Ka Pao

Baba

02/11/25

George Street, Edinburgh

We’re dubbing today the ‘Double-B’ – we’ve just been to Cineworld to see Bugonia and now we’re in Baba, keen to sate our hunger while we chat about the film.

Baba has been on our radar for a while. It’s part of the Scoop group, which also boasts the excellent Ox and Finch and – our favourite – Ka Pao. Like these, Baba is a fusion restaurant, this one blending Levantine cuisine with distinctly Scottish ingredients. The menu is very enticing.

After some deliberation, I decide to start with buffalo mozzarella. A generous portion of creamy cheese arrives, topped with sour cherries, harissa and basil, a flavour combo which comes as something of a revelation. It’s delectable. It’s served with pitta as standard but, as I’m in the process of working out if I have a gluten intolerance, I ask for the NGCI alternative. This takes the form of a paper bag filled with two charred slices of GF bread, which complement the mozzarella perfectly.

Philip opts for pan-fried cod cheeks, which come with prawns, merguez, butterbeans and toasted pitta. The dish as a whole is excellent, but it’s the prawns that stand out. They’re huge and wonderfully flavoured.

For our main, we decide to share a Baba mixed grill, comprising slow-cooked lamb shoulder, pork neck, chicken thigh and grilled veg, accompanied with harissa, zhug, tahini and herbs. It’s a simple dish, but the meat is tender and very well cooked, and we enjoy it immensely. We also have a side of blackened sweet potato, elevated by a mixture of saffron crème fraîche and harissa, which I’m planning to try to recreate at home.

Naturally we both want pudding. I have a dark chocolate and tahini crémeux, wiith sesame tuilles and my second helping of both cherries and crème fraîche, while Philip has a tahini cookie, with peanut praline, orange and chantilly cream. Both deliver the lip-smacking sweetness we’re craving, and we scrape our plates clean.

We leave the restaurant feeling pleasantly full, and head out into the November evening, debating whether or not to call at the Filmhouse bar for a (non-alcoholic) nightcap to round things off. Of course the answer is yes. After all, we’ve still got loads to discuss about the film, and what better place to do it?

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Ox and Finch

26/11/23

Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

We are in Glasgow, mostly for the purposes of visiting the Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum, but we’re in the mood to make a day of it and hankering for a fancy lunch first, so we put out a call on the old socials, asking for recommendations. Most of the replies we receive mention Ox and Finch, which is why we find ourselves striding along Sauchiehall Street on a brisk November morning, working up an appetite.

The place has a vaguely rustic feel, with a team of industrious chefs in the open kitchen area, poised to deliver the goods. The central premise here is small plates to share, which sounds like a great idea, so we settle into a snug booth for two and place our orders. We love the fact that, like its sister restaurant, Ka Pao, the restaurant offers a bottle of still or sparkling water to accompany the meal at no cost. More places should adopt this approach.

First up there’s a bowl of fresh sourdough with whipped butter and a generous helping of gordal olives, crisp, crunchy and infused with lemon, which makes a perfect palate cleanser.

Next up there’s whipped feta, a bowl of creamy, cheesy delight flavoured with banana chilli and fresh oregano, served with toasted flatbreads. This is so delicious, we’re glad to have a bit of sourdough left over to mop up what’s on the plate. We soon discover that pretty much everything we’ve ordered is great. This may not be the best-looking selection of food we’ve ever been served, but taste-wise, it’s faultless.

The crab tubetti is next, an indulgent and aromatic delight, little tubes of pasta in a rich chive and urfa pepper sauce, every mouthful a revelation. In hindsight, it’s hard to single out one dish in particular as the highlight, but this could well be it. There’s something in those sumptuous, sticky mouthfuls that is completely gratifying.

Next out is charred hispi cabbage and I ask you, when was the last time you were enthusiastic about a brassica? But this crispy hunk of greenery, studded with creamy blue cheese and sprinkled with macadamia nuts is absolutely stunning and the accompanying thin slices of pear provide a perfect contrast.

