A Wee Special: Hanoi Bike Shop

This week we visited the Westend's Hanoi Bike Shop to speak to our favourite Aussie chef, Tad McLean. He prepared us a small special and told us a little about himself.
Tad begun cheffing in Melbourne, Australia, schooling in the classics. He developed these haute skills in the critically acclaimed Lamaro's. With Australia boasting the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam, his curiosity soon turned to Eastern cuisine. Travelling Vietnam and Thailand, he described the power of the influences their culture delivered as "a smack to the face", and said it was then he decided, this was what he wanted to bring to the table.



Eventually, and thankfully for us, Tad ended up in Glasgow. Here, he helped relaunch The Brasserie at the Ubiquitous Chip and was later asked to open up the immensely popular and successful Hanoi Bike Shop.

After making us at home, he shuffled off with a cheeky grin and returned with this wonderfully simple, yet tastefully complex dish.

Bike Shop Tofu, Sauted Wild Garlic, Peanuts and Black Pepper Soy.

For those of you who haven't been to The Bike Shop, Tad is in early, every morning making this phenomenal tofu from scratch (the only place in Scotland currently doing this). And by Christ you can tell. It's light and fluffy through the centre, and has that perfect crisp around the outside. It soaks up the sauce wonderfully.

The sauted wild garlic, freshly foraged that day, was sublime. The subtlety of this against the mint leaf garnish, strong soy and the crunch of peanut was nothing less than exceptional. And of course that tofu..

This is one of our favourite restaurants in Glasgow, and Tad has yet again showed us why. I'd like to thank @tadmclean and his team for having us up during his break, and we shall definitely be taking him up on his invitation to a morning of tofu making, that we will, of course, be sharing with yourselves!

Thanks also to @hanoibikeshop