Solomon's Mine (so back off)

Stop what you're doing! Get off the net! Head down to Queen of Sheba, a new and totally brilliant restaurant in Glasgow's St George's cross. Not hungry? Who cares, you'd be stuffed halfway through the main course anyway.

Me and Girl-e were going to get the usual Friday night takeaway, although we've gone through something of a local restaurant trial seperation since we last dropped in on our local Italian; instead of seafood spaghetti, they gave me a Carbonora which was actually a soup-based dish served in melted Lurpak instead of water. She still likes the pizza.

Last minute change of plan - we head to fast food powerhouse Asia Style in St George's road, but seeing as they're off ushering in the year of the Tiger, we go next door; stepping through a front door straight out of a B & Q sale and into a beautiful, but quirkily unpretentious interior with mushroom-like woven tables and cute stools which leave you only a foot off the ground.

Still reading? Get down there and give them your money before they shut down. The place was deserted but for our smily waitress wearing, presumably, Abyssinian national dress. No alcohol, (byob) so I sip some fragrant black tea with a spoonful of sugar and we order a starter and main.

I never see oxtail on menus; my starter is similar - a clear, oily broth with shreds of lamb on the bone. Girl-e has Sambusa parcels with lentils. Very nice, but the mains are the thing, and I'm disappointed that we don't eat them as intended - everyone present dining off the same giant pancake.

Why did we ever eat anything that was less than 100% meat? Meat which includes not-meat is a sickening thought when you think about it - I've just eaten a plate of raw beef, and now I feel I could fight a cow for more. It arrives on a delicious sour pancake the size of a Turkey platter called an 'Injera'. The waitress warns me what I'm getting, and right enough, it's a mere flash in the pan away from standing round, eating grass and taking few life-changing risks. Has it been seasoned? What is the taste of beef, anyway? Prepared this way, the blood and fat take on a flavour of their own; the texture is only as surprising as sushi.

We get a spoonful of fiery spice, as powder and blended with butter, which we dip as we go along, eating with our fingers. Girl-e orders a combination of lentil stew and spinach on fried onions and can't finish hers, either; excuse the bland description, it was nice when I had a spoonful of the leftovers just now. There are several vegetarian options to run through when we come back.

Why did we eat all those curries and pastas? Why do we even heat things up? Our idea of a guilty pleasure is a plate of meat slurry with mayo on a bun. I get through half of the main and get the rest wrapped up, and I'm still on a protein buzz.

I'm off to Google Ethiopia now, it's gratifying Glasgow finally has one of their restaurants. I do know the Queen of Sheba was married to the great King Solomon. I'm going back with friends, soon. It's the taste of ... civilisation.

What was your special V-Day treat?

'Special' days often seem to revolve around food - often, it's not so much 'did you have a nice day', but rather 'what did you eat (or drink) that made it a nice day'. Nothing wrong with this in my opinion; the consumption of food and drink can be tremendously sensual experiences and provide sensory memories that are very evocative of important and enjoyable moments in our lives - and what better day to highlight this than Cupid's own holiday? It's certainly as good a time as any for sparkling rose wine, luscious chocolates, long lingering brunches and aphrodiasic-laced dining.

Seems as if every restaurant in Glasgow seemed to be on this bandwagon with their special menus for lovers over the weekend - multiple courses for inflated prices says the cynic in me - but a lot of people enjoy this no-fuss, save your energy for other things approach to a romantic dinner out so these restaurants must be doing something right. Of course, for some, the important part of the night might not be the dinner but rather a show, a night of dancing, a film or etc.(!) and dinner is just something that you do when you are out for the evening. I struggle to frame the world in this fashion but I realise that this is just my perspective!.

For our part, we had our Valentine's dinner in. I always agree to cook our Valentine's dinner if we can agree something fairly simple that still seems a bit special - and the beautiful flowers I received for my V-Day surprise made me not mind cooking in the slightest. Yesterday's dinner was a lovely beef stew that spent the day in the slow cooker - such an easy recipe: brown beef (1 kilo), throw in chunks of carrots (around 6 medium), chunks of potatoes (around 6 large potatoes) and thinly sliced onions (1 large onion), add several tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary (around 3 - less if you are not so keen on rosemary as we are) and a liquid brew comprised of ketchup (1/2 cup), boiling water (1/2 cup), red wine vinegar (1/4 cup - I acutally used closer to 1/2 a cup as Ilke the tanginess) and soy sauce (about 3 tablesspoons - could also be replaced with worcestershire sauce for those who can) and seasoned with salt and pepper. Sounds odd maybe but it's delicious - the resulting gracy is rich and tangy without any significant tomato overtones. I also threw in about a 1/3 of a bottle of red wine that was left from the previous evening and thickened everything at the end with a cornflour slurry (being gluten challenged) after about 5 hours on high in the slow cooker. Thickening could easily be have been done by dusting the beef with flour prior to browning the chunks as well. No fuss, little muss - and leftovers for at least one more day. Plus I had a happy hubby who got to dip bread into rich, tasty, beefy gravy at the end of the meal which won me the biggest kudos of the day!

Hope your V-day was as nice as ours...If you had something special, please tell us about it the comments - we'd love to hear about it.