(Photo nicked off of their facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/Shawarma-King-977365035616411/)

Yesterday, I went to a music festival. I had never been to one before, and with the exception of a brief teenage desire to go to the Reading Festival in the late nineties, had never really any desire to go to one. My logic was always thus: I can’t think of anything worse than being in a field full of pissed up / pilled up strangers for three days in questionable surroundings and bad weather, spending hundreds of UK pounds on tickets, travel, booze etc, only to get 90% substandard acts and a couple of bands who, if I really wanted to see them, I’d probably watch indoors for a more reasonable fee. However, I got in free to the TRNSMT (pronounced “Trnns-mtttt”) festival, so all the above went out the window.

Was it any good? Yeah, it was alright. Staged at Glasgow Green, I attended the Saturday, having won two tickets off of the Virgin Radio Breakfast Show, for having correctly answered that Kasabian are from Leicester, and that their first album was eponymous. God bless the system! Now, the line up wasn’t all that good to be honest, so I formulated a plan: Go to West Brewing next door, drink for ages, go in about 7ish, potter about the King Tuts stage, see a few up and coming bands, then Kasabian and away home. This plan worked well – the beer in West was nicer and significantly less expensive than the £5 Carlsberg at the venue, and sets the scene for the kebab element to this story: 

Just round the corner from the King Tut’s stage, a kebab stand! Now, have a look at that board. There are three things wrong with it. Can you spot the mistakes? I’m letting them away with the backwards N as a misdemeanour. Let me put you out of your misery:
1. The kebabs (choice of regular doner, or chicken doner), cost 8. What they meant to say, of course, is £8. They’ve done that trendy hipster thing that Babs do and others, eschewing the decimal places or currently denominators purely to annoy me.
2. THE KEBABS COST EIGHT POUNDS.
3. You can get your kebab with “curlys” for £3. No. No no no. No. No. NO.

So, with the gig nearly over (I left halfway through Kasabian – they weren’t all that bad, but I was hungrier for kebab than I was for band from Leicester), I left Glasgow Green to go to Shawarma King, a hidden gem 2 minutes away from the west entrance to the park. I say hidden advisedly, they are in a railway arch at the south eastern corner of a car park with is obscured by a street sign and some trees. If approaching from the Briggait, please see this handy guide on how to get there that I have just improvised off google maps: 

Anyway, lets cut to the chase: Was it any good? Yes. I went for the mixed wrap, a combination of lamb and chicken shawarma. £4.50, about a foot long, weighed as much as… a medium sized directory, not as heavy as a Yellow Pages, but decisively heavier than a Thomsons. Was super tasty – the ratio of meat to salad was spot on, and it was to use a Glaswegianism – “juicy as fuck man”. The chap behind the counter squirted no less than three bottles of sauce on this beast. Served toasted in the panini grill, then wrapped in a brown paper bag, you eat it much like a tramp drinks his whisky, with the paper in situ. Stops the juice leaking in theory, though a quick look at my shirt this morning suggests that there was minor ‘bab leakage. Never mind!

To summarise:

Festivals: Meh. I got my moneys worth.
Kebabs: Go to Shawarma King! They are the King! Unlike Burger King, they are both the King and good!

8/10 – food spot on but more expensive than their southside competition (though about half the price of their Glasgow Green festival competition), and ever since I realised Kurdistan Shawarma put olives in their wraps… the game has changed!