A couple of impressive meat dishes follow. The pan-fried pork is sublime – melt-in-the-mouth tender medallions of flesh are accompanied by smoked ham hock and wonderfully earthy butter beans – while the slow-cooked lamb shoulder stands on a mound of creamy polenta with a scattering of salsa rossa and herb salad. So far, so perfect. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking, You can’t possibly have room for pudding, can you? But remember, these are small plates, perfectly judged – and it would be silly, wouldn’t it, to come all this way without going for the full experience? Well, that’s our excuse and we’re sticking to it.

So we sample three puddings: the raspberry and olive oil mille feuille, the delectable pastry layers cooked to a crisp brandy-snap consistency and loaded with sweet filling; the Montenegro semifreddo, a cold ice cream-like confection served with poached plums and pistachios; and a coffee and praline tiramasu, which is perhaps my least favourite of the three, though that has a lot to do with me not particularly liking the flavour of Tia Maria. (Susan is a fan though and assures me that it’s one of the best she’s ever tasted.)

So, there we are, suitably fortified and ready to walk on to the labyrinthine delights of the Kelvingrove, which is little more than a stone’s throw further along the road. My only regret here is that Ox and Finch has been in existence since 2014 and I have only just found it. 

As we’re paying the bill, our waiter slyly tells us that a brand new menu is coming in just a couple of weeks’ time. Would we be up for another visit?

Oh yes, I rather think we would.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Ka Pao

01/10/23

St James Quarter, Edinburgh

We’ve been looking forward to this evening. Not only are we catching up with friends we haven’t seen in waaaay too long, we’re also – on their recommendation – visiting Ka Pao, a new Scottish/Southeast Asian fusion restaurant in the swish St James Quarter. The menu looks exciting!

It doesn’t disappoint.

The venue earns its first plus-point by presenting us with two bottles of chilled tap water as standard – one still, one sparkling. I like this new trend and drink a lot (maybe too much) of the fizzy one.

There’s a set menu for four or more people, but not everyone in our party fancies it, so we go à la carte. All dishes are for sharing we’re told, and are encouraged to order three or four each: a snack, a starter, a main and a side. Thank goodness we stick to three – it’s still too much. But that’s my only gripe.

This is lovely food: fresh, distinctive and perfectly cooked. For snacks, we sample the tomato and aubergine dip with pork skins, the pork and bone marrow sausage and the arbroath smokie miang. The pork skins are amazing – puffed up like poppadoms (or like yak chews, according to our dog-owning friends). The sausage is also delicious, just bursting with flavour, but the arbroath smokie is the most interesting. It comes mashed with peanuts and galangel, and we’re instructed to wrap a spoonful in a spinach leaf. It’s sweet at first, then spicy, then finally fishy and smoky. We decide we like it.

Our starters are corn ribs with salted coconut, shrimp and lime, and crispy pork belly. Three of us have ordered the corn but two portions would suffice. Not that we’re complaining: these are easily the standout of the evening, deceptively simple, crisp and utterly delectable. We spend some time looking for recipes when we get home.

For mains, we have the green curry of lamb shoulder (which comes with broad beans, peas and banana chilli), the chicken leg massaman curry (with ratte potato, smoked grape and peanut) and the chuu chee curry of courgette (with peas and ramiro pepper), with a side of stir-fried savoy cabbage and a couple of portions of jasmine rice. The chicken curry is very good, although one of our friends finds it too sweet for her palate. The lamb is particularly tasty, a fiery delight, the chunks of meat slow cooked until they’re melt-in-the-mouth tender.

We all profess to be full, but we still say yes to pudding, sharing a couple of portions of almond and cardamom sponge with pineapple and coriander curd (wow!) and a serving of mango and calmansi soft-serve, a kulfi-like confection that offers a citrus-fresh contrast to the sweetness of the pudding.

Like the comic-book sound effect its name evokes, Ka Pao is bold, punchy and memorable – and we’ll certainly be back for more.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield