by Ron Mackenna
16 May 2011
I am standing at the bar in the Drake and I can’t help noticing that sitting on a stool three feet away is Celtic manager Neil Lennon, non chalantly eating crisp and salted skinny chips. This bang, slap in the middle of the latest outraged outburst of ooyah, take-that, yelp cartoon headlines that define Old Firm football. He and his pals, who include first team coach Alan Thompson, are telling the bar staff just how good those chips are..
I’ve got to say, I’m always fascinated by what celebrities really eat. Once upon a time I had breakfast with Tony Blair. And the then prime minister ate prunes and nothing else. A big, wet bowl of prunes. “Bloody hell, what’s going on with his plumbing?” I thought but didn’t say as he spooned them up across the table.
Another time I took tea with Gordon Brown in his gigantic office at the Treasury. He munched buns. Quite enthusiastically. Though that occasion sticks in the mind largely because I was nervous and accidentally sat in the chancellor’s winged armchair by the fire, leaving him to perch on the lower two-seater couch clearly reserved for mere mortals and bloody irritating journalists. By the time I realised with utter horror what I had done it was too late to change seats. We squirmed.
Anyway, Lennon – and I happen to know this from yet another previous life – is actually a very urbane guy. No, he is. And, say 10 minutes later, while sitting at one of the big wooden tables eating a very good dish of crispy pig’s cheek in gingery, spicy noodles, I realise why the Celtic boss may have popped in here. There are flagstones, a big fire and civilised people eating – nobody is bothering him, let alone trying to clout him. The waiter is of the skinny, laidback, helpful school of waiting. He’s not your mate and he’s not your servant, he’s just himself and doing his job well. I’m cool with that.
Just round the corner the M8 gorge is a booming, crashing torrent of traffic beneath the Mitchell Library. Through the window I can see students being drawn to the bright 24-hour lights of Sainsbury’s petrol station cum emporium in the same way tourists are drawn to a temple or those little alien guys in Toy Story are drawn to The Claw. Yet, it could all be a million, billion miles away. There’s a calmness to The Drake, a feel of escape. Something that’s probably helped by the fact the front door is the least conspicuous I’ve ever not seen. I defy you to come here for the first time and not pause for a moment and think: “WTF.”.
The food is of the gastro pub variety – cauliflower bake, steak and chips, that sort of thing. The mushroom and thyme soup was actually delicious, once I shut one eye and blotted out its dull, grey, sludgy ugliness And the flavours of tarragon and leek underlining the salmon and monkfish in the fish pie lifted it far, far away from being yet another mash-topped monstrosity.Even the crumble with ice-cream was better than passable, though it didn’t pass the proper, inch-thick crumble test.It’s been a good meal, then for a moment I’m tempted to wander over and ask Lennon what he thinks of the food in here. Not the chips, which are a bar snack, but whether he has ever eaten in the restaurant upstairs, which opens only on weekend nights. But that would be daft and a tad embarrassing and probably pointless, because I can already tell it has promise. So I shuffle off into the evening mentally pencilling in a return the next time I need to escape from the madding crowd.