WE’RE still only three weeks into the Glasgow Times’ brand-new super takeaway review column and there are so many questions that have yet to be answered.

Like, can we review two taco places in a fortnight? Or if I end up in the QEUH with sausage-supper-related heart failure can I take the paper to court? But most pressing of all – how much food can I can claim back on expenses?

As the man in Nanika tallies up the cost of tonight’s dinner, my palms sweat. My meal here tonight is as much as the last two takeaway reviews combined.

That’s not because this tiny, tiny noodle and bun bar at the bottom end of Govanhill is expensive. It’s not. Far from it. It’s just that with a menu like this, it’s been very hard to show restraint.

Nanika has been in this tiny shopfront in this slowly gentrifying part of the city since August 2018, and it’s not been entirely easygoing. Last year an unexpected staff departure almost left them unable to open at night. Perhaps more worryingly, a couple of the city’s more established reviewers came, ate and delivered scathing verdicts.

But in what can only be a scathing verdict on the trade of eating something and writing about it in a paper, Nanika is thriving. Every time I pass it always seems to be rammed.

Sure, there’s only a handful of tables and not many seats, but even so, the punters clearly know something my colleagues in the food reviewing business don’t.

The food is South Asian by way of South Glasgow, cooked by American Justin Valmassoi. He takes risks, and, if you’re an adventurous eater, you can’t help taking risks too.

Sometimes those risks work well. Other times not so much. The togarashi Brussels sprouts in fish sauce dressing is not a taste I’ll be running back for, but the willowy soft bao bun filled with black pudding and pineapple and sweet soy sauce was stop-you-in-your-tracks incredible.

We played it safe with some of our other choices. The spicy soup noodle broth was hearty, tasty, big and held its own when the leftovers were eaten cold out the fridge for lunch the next day.

The chicken katsu was perfectly cooked, and the curry sauce great.

When the Glasgow Times gets round to publishing its 10 best plates of chips in the city, Nanika’s prawn fries, covered in sriracha prawn floss, will surely be somewhere near the top.

Nanika don’t deliver, they

don’t take cards, and you need to phone your order in. But this

place, their fries, noodles and buns are well worth the journey to this end of Vicky Road.