48 .............................. Friday, January 9, 2015 1SM

Something for the WeekendSomething2

TamCow

an’s CHILL OUT . . . inside restaurant

A LORRY carrying copies ofRoget’s Thesaurus crashed onthe M8 yesterday, shedding itsload across the carriageway.

Onlookers were said to bestunned, bewildered, dumbfounded,astonished, shocked, flabbergasted,startled, speechless and amazed . . .

My own Thesauraus is a cheap versionand it’s terrible. It’s also terrible. Reallyterrible.

Could have used Roget’s help whenwe visited The Grumpy Goat.

What else, we wondered, could thisbar/restaurant have been called?

The Petulant Pony? The DisgruntledDog? The Sullen Serpent? The IrritableIguana? Or, in keeping with the Scottishtheme, what about The Crabbit Cow?

Located just two minutes from theKelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Ivisited this Glasgow gastropub with mypals Bill and Joe who, coincidentally,are a proper pair of grumpy old goats(we hadn’t even been shown to ourtable before Joe asked for the music tobe turned down).

Last time I reviewed a gastropub —cue the Vietnam-style flashbacks to theGrassmarket in Edinburgh — I fearedgetting gastroenteritis, but the only dan-ger to our health at The Grumpy Goatwas severe frostbite.

I’m guessing the goat was grumpybecause it was feckin’ freezing?

Our server assured us the heating hadbeen on overnight, but I think the nightshe was talking about was back inMarch 1974.

Quick call to heating engineerand it could be about perfectA bit of body heat might have helped.

Alas, the three of us were the only cus-tomers on this bleak, mid-winter Mon-day afternoon.

Bizarrely, the toilets were totallytoasty. As my mate Bill (who neverremoved his scarf all afternoon) joked:“I wish I was constipated . . . ”

It’s a terrible cliche in this game tosuggest you could have eaten your din-ner off the floor but, in the case of thetropical toilets at The Grumpy Goat, I’dhave given it a go.

Still, never mind. A quick call to adecent heating engineer and I reckon thiscracking wee place will be just aboutperfect. One glance at the menus immed-iately put a rosy glow on our cheeks.

The set menu, for example, is just £12for two courses and, based on the stan-dard of food we enjoyed, I think that’struly exceptional value for money.

Better still, it’s available every day (yep,including weekends) from 12 to 6pm.

And it gets even better. If you’re enroute to the nearby SSE Hydro, showyour tickets to a member of staff andyou’ll get a free glass of wine or pint oflager with your meal.

Considering the price of bevvy in thewest end of Glasgow, I have no hesita-tion in awarding The Grumpy Goat abonus point (6/5) for outstanding valuefor money.

(Talking of drink, The Grumpy Goatwas previously a big Rangers pub calledthe Stirling Castle. Maybe they shouldhave called the restaurant Hello Hello,We Are The Billy Goats . . . )

The a la carte menu is also good value(we enjoyed a four-course feast withdrinks and two bottles of wine for 40quid a head) and, while there are nostarters as such, just about everything isavailable as a small or large dish. Perfect.

We warmed up (literally) with a bowlof chilli pitta chips with spicy humousand tzatziki dips which were so tastyeven Bill’s double-dipping couldn’t putus off (honestly, and to think this manlives in Bothwell).

Our “starters” were excellent — andthe so-called small dishes were far fromit. I had the shin of beef stew. Slow-

cooked to perfection in a delicously

New

Music

By JimGellatly

low their Junk EP with theDross EP on February 9. Thefirst single from it, Slammer,is already going down astorm and was playlisted onBBC Radio 6 Music.Tuff Love appear with

Honeyblood and C Duncanat Sneaky Pete’s in Edin-burgh on February 1 then

launch The Dross EP with a gigat Nice N Sleazy in Glasgow onFebruary 6.More: See www.lostmap.com/tuff-lovel Jim presents Drivetime onXFM Scotland, Monday toFriday 4-7pm.www.xfm.co.ukwww.jimgellatly.com

TUFF LOVEWHO: Julie Eisenstein (guitar/vocals), Suse Bear (bass/drums/vocals)WHERE: Glasgow.FOR FANS OF: Pixies, Elas-tica, The Velvet Underground.JIM SAYS: My pal Vic Gallowayfrom BBC Radio Scotlanddescribed Tuff Love as “perfectpop music”. I can’t disagree.They remind me of the sort of

indie-pop bands I used to goand see when I started goingto gigs in the late 80s. Stuff likeearly Primitives, Shop Assis-tants and The WeddingPresent. Raw, jangly guitarmusic, packed full of energy.Indeed, they wouldn’t sound

out of place on the seminalNME cassette C86.I don’t want to give the

impression that TuffLove are stuck in thepast, though. It’s verymuch a sound for now.Indeed, the girls wouldbe too young toremember these 80sacts I refer to.Suse said: “I sup-

pose that’s a coinci-dence. I only heard ofthem recently. Theysound super cool and it’s nicewe remind you of them. Wedidn’t really mean to sound likeany band in particular, but wedefinitely wanted to sound likea three-piece guitar/bass/drums band.”What they create is a won-

derfully lo-fi sound, much of itrecorded in Suse’s flat. TuffLove have hooked up with Lost

Map Records. The duo fol-low their Junk EP with the

launch The Dross EP with a gigat Nice N Sleazy in Glasgow on

I don’t want to give theimpression that TuffLove are stuck in thepast, though. It’s verymuch a sound for now.Indeed, the girls wouldbe too young toremember these 80s

Suse said: “I sup-pose that’s a coinci-dence. I only heard ofthem recently. Theysound super cool and it’s nicewe remind you of them. Wedidn’t really mean to sound like

LIKE C86 WITHMODERN EDGE