Steakhouse It’s in Glasgow’s top three, says TripAdvisor, but here’s my advice...

SOMETHING weird always happens to my brain when I go abroad – I start believing TripAdvisor. I know, hilarious. I do always start with the bad reviews, though, on the grounds that they’re more likely to be genuine. Unless restaurants rivals write them, of course.

Hmm, it’s odd. I say odd because

I rarely look at it in Scotland yet the restaurant we’re in tonight in Glasgow is No3 in the whole city. Sandwiched between the Wee Lochan (great) and Number 16 (also great) but a whole two places behind the city’s No1 finest restaurant the, er, Himalayan Dine in Shawlands (crikey, who knew). I should have gone there. But I didn’t notice it at the top of the list yesterday.

Anyway, the Mini Grill. Third best of just under 2,000 restaurants in the city. Unlike the Himalayan Dine (88 reviews and, uh-oh, do I see first-time reviewers?) the Mini Grill has almost 2,000 reviews. Very few negatives. Shame on me, then, I’d never heard of it. But how do they do it?

By the time David Leung (I promised I’d spell his surname right this time) arrives through the basement door and joins me at one of the two seaters which seem to be randomly placed throughout – including one under a shelf – I’m kinda moany.

The floor is at such a slant he’s actually sitting uphill from me, some of the tables seem smaller than chopping boards, but with uglier tops, and there is a higgledy-piggledy feel about the place.

I was given the pre-theatre menu when I sat down at 6.15pm and had it taken away from me at 6.20pm (it finished at 5.45pm). Our brief encounter was enough for me to notice that the two courses I’d identified had suddenly jumped from £19.95 to £28.

What? £28? Sheesh. Starters from £6 to £11. OK, I know, the correct price is the price people will happily pay and return. The staff, however, are cheery, bright and breezy. Yes, they manage to ask us every question twice and will adopt a hey-how-great-was-that look after every course. But we’re in TripAdvisor land where waiting staff know the tyranny of the random review. For the record, I think the staff are great. When the meal’s finished I’ll get a card plopped on my plate naming one and urging me to review the restaurant on TripAdvisor. I won’t. But they’re working it and that’s not against the rules.

So is that how they do it? Possibly. How great was the food though?

Starter No1: Scottish lamb rack cutlet (three chops), herb crusted braised lamb shoulder (mincey), beetroot game chips (singular), pickled mint (mint sauce), pear jelly (anonymous), rosemary juice (salty gravy). All for £10. It’s a huge plateful, the lamb is pleasant, the whole thing no showstopper but it’s alright and

PHOTOGRAPH: JAMIE SIMPSON There isn’t enough space to list the overblown ingredients of the main course that Ron had at the Mini Grill Steakhouse