Tasty by Tony Singh

Let start by going all Negative Nancy and saying I ain’t into fads and I rather dislike anything fad-​y. Call me an anti-​conformist if you will. Also, I’m not a huge fan of sharing plates, but was totally prepared to go in with an open mind, especially because I’d been proven SO wrong about the amazing tapas restaurant Cubatas recently, thus getting over my sharing of small plates phobia.
I had heard that Tony Singh had gone for a varied street food theme, the thought of which confused me. My impression of street food is cheap, cheerful and grungy! But not here. The restaurant is classy, the waiting staff are smart and super attentive and the clientèle rather well to do. Not that there is anything wrong with this of course, its just not how I envisage eating street food.
On first perusal of the menu I was hit with the large number of ‘shareable’ street food dishes from around the world. The selection was impressive but I instantly started to worry and my first thoughts were, «how the cheese are all these massive and different flavours gonna work in one meal??»
The ‘shareable’ dishes included street food from Mexico, Korean, USA, Peru, India, Canada, Scotland, Thailand and a mixture of fusions thrown in for good measure. I put ‘shareable’ in inverted commas as I found that many of the dishes were either a little too small or just way too difficult to share. Its essentially a tapas restaurant rather than a small plates restaurant which I think is how they were trying to market themselves.
The idea of Tasty is to pick 3 – 5 dishes per head, but this makes for a rather pricey experience (most plates cost between £5−8). I opted for a rather lacklustre curry-​of-​the-​day, a very bright and yummy Thai type salad and a woeful Korean fish burrito (it tasted similar to something I had at Taco Bell once, no bueno!). It’s fair to say my 3 dishes were very hit and miss.
The theme actually continued as I sampled an array of different fad-​y street foods with my compadres. The poutine was made with what looked like frozen chips, it was dry, with not enough gravy, minuscule and was horribly over priced for what it was. The haggis pakora was more tattie than haggis. The Thai prawn omelette was excellent, nice and fragrant, with meaty prawns. The burger was so small that it was not possible to share. You get the picture…
At the end of the meal I was feeling a mixture of emotions, some things were great other things poor and some plates just seemed like a terrible waste of money. My misery was compounded when I sampled the deserts. I must say, I was not really tempted to try any of the deserts and I was pretty thankful I didn’t order one when I sampled a few from the table. The Jelly Piece was heavy, oily and unpleasant and the Trifle Tasty was watery and incredibly sweet. What bugged me the most about the deserts were the fact that they seemed all rather cheap and nasty and not in the slight bit refined. Perhaps this was the whole plan but I really wasn’t feeling it at all.
To sum it all up, and in the words of Austen M in his review, this place is bizarre. The combination of different foods and flavours for me does not work. However, if you have a stomach of steel, this place is for you!

This place is really quite bizarre. I was excited to be trying it and was intrigued to know how they were going to make the myriad of different dishes come together. I left confused as to what I thought about the place. The décor is awful, like your trapped in an American low grade motel on an episode of twin peaks. On the other hand the staff were brilliant. Super attentive and ready to help with every question or query.
My biggest gripe of the night was that they sell the idea that every tapas dish serves two people. There is no way this is true. The burger at a fiver was tiny and to be honest a complete embarrassment to the place. It was average tasting and I could probably of eaten it in one mouth full. Most of the dishes were small, but some were shareable at a stretch I guess. There was some excellent ones, like the tasty pork ribs. The gaucho steak with egg was also good, but the plain poutine was very bland and not a really poutine dish. The fillet beef poutine was only good once I poured my rib sauce over it. For an 8 quid dish you should not be having to jazz it up with the tangy sauce from another dish.
I got to sample loads of other dishes to. A nice chicken tikka pie, a good prawn omelette, a boring Korean burrito, Indian curry of the day, a chargrilled kebab platter, great haggis pakora, etc, etc. My reactions varied from between wow, to pleh to meh! I have to say though it was mainly middle of the road. Now the staff are at pains to point out this is not an Indian restaurant, it’s a mix of world street food, but I have to say I expected the Indian dishes to be some of the best and they turned out to be some of the worst… (In my opinion of course)
Not done yet! This is turning into a long review! Desserts were really bad in my opinion. The trifle was in a sundae glass and was far to runny. The deep fried jelly piece with ice cream was really not good. It was like fried white slices of bread on ice cream. I can see what they are trying to do, but it does not work at all. The beer menu had two Swedish beers on it that I had never tried before which of course got my I attention. I tried both and they just seemed pretty average tasting. I felt like they were strange choices to be honest if they trying to do something a bit different. (There is far better unusual beers out there)
All in there was highs and lows. The savoury dishes probs came out at ¾ stars. The desserts and beers were ½ stars. The service was 5 stars, but the price, décor and the misleading size selling of the dishes was 1 star. It’s hard to try and score this overall. They are trying to do something different, but for me it just does not work I’m afraid. Finishing where I started… This place is bizarre!

