Recently, on my Facebook page, I was asked the question “what is the best kebab shop in the West End?” – and I couldn’t answer that. Truth is, it’s been years since I spent any serious amount of time in the West End, and so much has changed. Trump is now President of the United States, we’re all doing a Brexit, and all the credit’s been crunched.
For most of the 10’s, I’ve been living in the South Side of Glasgow, and I have been blessed with some of the best kebab shops on my doorstep – Danny Singh’s, Kurdish Street Food, Kurdistan Shawarma, Desi’s, Kebabish Grill (not to be confused with Kebabish Original), so why go West? Also, going to the West End makes me think of university and then I remember that I’m 35 and then I see all these young people having fun and I think “Oh God, where has my life gone”, and then the existential crisis kicks in, so I don’t go there very often. That said, they do have a Waitrose.
All this changed the other day, when for no apparent reason, I decided to go to the West End. I was at the train station buying a ticket in to town, when I thought “hang on, for an extra 50p, I could get to Partick!”. The train geek in my head was doing some entirely unnecessary upselling on behalf of Abellendio Scotrail – and it worked. As I alighted the train in Partick, the question put to me on Facebook came back to me, so I thought I’d go for a wander.
I ended up on Great Western Road after a quick trip to Waitrose to get a free coffee – they make you buy stuff now to qualify for it, so I begrudgingly bought the i Paper for 60p – then, when the Partners weren’t looking, hammered the hell out of the extra shot button. Ha! One-nil to me, John Lewis Partnership! I figured Gt Western Road would be the ideal place to look for the best kebab in the West End, because a) it’s got all the trendy food places, b) Byres Road no longer have a kebab shop, and c) because my favourite kebab shop from my student days, Cafe India, was on it. Now, the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed by now that this post isn’t about Cafe India – well, no. They were shut. So I kept on walking. Barbeque Kings – shut. Byblios – shut – apparently they don’t open on Sundays. Eventually I got to Morello’s, and this happened:
Lets start off with the good bits, shall we? The chicken doner above was all in all fairly pleasant – the meat was well marinaded, full of flavour and succulence, and was served with a sizeable portion of salad, including red cabbage! This should be a standard on kebabs in my view, but very few places serve it. Well done Morello’s for doing that.
However.
Can you spot what’s wrong with the above picture? Here’s a clue: It’s a fucking GHERKIN. The pickled chilli I am not a fan of (see the about page on this blog) but I understand that it happens, and some people like it. A gherkin though?
I went on Twitter and asked my followers their thoughts, via the medium of the poll:
Chillis, it turns out, people overwhelmingly like. If this was a democratic blog, I would respect this opinion, but it’s not, so I won’t. What genuinely surprised me, however, was how many people thought that gherkins somehow belong on a kebab. I can only conclude that either everyone was drunk, or the poll was hacked by a malign foreign power looking to subvert Britain’s kebab based economy.
Either way, GHERKINS SHOULD GO NOWHERE NEAR A KEBAB.
Overall, I give Morello’s -6 out of ten. Why the minus? Well, rules is rules – the pickled chilli was on there, it gets a minus. Other than that, it was a fairly decent munch, too large to finish (the naan bread got chucked), though I suspect I would have been kinder with the rating had this been consumed post-alcohol.
So, for those asking “What *is* the best kebab shop in Glasgow’s West End”, Morello’s are currently winning, by virtue of being the only place I’ve been to since this blog started. I can’t see them staying there for long.
Morello, 253 Great Western Road
Chicken Doner on nan, £5.00. -6/10
Shawarma Police 
Gherkins on a kebab!!!!! Just wrong!
WILL HAS A SMALL PENIS
That’s it, we’re getting a divorce.
Cequwa or whatever its called is the best kebab shop in the west end. other side of Partick
It’s on the list!
Finally a good doner kebab in Glasgow is Morrelos, only 3-4 good doner kebabs in this MASSIVE city with 100’s of places serving Kebabs! Cequwa and Turquoise are the only other good places in my opinion in Glasgow.
The Salad is amazing, they have a separate bowl for each type of Salad!! a massive range of fresh amazing Salad for the kebab!!! even pickled red cabbage but it really needed to be marinated longer in vinegar!!! You cant have a kebab without pickled red cabbage! only a few places in Glasgow offer pickled red cabbage with their kebabs! In Wales/England not to have pickled red cabbage would be unheard of with a kebab!
Most Kebab shops in Glasgow have such a poor Kebab salad falling into either or all of the following categories:
1) Salad not fresh
2) Missing some salads
3) Salad all in one bowl which causes the individual flavours of salad to be lost.
Kebab Salads should all be in seperate bowls ie bowl of big bowl of cucumber, big bowl of Pickled and marinated in vinegar red cabbage, big bowl of pickled marinated in vinegar white cabbage, big bowl of tomatoes, bowl of Lemons, big bowl of lettuce, big bowl of onion (with some flavour added), big bowl of cucumber.
The chilli sauce needs to be changed though as it was the same as alot of other Kebab chilli sauces in Glasgow and for it to no longer be sweet but for it to be chilli based ie the way it should be made is with a small white cabbage diced (or half a medium sized one), Large white onion diced ,couple cloves of garlic, 300g mutti passata, juice of 1 lemon , 1 large red birdseye chilli, pinch of salt. Pop everything into a blender until smooth and made fresh every day… This is the recipe alot of Kebab shops in England use, its similar to the chilli sauce at Istanbul on Paisley Road West but even better!!!. Chilli Sauce makes a Kebab! Not sure if they use Tomato Ketchup and/or sugar and/or mango chutney or yogurt but none of those should ever be used when making Kebab chilli sauce, sadly alot of Kebab shops in Glasgow use all or some of those ingredients.
I hope that we can make a change and kebab shop owners in Glasgow will start to up the quaility of their kebabs!! Or maybe if there is a Kebab shop reader in Glasgow or someone who is thinking of opening up a Kebab shop in Glasogw reads this they will make their kebabs, salads and chilli sauce the way it should be made?!! or maybe someone here is friends with a local kebab shop owner who would be willing to make the quaility changes? Heres hoping!