GaGa kitchen + bar — Restaurant in Scotland

Staff were welcoming and polite without being over-bearing. Good indication of things to come...

Prawn toast. Chinese buffet afterthought / complimentary add-on but no doubt elevated to inspired levels of gastronomy to warrant the £9 price tag.

I was expecting succulent prawns confit’d in a clarified butter infused with SE Asian herbs and spices, the flesh under-blended to a toothsome bite on crisp bread. Toasty sesame, a sharp but calibrated condiment to cut through the fat…

What we got was felt like I was biting into a sponge saturated with oil, ridiculed by the baby food texture of the prawn paste within that had no indication of garlic, ginger, citrus et al. They served this oiled toast with more oil. Chilli Oil. Call me a cynic, but it tasted a lot like what you get in a jar from the Asian supermarket around the corner. A pathetic, wilted strand of coriander garnish perfectly epitomised the experience.

The delicious cocktail I had cut through the gag sensation of having gargled multi-use vegetable oil straight from the fryer, and watching my partner wrestle with her cocktail with its obscene wedge of watermelon hanging out of it cheered me up. Stop being so negative - next course!

Nasi Goreng. Fried rice with an egg on top. Indo street food staple for those on a budget. Everyone knows Nasi Goreng. The lion’s share of the clientele have no doubt humble-bragged an Eat/Pray/Love lost month or two in Uluwatu spending days on a white girl yoga retreat and nights riding shotgun on a dodgy scooter with a Danish surfer that didn’t bother to remember their name. It is known. Nonsense aside, my expectations of elevated basics were still high and hopeful.

Alas, not so much here. £12. Yes, £12. For fried rice that hadn’t seen enough time in the wok and garnished with a sorry-looking fried egg that still had the watery-gelatinous membrane around the yolk. And some overcooked beansprouts and cabbage put through it, and that depressing strand of wilted coriander made a repeat appearance. The food cost percentage on this is seriously taking the proverbial, especially when considering the quality. For this money I would expect Partick’s best Salt Bae look-a-like to make an appearance armed with the pout, gold leaf and a ridiculous knife to stab the yolk. At the very least a minor TV celebrity to do the rounds, no?

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to palm off a 65p bag of Indomie Mi Goreng Fried Noodles from down the local Morrisons, bunged it in with a soft poached egg, peanut sauce and some greens then charged £15 for it.

Unconvinced, we retired. It’s a shame. Another example of the underwhelming yet highly accessible style-over-substance establishments that compensate for their inadequacies with incredibly strong social media game. And we fell for it. Just like the thousands of others that keep the Six By Nico team in the black.

The immediate West end area is rife with talent. Within 200 meters of Kelvinhall subway you can get the best dumplings in Glasgow, dine at two serious Michelin recommendation contenders, eat a whole fried chicken, eat the best kimchi in Glasgow, Taiwanese hot pot, authentic Malay, dim sum, clay-pot Cantonese classics, better bahn mi’s than I ever had in Hanoi. What they all lack in PR, alas, they make up for in substance.

I would genuinely be curious to see if this is a sustainable neighbourhood addition in what is essentially a little too West of the West End. Thornwood’s credentials includes Flur wines which went the way of the unicorns, Basta pizza whose owner actively pursues the inspired marketing strategy of spending most his time blocking the doorway of clientele whilst chain smoking, Bru only appears to operate on a ad hoc basis, and Bibi appears to be on their second mortgage death rattle

None of the above inspires a repeat visit.

Points scored for the keen staff and palate cleansing cocktails, but it otherwise felt like a Instagram tick-list destination serving up basic Chinese takeaway...

Lovely staff and service and a relaxed, warmly decorated place to eat. I've eaten once before and it was nice enough if a bit forgettable in amongst all the small plates restaurants in Glasgow. Unfortunately I think this place is not worth visiting again as the food is simply not worth the money. We were advised to order a big plate and two or three small plates each, that seemed a bit much so I just got the hot dog and prawn toast and we shared bits amongst us. While the toast tasted nice despite being very oily, the hot dog was just painfully sour. Mustard and tamarind sauce dripping everywhere so it was soaking wet and SO sour, I couldnt taste anything else in it. My friend got the fried chicken sandwich which was very sweet and drippy and that was about it. Nasi goreng was just a 12 quid plate medium plate of fried rice soaked in chili crisp which tasted solely of that jarred oily flavour. Before we ordered I joked that everywhere in Glasgow is just pan-Asian small plates charging 14 quid for 2 prawns and a huge pile of coriander straight out the bag.. and this is pretty much what you get at gagas. If you're recommending your guests order a large plate and 2 small, with almost every plate costing £10-14, that's nearly £40 a head before you even order a drink. This is not £40 a head food. I know first hand how expensive stocking a kitchen has become and almost everywhere has raised their menu prices in order to stay open and I fully sympathise with that. However I do think that for those prices you have to match quality of cooking with the money you expect people to pay, balancing each dish and providing something far more interesting than someone could cook at home for a fraction of the money. And maybe consider if people truly want to eat a huge pile of untrimmed coriander stalks...

I really wanted to like this place more. But it just fell short.

I will preface this by saying my partner is Malaysian so we do know what “good looks like” when it comes to Malay cuisine.

I know it is “Malaysian inspired” but it just tried too hard to be inspired without retaining the culinary delights of Malaysia.

Firstly, the staff. All super nice and friendly and good service. Definitely 5 star.

Atmosphere was good, like the industrial style decor. We were seated at a booth and found the seats slightly uncomfortable which lost the mark.

The food. We had sweetcorn fritters, Kerabu noodle salad, lamb curry, Sambal prawns and Nasi Goreng. In order, the fritters are weird, gloopy and just had an oddness about them. Tasted fine but the texture was off. Noodle salad was nothing like a classic Kerabu salad. It was tasty, but strayed too far from authentic. The lamb curry was my favourite for taste, lamb was amazingly tender and the potatoes in the curry sauce were delicious. Prawns were excellent BUT a tenner for THREE prawns is really a rip off. And they also strayed too far from what we view as a classic sambal. Nasi Goreng was the star dish for both of us, the most authentic dish served with a nice zing to the flavour.

Final bill with two cocktails was £82 which felt steep BUT the Nasi Goreng and lamb curry were both more substantial than the typical “small plates” servings, so really we had 2 mains and 3 small plates, so that balances it out. My advice would be to stick with 4 plates maximum if you get these more substantial plates as we did struggle to finish everything.

Conclusion - “would we go back” is always my yardstick and the answer is probably not. It was good and I believe 4/5 is a deserving score. I just feel better options are out there in Glasgow....