I'm sure her enthusiasm related only to the proposed meal, and not the hope that my imminent intellectual collapse might be postponed by the laying on of haddock.

The only table available that Saturday evening was at 5:15pm, that kiddies' tea-time slot which sounds so much more appealing when called "pre-theatre". In fact, after a hard afternoon's trek round the shops, it is a very pleasant time to eat, though I couldn't help noticing that the other diners who had assembled at Gamba for the early shift did mostly share a hair colour. White. Maybe they had also heard about the anti-Alzheimer benefits of a fish diet, or maybe, perish the thought, we had all slipped into the twilight zone - that economy space which Florida's retired hoards of Golden Girls like to call the Earlybird Special.

Who cares? If this is senility, it's certainly got my vote, because at 5pm Gamba luxuriates in an atmosphere of serene expectation. The warm terracotta walls, smart high-backed chairs and tiled floor can still show off their elegant symmetry - without the blur and clangour of full-tilt service in a full-to-the-hilt space. So we luxuriated in a booth designed for four while perusing the menu. The "Gamba Early" selection offers two courses for 15 and three for 18, but we decided we deserved the full la carte with its enticing array of ten starters and ten mains - as opposed to the austere three each on the smaller menu.

Naturally, I wanted the fish soup (8.95). I am frankly, albeit intermittently, addicted to Gamba's fish soup; I even bought their cookery book five years ago to discover its secrets. And the recipe looks simple enough: white fish, crab meat, garlic, ginger, coriander, onions, brandy ... but I have singularly failed to reproduce the textured opulence and tang of the real McCoy. That evening it came garnished with little prawn dumplings, as well as my envious gaze, though I couldn't fault the spring flavours of the crayfish, roast pepper and avocado salad I had ordered myself (9.95). However, the other Mrs G promised to leave me a taste in the bottom of the Villeroy & Boch mini-tureen in which the coral-tinted nectar is served. But she "forgot". As her spoon action grew as feverish as a violinist playing the Flight of the Bumble Bee, I could see that a new addict had emerged from the long shadow of childhood tinned soup.

She consolidated her enthusiasm with whole roast seabass (18.85) while I chose baked fillet of cod (22.95) in shameful disregard of the perilous state of the North Sea stocks. Maybe this one had swum over from Nova Scotia: its dress sense was very international - a low-slung sarong of curried mussels, leeks and peas. For some reason I expected this to be creamy and Indian-spiced, but it was tomato-based with Thai spicing; the fish itself in its fresh, snowy prime, but after years of suffering fish cooked by heavy-handed Greeks, I've grown to dislike the combination of tomato sauce and white fish. So this did not ring all my bells - but that is hardly the chef's fault. Across the table Mrs G attacked her sea bass with the same vigour she had lavished on the soup. Sunblush tomatoes featured strongly here too, along with grilled peppers and balsamic vinegar, so the result was richly Mediterranean, which suited her perfectly. So she finished off my cod while I finished off her wine. Fair's fair.

For pudding we ordered warm carrot cake with marmalade ice-cream (5.95) and iced white chocolate and pistachio parfait with fresh raspberries (same price). The warm carrot cake is a much-demanded speciality of the restaurant, but for my taste it is too heavy on the cinnamon. I preferred the icy glamour of the parfait - smooth and silky as a 1930s evening gown, though rather more substantial. The sharpness of the raspberries made a perfect contrast.

Two bracing coffees, and at only 7:30pm we were replete and ready for a night on the town. Or a snooze on the train on the way home. I'll leave you to guess which.

THE Bill

Dinner for two, 72.60, excluding drinks