Jack Vettriano Retrospective at the Kelvingrove

We were up in Glasgow on Tuesday and looked in on the Jack Vettriano Retrospective at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. Entry is £5 (£3 concessions) and the exhibition ends on 23 February 2014.

 

The paintings feel connected in content and look like scenes from gangster movies of the 40s. I like his style of painting, and the art works are enormously popular. Some of the paintings on display were owned by celebrities such as Jack Nicholson.

 

My favourite painting shows Sir Malcolm Cambell on the sands at Utah with his car Bluebird, ready to break the land speed record. See an image of it here.

The rest of the Kelvingrove is well worth looking around, too, of course.

If you fancy a spot of lunch afterwards, I can recommend the Mother India's Cafe opposite. We had a superb lunch of four mixed vegetarian dishes (aubergine fritters, chana daal (split yellow peas in a spicy sauce), baby aubergines with potatoes, and okra with tomatoes), with rice and nan bread. All delicious, and differently spiced. The cafe has a nice, informal feel, with friendly waiting staff and fast service.

Trip To Glasgow

Brock spent the day with Lisa, his - and our - trainer, who runs a dog sitting service from her home. So Brock had fun with three other dogs, two cats and six ponies, having walks and training sessions before coming back to us at 9.30 pm - exhausted and happy.

Meanwhile, Rob and I went up to Glasgow for an outing. We started off with coffee at an independent Italian cafe, followed by lunch at The 78, a vegan cafe/bar in Kelvinhaugh Street. The interior is decorated with wood and tiles, music posters and comfortable furniture. There was a fire burning in the fire place near our table, which was very welcome on this cold day.

The food is excellent: Rob had the Quesadillas with refried beans, vegan cheese, marinated tempeh & jalapenos served with salad.....£5.25 and chips £1.60. He was a bit worried about the vegan cheese because all of the brands we have tried at home have been horrible, but this one was really tasty. The chips were cut from whole potatoes in their skins and were perfect, and the bean filling in the wraps was nice and spicy. Rob also had a pint of cider, while I had a bottle of Peroni.

 I ate Chilli and maple glazed tofu with caramelised sprouts, quinoa & winter slaw salad.....£6.50, which was equally delicious.

The bill came to around £20, and the service was very friendly - highly recommended! I wish this restaurant was near to me as I would want to eat there every day. They also have live music nights, which sound entertaining.

 

After that we  headed to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and wandered around the Egyptian section and the art galleries and the gift shop.

  

We had a look around the shops, including The Princes Square Shopping Arcade, which has cafes on the top floor, then several floors of designer shops. It has a beautiful Art Deco feel to it with wrought iron work everywhere.

 We also stopped at The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Design and Architecture where we were interested to find an exhibition about sustainable materials for architecture. 

 (The two photographs above are taken from The Lighthouse's website.)

After some more window shopping, we had dinner at Roma Mediterannean Restaurant. The restaurant has a low ceiling with subtle lighting, and individual 'booths' with bench seating. The food was quite good, but the meal was spoilt by a rather miserable waitress service. I ate vegetable risotto, followed by an ice cream with chocolate centre and chopped nut coating. Rob had vegetable calzone, then amaretto cake. With two soft drinks and two espressos the bill came to around £40.