Ashraf's Indian Kitchen — Restaurant in Scotland

I have never gone to a restaurant for Xmas. My wife and I always had the family round to enjoy the exchange of gifts and traditional meal. Sadly, my wife died in August, so we knew this was going to be a difficult time. Especially as she was 'Mrs Christmas'. My daughter suggested it might be a slightly less stressful time if we were to go to a restaurant on Christmas day. So, booked Ashrafs. I received an email confirming the booking and later received another email asking me to confirm my booking which I did. One of my party was my 3 year old grandaughter. Because of this I booked a 4.00pm slot, given her bedtime is around 7.00pm. On arrival we were asked to wait for our table. After 15 or so mins a member of staff informed us that they did not take our booking, despite having received the booking confirmation email. We were offered a carry out or a later slot. Be clear wew would have to pay for the carry out. Thus defeating the purpose of trying to have a family dinner out. I accepted a later time of 6.15pm only because it was Christmas day, therefore, no other option to go anywhere else! A member of staff informed us that this would allow 15 mins to prepare our table. So we went home. We arrived at the agreed time, however, we were taken to a table nearer 7.00pm. While waiting to be taken to our table, we gave a drinks order only for half the drinks not to be there when we were seated. We asked for water which came after 20 odd mins. Three times we asked for glasses for the water, they arrived on the third time of asking. There seemed to be plenty of staff, but they didn't speak to each other so, sometimes we got what we wanted other times we didn't. No one seemed to be in charge! Every member of staff was pleasant to us but completely inefficient. We did receive one round of drinks, as an apology, yet I had to haggle over getting my 3 year old grandaughter's meal deducted from the bill, given the late hour. There was clealry embarrassment over the whole affair, but our experience was abysmal. I can give credit to the quality of the food. But overall the exerience was nothing short of shamefull. It seems that, instead of limiting their bookings they over booked to mitigate non attenders, and we suffered for that. All they needed to to was take a 10 or even 20% non returnable booking fee. But they got greedy. On reflection it might have been less stressful to stay at...

We decided to try Ashraf’s at Busby told on a whim really. Passed it a few times since it opened a few months back and tonight was our first visit.

I don’t write reviews often, but am compelled to shout about just how lovely this place is.

They offered us two choices of menu, the pre theatre at £14.95 and the regular menu. My mother doesn’t have a huge appetite anymore so the pre theatre (which suggested slight smaller portions) sounded perfect for her. I have to say that the portions were ample!

I ordered the dish I always order when trying an Indian restaurant for the first time…chicken tikka bhuna. I know how a good bhuna should be prepared and I was not disappointed. I was served probably the best version of this dish I have ever eaten. Deep, complex but balanced flavour. A true delight. No lumps of tomato as per most standard curry houses in Glasgow. Absolutely beautiful dish, prepared with care and skill. With it I ordered pilau rice. If you like the weird rice many places serve, with electric green and red coloured grains through it, Ashraf’s is not for you. These guys prepare beautiful, light rice scented with garam masala. Incredible.

Mum’s vegetable jalfrezi was also to an exceptionally high standard and the naan we shared was light and crisp. We didn’t need it, but pleased we ordered it!

The service was really lovel, warm and friendly and our waitress (Liba I think she said) was genuinely interested to hear what we thought of each element of the meal, including the cute selection of dips served with our poppadoms at the beginning.

The restaurant was quiet. Not unusual for a midweek night in mid July. I do hope the residents of East Ren embrace Ashraf’s. They have great culinary smarts and deserve to be queued...

We celebrated a 21st birthday with a dinner at Ashraf’s. The restaurant accommodated a total of 42 people in our party, which was 7 more people than we originally booked for.

For such a large group of people, the chef and staff managed to serve everybody’s meals at the same time, all whilst still fresh and hot, with no drop in quality, which was really impressive.

The food itself was great. Tasty, well cooked and good sized portions.

The stand out of this fantastic restaurant by far though is the customer service. Having been to michelin star restaurants in London and Dubai and various other top quality restaurants around the world, I can honestly say the service in Ashraf’s was some of the most genuinely pleasant, accommodation and impressive I have ever experienced. Each of the staff members go above and beyond to make each guest feel welcome and at home. One of the staff members took the initiative to film and collate a celebratory video compilation of each of the guests wishing the birthday girl happy birthday messages, and then sent us the video the following day. The restaurant officially closes at 10pm, the staff however, not only kept the restaurant open, but also continued to serve us drinks until 12:30pm and didn’t ask us once to hurry up or leave, which is well beyond what I could ever reasonably expect or have experienced in any other restaurant.

I will...