The Avalon

This is perhaps one of the stranger and most chaotic dining experiences I’ve had in a while. The Avalon, on the face of it, is an old man pub on a quiet side street just off Charing Cross. When you go in it looks, smells and has the clientele of an old man pub, but much like the rest of Glasgow it was recently bitten by the burger bug and so the Smokin’ Joint was born.
A group of 8 of us were heading to Texas at the Hydro (What a gig by the way, Sharleen Spiteri. 48 and still giving it absolute yaldi!), and to avoid the last Friday before Christmas chaos of Finnieston one of our party had suggested we book a table in The Avalon.
The menu was your standard burger, wings, hot dogs and tex mex fayre and so I plumped for a Texas BBQ Chicken Burger with Fries.
An hour and 20 minutes later nobody had received their food. Now to be fair to the two rather flustered ladies running the bar and kitchen they had clearly been left short staffed by their gaffer but when you have somewhere that kind of wait is clearly unacceptable. If the 7 that ordered food only 4 received it in a time acceptable enough to eat it and make show opening.
What was most annoying is the food was very good even if it wasn’t what I had actually ordered! The fries were cut into a weird you shape that gave them plenty of crunch and were seasoned very well and the BEEF burger I was presented with was huge topped with Applewood Cheddar, Bacon and BBQ Sauce served on a brioche bun.
To be fair they did take the meals that arrived so very late off the menu and the drink prices were cheap but until they start staffing the place adequately the it will continue to struggle along in it’s current chaos.
TOP TIP: Don’t go in with plans to be somewhere later in the evening. You may be some time.

I was out with an old work colleague, and after having our first drink at the Bön accord I suggested we head here for a quick drink to see if there was any change since my last visit.
This is for sure a strange bar that would even confuse a seasoned drinker, In my eight years living in this area this bar has changed names and management five times, with reticent months having been fined and forced to close for non payment of Sky television.
And in my eight years this Saturday night was the busiest I’ve seen it, with around fifteen people normally there are only three customers here at the weekend.
There’s not a lot of selection of drinks on offer, we just stuck to bottled beer to be on the safe side, I did notice that they promote cocktails than any other drink that makes it look out of character for the area and clientele that they have.
The food looks and sounds and reminds me, like it’s from The Raven in the town.
There was a DJ playing on Saturday night and was playing music that reminded me of an awful album called Bonkers, it was just to hardcore and sounded awful coming out of their sound system that was possibly on its last legs.
We just stayed for one drink before heading elsewhere.

The Avalon is a funny one, isn’t it? I feel like I’ve walked past it a million times without going in until now. After a little googling it turns out that this may be because it’s been closed down and reopened a fair few times over past few decades. I’m all about pubs that are open rather than closed, though, and since it’s open now I decided to give its «Smokin’ Joint» a try.
This «Smokin’ Joint» malarky seems to be an attempt to jump on the smoked meats bandwagon. No shame in that of course but if you’re a vegetarian, try somewhere else. The menu is quite limited, with a focus on burgers, ribs or hot dogs. They can’t do salad or veg instead of fries, the burgers are chicken or beef — there’s no bean burger and the grilled jalapenoes advertised as a side on their website are apparently no longer available.
I’m fairly carnivorous so that’s all fine with me, just bear it in mind if you’re booking for a group. In the end I ordered the hot ribs with fries while my partner got the sweet ribs with fries. The ribs were seasoned beautifully — they definitely were hot and the lime flavours were amazing — however they weren’t quite as tender as the phrase «falling off the bone» might suggest. If anything they were a bit dry. Tasty, but dry. My partners ribs were a little better so perhaps it’s just to choice of flavours. It also didn’t feel like a very big portion. The fries were good, satisfying, salty and crisp.
The bar itself isn’t looking to shabby. We were comfortable enough. It was quiet but this was a Thursday night, so maybe it comes to life at the weekend. They’ve decorated their walls with LP singles and chalk boards advertising their specials, including a respectable selection of cocktails. Not being in a cocktail mood we ordered beer first (BrewDog’s Punk IPA is on draft) and later decided to stay for a bottle of red wine. Their wine list isn’t very long, it’s «red, white or rose» but you can do worse than £13 for a bottle.
So, I wish their menu had a few more options so I could bring more friends here. I wish the ribs were just slightly more tender and that there were just slightly more of them. I wish it was busier too. On the other hand, I did have a good time, and I saw someone else had ordered quite a good looking burger. So I might drop back in for a burger and a margarita if I’m in the area but I’m not in a hurry.