Good afternoon!

Just wanted to say a big hello to new readers who have worked their way here from the recent Glasgow World piece (if you’ve not seen it, it’s here) – welcome! It’s an odd feeling – this blog has been sitting here in the background for years, and now there’s a slightly wider audience, and more interaction than I think this place has ever had. Certainly looking at the stats, there’s been considerably more traffic this week than usual, so time to opine and give a intro to new followers and readers!

By way of background, “Man Vs Kebab” started back in 2012, inspired by the Man Vs Food program off the tellybox, and I started blogging about kebabs for reasons long forgotten about. Part of me had long missed the kind of irreverent humour that you got from computer games magazines in the 1990s, and I suck, frankly, at modern computer games so a computer games blog was out of the question – so I guess I decided an irreverent food blog was in order. Slightly “grander” plans for this place came with the renaming to Shawarma Police – and by “grander plans” I mean reviews by me, but purportedly reviewed by fictional policeman Reg Hollis, of real actual kebab shops – came to nowt, and now we’re in 2023, and this website gets updated sporadically. You might get three reviews in a week and then nothing for a few months – but if you want to stay informed, see “Shawarma Police” on Facebook, @shawarmapol on Twitter, or @theshawarmapolice on Instagram.

So what was this blog doing speaking to Glasgow World in the first place, you may ask? Well, sometime last week, I got a Facebook notification asking “Is this correct?”, in relation to a video review of Shawarma King’s Kebab Award win. I replied with a fairly nuanced reply saying that they did indeed win an award, that on a good day they can be the best in Glasgow, and that they’d make a top 10 if ever I were to do one (which, I might add, I already did). That was that, or so I thought!

The next day, I awake to see a message request from the author of the Glasgow World piece – essentially pitching exactly that – would I be able to chat with him regards the top 10 kebab places in Glasgow? I was more than happy to oblige – in part, I figured it would help this place get a little better known, but mainly for the same reason I did the original top ten, and will do so again next year – it’s because I found that typing “best kebab glasgow 2023” into Google came up with a list that I heartily disagreed with, so I figured I could, and should, provide a counter-point.

We chatted on the phone for maybe 15, 20 minutes. The line wasn’t great – he called from a mobile, to my mobile, and I struggled to hear him from time to time due to the signal not being great, but overall, I’d like to think that he’s summed up my thoughts pretty well! Following feedback in the comments section on the Facebook post, I would just like to clarify:

Dunya. Definitely in the East End. I know – I’ve been there! It seems that the report mentions it’s in the West End. Not sure how that happened – it may well have been misheard, or misspoke by me. Who knows? Happy to clarify.

A couple of comments said “it’s nowhere near Parkhead” – not to split hairs here, if you think of Parkhead as a synonym for Celtic Park – granted, it’s a fair trek and not particularly convenient for the ground. If, like me, you consider Parkhead to be an area which contains a football ground, a Shopping Centre and a Retail Park which is a 5 minute walk away from Dunya, then hopefully you’ll understand where I was coming from. Again, happy to clarify this, and if I get my chance to do this again, I’ll be sure to say “just round the corner from The Forge Retail Park”.

Anyway – please do stick around. Got a couple of reviews in the pipeline (read: I’ve been there but I haven’t typed them up yet), and tomorrow marks the launch of Greggs Chicken Shawarma Flatbread, so expect some thoughts on that to appear on your timelines in the very near future.