A GOOD Indian takeaway is hardly rare but a great one is.

There are a few big hitters in Glasgow with fiercely loyal followings: Mother India, Banana Leaf to name my personal favourites.

But let me add to that hallowed company an unassumingly little place on Duke Street, the Red Tiffin.

It doesn’t look like much and it isn’t on the inside. Just a counter and a bar for waiting fill the inside, as well as a menu with the ever off-putting feature of having an enormous selection of Western favourites. Usually a sure-fire signal a takeaway is not worth its salt, in the case of the Red Tiffin, it is merely a red herring.

The selection of vegetarian food at this Dennistoun favourite is outstanding. My girlfriend ordered the dahl of the day, which came that day as a delicious, fragrant green lentil curry. Not usually one for dahl curries (it’s very hard to make lentils taste like anything other than lentil soup), I found this exceptionally tasty, if lacking in texture - the curse of vegan food.

I went for a chicken tikka achari bhoona. Achar is South Indian pickle. It’s a little like lighting a firework off a bonfire. Playing with fire? Sure. Irresponsible? Perhaps, but the fact is it works and the end result improves the experience of both. It creates a sauce which has the depth and richness of a good, hot pulse-quickening, sweat-inducing curry, with a tang and a zest which elevates it far above your common or garden chicken tikka.

This was accompanied by a buttered chapati and a buttered chapati and too much rice. The man behind the till gave us some extra free as a favour but as it was closing time I’m sure it was far more to do with the ongoing suspension of food waste recycling facilities. Better us than him, I say. At least if we attract pests it wouldn’t deprive Duke Street of its finest takeaway.

We enjoyed the Red Tiffin in May, probably at the height of the long dark period that was the height of the lockdown. Hard to recall now as so much of it blurred into identical grey days of nothingness that simultaneously flew by and dragged intolerably. This was a welcome bit of colour, of taste, smell and difference which made life seem a little brighter. Not to get carried away, of course.

I had a fair few takeaways in lockdown and, if I cared to weigh myself, would find a couple of extra pounds to back that up. But none of these were are nice or as enlivening as the Red Tiffin.