The worst meal I’ve ever had was at a café I’ll call Les Vomiteurs in the then seriously untrendy, ungentrified, occasionally unsafe area of Glasgow called Finnieston. This was 1979 and the late Jack House was still writing restaurant reviews in the Evening Times. He’d recommended the tripe at Les Vom and as I’d never tried this intestinal delight, and fancied myself an adventurous junior gourmand, I thought I’d have a go.

I was a reporter on a specialist building trades newspaper based just off Sauchiehall street, writing about gabions (those wire baskets full of stones you see on motorway embankments) diggers and reinforced concrete. Like so much of Glasgow, one street back from the prim converted Victorian glories of Fitzroy Place was the western end of Argyle Street, all ravaged tenements, tough wee pubs and decayed shops. My normal lunch destination was the Kelvingrove Café, on its last legs but providing, from a single burner in the back, the best crispy bacon rolls I’ve ever tasted. Now, complete with resurrected ghost sign, it’s a trendy hangout for foodies and sippers of flat whites and cortados, like so much of New Finnieston.

The formica tables of Les Vomiteurs matched the unwelcoming hardness off the proprietor, who served me up a bowl of white gunge. Boiled tatties and slimy tendrils of cow gut in milk. It was unchewable, the bits of stomach slipping about my mouth like frisky tapeworms. I swallowed, inhaled the potatoes and just made it out of the door in time to throw up the entirety of my lunch in the Argyle Street gutter. So much for acting on restaurant reviews.

That meal was a piece of solo experimentation or indulgence. After that, I stuck to those wondrous bacon rolls for lunch or the burgers (soggy, from a tin) at The Snaffle Bit up the road. Three pints of Export, a game of dominos, and back to the office whenever the editor said it was time to go.

Going out for dinner then was almost always one of the west end curry restaurants we could afford – the Shish Mahal, Hot Spot, Koh-I-Noor or sometimes the Shenaz behind the Mitchell Library. The Himalaya or the Shalimar in Gibson Street and, just once, the terrible Green Gate in Bank Street. Glasgow’s original curry house, but never the best. Sometimes burgers at Back Alley in Ruthven Lane, once the site of The Ubiquitous Chip before it moved across Byres Road to Ashton Lane. I remember saving up for the Chip’s “business lunch” deal before the restaurant was properly finished. Tatties boiled in their skins. Stew. Decades later my very young son Magnus and I had lunch there with owner Ronnie Clydesdale, and the legendarily verboten chips, the only thing you could never get at The Chip, were duly ordered, as they were all Mag was interested in eating.

The Chip, even now under Greene King ownership, remains a Glasgow institution, as does Two Fat Ladies at the Buttery, where we had a memorable lunch last week. Still stranded in Anderston beneath its isolated corner tenement block like an an old ship, surrounded by motorways and, these days, new flats, what was once the Shandon Buttery opens up gloriously when you push through the doors. As a massive treat in about 1980, I was taken to what was then just The Buttery and that sense of wonder as you enter a cocoon of starched tablecloths, linen napkins and old silverware remains. It feels great just being there.

We had a terrific meal, including one of the best dirty Martinis I’ve had in the city, aided and abetted by superb, friendly service and, I thought, very good value. A proper big city joint, confident and careful and fun. We walked out and back along Argyle Street into Finnieston and the site of my one and only, brief encounter with tripe. Into the park and the past.

Even further in my personal past, we were back in Troon this Saturday and heading for a long-planned visit to Lochgreen House Hotel (and Spa, apparently), which a local taxi driver had warned us against. “Best food in Troon is the Harbour Bar,” she said. “Highgrove and Piersland Lodge are good too.” On single-meal experience, I’d put Highgrove first, then Piersland, then the Harbour Bar (wonderful soup). The much-vaunted Marine (where I had my graduation lunch in 1977: beef wellington) has never matched up, and while both Lido and Scotts (same owners, Buzzworks, do acceptable laminated menu bistro fare, they’re expensive and generic. Good coffee, though.

