The street food experts from Bar Soba are taking over the Glasgow Restaurant Festival spiegeltent for the Pop-Up Dining closing party on 17th April. The first celebration of the city’s leading chefs has seen food collaborations, menu innovations and some outstanding dishes.
Glasgowist spoke to Bar Soba’s Executive chef Nik Biok.
Glasgowist: What was your first reaction when you heard about the Glasgow Restaurant Festival?
Nik Biok: My first reaction was to think about how Glasgow’s restaurant scene has evolved, even in the last three years. There was the little pop-up restaurants around the Commonwealth Games, then last year there were even more pop-ups and now they are going a step further and really solidifying this regular, annual food festival element which I think is only a good thing for the city.
It really does build on the street food which was such a success during the Commonwealth Games.
Absolutely. Around the corner from where I live – I live on St. Andrew’s Square, just off the Saltmarket – and around there is The Fish Plaice which is a small, local fishmongers and they put together a pop-up restaurant during the Commonwealth Games and I saw how well that did.
The spiegeltent they’ve got down at the Glasgow Restaurant Festival now is fantastic – it is just really taking things up a notch to another level.
Street food is pretty central to Bar Soba’s outlook..
It is, it’s our heart and soul. Everything we do on our menu is try to recapture the same flavours and elements that you get from street food in Southeast Asia and do it as honestly as possible.
It’s not trying to rework it or pull the dish apart so you can no longer visually see it like it would be on the streets of Bangkok or make it taste differently, it’s trying to make it authentic as possible.
Do you notice a bit of a different vibe between your venue in the West End and your places in the city centre?
Well, I suppose the West End has a bit of a different demographic in the sense that it is more student based for us. I think the Merchant City is very similar to what we get in Mitchell Lane. It tends to not be just one age-group, it tends to be an open spread, everything from 18 year olds to families to pensioners come in for a meal. It’s quite a cross-section we get in those two venues.
Has Glasgow’s tastes got more adventurous in recent years?
I first started working in Glasgow in 1996 or 1997…
Different city back then.
Yeah it’s completely different. I think I was one of the first contemporary establishments to use lemongrass and I remember myself and a fellow chef John Quigley who now has Red Onion, we used to bond together over trying to find lime leaf and lemongrass in Glasgow. Now you would think nothing of seeing that in any restaurant, on any menu. So, it has changed quite dramatically.
I think the good thing is it has changed in part because of the increased availability of more exotic ingredients and in part because people have begun to understand just how good quality Scottish produce actually is. That could be seafood, dairy, meats or something like the mushrooms and raspberries when they are in season.
I think being part of the Scottish restaurant scene that half of it has been appreciating what you have here at home.
Does that encourage you to try new things with the menu?
The thing about the menu at Bar Soba – I first worked for this company about ten years ago – and I think now that the menu really is as authentic as you would get in parts of Asia because our customers are willing to have those truly strong flavours, that little hit of chili, those hot, sour, sweet and salty flavours and people really do enjoy it.
How much does your relationship with Glasgow and Scottish food producers inform what is possible if you are trying to put together a taste of Asia?
It starts and finishes with your suppliers. You need to have a good relationship with them and we work at rotating our menu as items come in and out of season. Every restaurant should be working with the seasons.
So what are you actually doing at the Glasgow Restaurant Festival?
We are the closing night of the Pop-Up Dining on 17th April!
We are doing a Taste of Asia platter so that when you come in, there are ten components on the platter and these range from a traditional Northern Samatran snapper and mussel curry to some Japanese dishes and some Thai dishes.
You get some Asian starters, some noodle dishes and some curry dishes. We’re doing sticky Shanghai pork belly. We’re doing the exact same concept of a ten item platter but with vegetarian dishes as well.
This is a chance to showcase Glasgow chefs, do you think there should there be more of that in the city?
I do, considering Glasgow has such a great size of the city centre with the ability to walk from St. George’s Cross right down to the Merchant City in the space of about 15 minutes. It has this lovely compact area where there is always a lot of people and I think having more street food actually on the street, not just the festival, but as an actually ongoing element.
Office workers in the city centre should be able to get access to proper street food and I think that would be an added element that everyone would enjoy and would make Glasgow far more interesting. Over the last few years we’ve seen things build up step by step and I think it’s really encouraging.
Bar Soba has Glasgow venues at Mitchell Lane, Byres Road and the Merchant City as well as one in Edinburgh city centre and a new branch in Leeds.