Hello there!

Today’s journey takes us on a trip not just to a kebab shop in the suburbs, but also a metaphorical journey into how places enter my consciousness in the first instance!

You see, there is only so much you can write on any given subject, and the longer this blog runs, the fewer places there are left on my list to check off. Apologies if I’ve said this before – I’m getting a sense of deja-vu as I type this – but it’s true. Pretty much all the places that I’ve found simply by walking past, or having been recommended them, have been done, and I tend only to revisit a place if there’s an exciting new menu, or some other significant change. This being said, as I write this I do have two fairly big names for review in the coming weeks, so do stick around for them.

As I was saying – and this won’t necessarily come as a huge shock to anyone – there is research that goes on in the background for places to eat at (and then review) but it’s minimal. Google searches and so on. Occasionally, I’ll look at the website stats and see that Reddit has thrown some traffic this way (thanks!), and it occurred to me recently that Reddit may well be a good place to check to see if any new or interesting looking kebab shops have indeed flown under my radar. So, as one does, I typed in “glasgow kebab” to the search box expecting to see the usual threads with the usual suspects. Instead, this happened:

…and so it continues. Not being overly familiar with Reddit – I use it every now and then but not very often in the grand scheme of things – I was intrigued by what was going on here. It doesn’t appear that these multiple users are actually posting these into actual subreddits (the message board like threads that appear when you open the website), but rather just posting, on a more or less daily basis, on their own user pages. An interesting tactic, but in this instance it worked! Considering they’re going to a lot of effort to promote their place, and assuming that not many people type “glasgow kebab” into Reddit’s search function, and thus won’t see said posts, I figured I’d oblige them.

As it turned out, I knew where this place was without knowing it was there (if you know what I mean) – Greenlaw Village, on the outskirts of Newton Mearns and just down the road from Patterton railway station, is not particularly local to me, but it is located right by the Waitrose in Newton Mearns – somewhere I tend to end up if I’m looking for something in Byres Road Waitrose and they don’t have it (something which happens annoyingly frequently). Having arrived there, I found the shop was shut (this was half past three on a Sunday or thereabouts), so I went over to Waitrose, did a shop, came out – still shut. As you can tell by the photo above – it did eventually open, and it was raining – so in the interim I went to a pub round the corner and sat it out for a couple of hours.

The wrap itself was pretty good – I noted that the bread wasn’t freshly cooked when I visited, but rather used those Lebanese breads you can get in Morrisons/Asda, but they’re pretty good so no complaints here. The mixed wrap I got was half chicken shawarma and half lamb doner – these can be a bit ropey but this was pleasant enough, though the chicken shawarma was nicer than the doner. Sauce wise, the wrap contained what I think was garlic mayo – don’t see that all that often – as well as the old school red sauce that was scooped from a warmed buffet pot.

Plenty of salad and a nice foil lining to keep it all warm (well needed this cold early evening), and it came to about £6.50 for the wrap.

Having visited, my conclusions are thus: If you live in the area, or for whatever reason you find yourself out that way, it’s a perfectly good takeaway – the chap behind the counter was friendly enough, and the food was alright. Would I travel specifically to visit it? Probably not.

Truth Truly Tasty,

Greenlaw Village, Newton Mearns

Mixed Wrap

7/10