So Tony Singh is the new kid on the Glasgow bloc! Mainly known for his Edinburgh restaurant /​tv shows and now he has landed in Glasgow. Taking over the red leaf restaurant in the middle of the Alea Casino it has a little bit of a strange vibe to it! The décor feels more of a hotel lobby and you can still hear the hustle and bustle of the goings on outside the restaurant. Betting tables and hen parties! What I would say is that it has an amazing view across the river and the squinty bridge!
Prime time eating 7:30pm table it was busy but the staff were totally on top of it! All waitresses shared all the tables and they were good at it!
Have you been before? Oh no here is goes explanation of the menu! Everything in the red was Bits Tae share. Firstly they are not! Some dishes were easy to share some where just plain not! We were a table of 7 so we just decided to share some bits and then order our own in the hope we can try bit of each other’s!
So dishes that can be shared! Haggis pakora this should most definitely be ordered! Actually is haggis, neeps and tatties. One of the best on the menu. The Curry of the day — extremely disappointed by this dish I had such high hopes but it was just bland! The pork ribs — to die for! And comes off the bone result! The quesadilla with Neeps and Tatties very easy to cut in half to share and was nice. The steak –meh! meant to be med-​rare more well done. Now the tikka pie –perfection! but would have been better a bit smaller and maybe 2 for sharing But is easy to cut in half. The burger definitely not to share! Tiny and average.
For the table we ordered the classic Pontine which was fairly in offensive. The steam buns and pickles were also alright! Some dishes were really good some were really disappointing. Very over priced when actually the dishes aren’t to share which today is still a but confusing. I’d definitely struggle to make it back!

Having been a fan of Tony Singh for a while now, I was super-​excited to hear that he was opening a restaurant in Glasgow. I booked up as soon as the reservations website was live and landed a 5.30pm slot on the Sunday of opening weekend. We were in the restaurant for about 3 hours and there were no more than 10 tables in total, which I found weird, having thought it would have been mobbed. Perhaps people are waiting for it bed in a bit.
First, the surroundings — I’d never been to the Alea casino before so wasn’t sure what to expect. The plus side on location is that it’s got loads of parking, which is handy if you’re driving, like I was. It’s also near the city centre, so you could walk or easily get a bus.
The interior is reasonably swish, low-​lighting, lots of nice carpets. The restaurant itself is up two sets of escalators, which was not signposted — perhaps an oversight, but we guessed it would be upstairs and just moseyed on up.
The restaurant area is nicely laid out, with a large bar area as you go in, with seating towards the back, with a big panoramic view of the Clyde. It was a really nice view after-​dark, with the Squinty Bridge all lit up.
This being their opening weekend, it’s a bit mean to slate the service — overall, it was friendly and enthusiastic, but there are a few wee things to iron out. The menu could have been explained far more concisely by telling us that it was tapas-​style, that would have saved us all a lot of heartache. We had 4 or 5 different people bring us various things, some of them were a bit clumsy (glasses dropped on the floor, etc), but overall, cheerful and happy to recommend items.
The menu I found, as a non-​fish eater and committed carnivore, a little less extensive than I expected, but there were plenty of tasty things on it to enjoy. We had a steamed bun and pickled veg pre-​starter whilst we decided what to order — the buns were great! They’d have been even better with some meat in them, they should consider adding that to the menu.
The pork ribs were a real belter — melt in the mouth and absolutely delicious sauce. The onion ravi dosa was another hit, though the portion was miniscule. We tried everything on the meaty part of the menu apart from the burger, and everything was well-​received. We had to send back one dish, the crab roll, as the bun it was served in was so hard, my friend couldn’t get her teeth through it, but a replacement was swiftly brought, which was much better. Our first round of draught soft drinks were also flat, which they switched out for bottled ones instead once highlighted (we were still charged for all of those items, for the record).
The desserts were a bit less well-​executed, with the brownie being more of a crumbly biscuit (overdone?) and the jeely piece being cold, tough and a bit lifeless. The brownie was also inexplicably served in the tiniest bowl available, which made it pretty hard to eat without pinging bits of it everywhere. The dessert menu is an exciting read, but it didn’t quite live up to its own hype.
On the negative side, I’d say that some of the portions are too small to be anything more than a snack — even by tapas standards, they did not feel like good value. On the plus side though, to counter that, there were a handful of main courses you could order if you don’t want to go down the sharing route (though our initial waitress actively discouraged us from ordering those and said we’d be better off getting «as many small dishes as possible» — I don’t think she meant it quite how it sounded!).
With drinks, 2 cocktails and a coffee, our bill reached £160 for 4, so it’s not a cheap option, however, for a special occasion, I’d definitely go back — perhaps after a win at the nearby blackjack table!