Anyway, to Lochgreen we went, another taxi driver warning about how busy it would be (Scottish Grand National in Ayr, a big wedding). And Lochgreen is all groomed Arts and Crafts splendour, with a Godfather bandstand and impeccably raked flower beds.

We were shown into Bisque, which promotes itself as “Ayrshire’s finest high-end restaurant, offering classic fine dining in a relaxed, modern setting.” A long, heavily mirrored room, tiles and high ceilings, truly terrible music. A Paris Bistro stretched and expanded and blinged. A loop of screeching saxophone covers of bad pop, including a dreadful version of Wonderwall. I thought of Linn Products’ legendary Ivor Teifenbrun, and his actions if a restaurant refused to switch off bad background sound: cut the speaker wires. These ones were too high up.

Lovely staff, thought, attentive and quick. They do that amuse bouche thing, you know, wee cups of stuff, this time a very nice Cullen Skink. Good cocktails, nice wine, though erratically priced. Very high prices for the food, though. £14 for a prawn cocktail? Even if it did have a bit of avocado. “Not sure it’s as good as the one at the St Magnus Bay” ( next door to us in rural Shetland), said Martha. Nice, warm bread, points off for serving the butter on a (clean) slate. Great olives. Starters were OK. Not sure about the brioche with the paté, but…

The thing is, we were out to have a good time. We were on holiday, I wasn’t dead, Martha was down from Glasgow and this was a treat. Nothing was going to spoil the occasion. Not the music. Not even the main courses.

I don’t like complaining and I rarely send anything back. I hate to harp on about The Chip but I was in there once with a bunch of noisy, fairly drunk pals and we ordered wine which I knew instantly was corked. We didn’t look believable clients, though. The tolerant sommelier sat down with us, took a sniff and immediately provided a replacement. It’s amazing how bad wine sobers you up. And no charge.

Anyway, back at Lochgreen, I ordered stupidly, the escalopes of pork with smoked bacon and gruyere cheese in, err..’tarragon egg’… It was the bacon and cheese that sold me on it. £24 plus extra for veg and chips. It arrived cold and in the form of a floppy grey sausage, like a miniature doner kebab stuffed with…cheesy tripe. I sent it back. Susan’s duck was also cold and off it went to the kitchen too.

OK, there was a big wedding and the place was busy, if not rammed, but when the dishes returned to the table Susan’s was hot, right enough, but mine had been warmed by the application not of the sauce on the original dish, but with a huge dollop of the gravy from Susan’s duck.

The chips were fine but as thin fries go, these were straight out of a freezer bag via McDonald’s. Still, we enjoyed the Rioja and the chat and they gave us complimentary coffees. We were determined not to spoil the occasion. In the taxi home the driver nodded sagely. “Aye. Erratic,” he said. “Have you been to Highgrove?”

And here we are. Here I am, writing about it (I did send a private message to the management: no reply as yet) wondering if that duck gravy on horrible pork was sheer carelessness or a deliberate act of contempt? “We are purveyors of fine dining and you know NOTHING! Take some slobbery brown stuff, you ignorant poltroon!” I’ve read Kitchen Confidential. Hell, I’ve even spoken to the late Bourdain, the Jack House of Netflix, about deep-fried pickled eggs. I know what goes on.

Oh well. Next night we were back up on the Glasgow borderlands, babysitting in Netherlee, and I wandered down to Café India for a takeaway. Lamb Biryani, pakora, Chicken Karahi. £20. A classic Glasgow old school curry, and all the better for it. Hot as hell and quite heavenly.

I don’t think Lochgreen has to worry about lacking business. They had a Christmas Day so disastrous six years ago it made headlines in national newspapers, and it’s still thriving. But in this era of instant social media exposure, the kind of carelessness or arrogance that dealt me that horrid pork is, to say the least, ill-advised. I mean, I’m not one of your so-called influencers, grifting for freebies. We paid for our food and all we wanted was a nice night out.

Which, to an extent, we still had. But we won’t be back. It wasn’t tripe. It just wasn’t good enough.