Bifteki House, Howard Street, Glasgow

Offering: Doner Kebab

Establishment: Bifteki House, Glasgow

Date and time:  14th March 2017, 13:26

Price: £4.80

Seating: 6 Seats, very small ledge table

In  the early spring of this year, the Doner Informer visited our beloved cousins in the west, the objective was plain and simple - sample the finest doner magic available in Scotland's so-called 

"friendliest city". Instead, we came across Bifteki - located a stones throw away from the handy Glasgow Central Station - I'm very much glad the city planners were visionary enough to build the railway so near the doner heartland.

On this landmark visit, I was accompanied by three colleagues who failed to appreciate the kind offerings by the very delightfully mannered Turkish chap running the operation and they abruptly left to visit some sort of overpriced burger bar with the suggestion that we would reconvene later.

The man behind the counter was a true joy, who knew that he was dealing with a man trained in the (sometimes) dark arts of doner critiquing and attempted (but failed) to bribe me with a small slithered sample of doner overtures before the main event! It was around then that I lectured the chap that my integrity could not be bought and sold. I was also suspecting that he had mercenaries following me, probably from as far away as Edinburgh. My fears were alleviated when the gentleman appeared confused yet unmoved by the vocal rejection of his bribe. It was around then that I realised that this chap was genuinely just trying to be friendly and offering a decent customer service.

...the chilli sauce was so sweet that it could have been diluted and sold as a chilli juice drink, so sickly was this sauce...

When the kebab arrived, I decided to take a seat on one of the uncomfortable high seats facing the wall at a small table - this wasn't the ideal environment but I was well aware that many of the finest doner institutions in Scotland don't even offer this privilege.

The kebab was presented with the accompanying plastic fork was dipped into the red, almost orange looking spicy sauce. It was sweet. In fact, the chilli sauce was so sweet that it could have been diluted and sold as a chilli juice drink, so sickly was this sauce. This was perhaps the sweetest sauce I'd ever sampled in a doner kebab and it was no good thing. I'm well aware that chilli sauces in kebabs should really not have a bitter taste to them, in order to maximise that chilli bite - its important that some sweetness must be used to give it that glorious bite we all know and love. One of the greatest errors that doner establishments make though (this is up there with making a sauce with no heat) is churning out a sauce that is not chilli at all but just sugar. If you were drinking a can of Irn Bru with this kebab, you would be giving yourself your allocated sugar serving as an adult for about a week. Not only this but this does not serve the kebab well at all.

There was no accompanying salad sauce, this establishment either doesn't serve it or it was finished when I visited. They did have a yoghurt sauce though but I declined on the basis that it would have attacked the spiciness that I intended (but failed) to taste in the chilli sauce.

The meat was really nothing to write home about (but here I am). It was seriously standard fare with very little distinctive features - you would be able to get this kebab from any city in the UK (perhaps minus the chilli diluting syrup).

Overall, Bifteki House is not a great kebab place - its an OK kebab place with very little to offer in a presumably competitive market in Glasgow. This operation, I suspect receives the crux of its custom from lesser discerning nearby construction workers and area drunks. The price point of this kebab is very good as the quantity was somewhat favourable, the product on offer though less so. I now look forward to the £2.50 doner kebab my father has been singing hymns about after his recently concluded Doner Tour of Scotland, sponsored by Homebase.

Verdict: 6/10

Kebab Mahal, Edinburgh

Offering: Naan King Doner

Establishment: Kebab Mahal, Edinburgh

Date and time: 31st December 2016, 15:02

Price: £5.99

Seating: Around 20 seats and 6 tables, often a waiting time.


Like Lazeez, Kebab Mahal is one of those places that has been around for decades, it looks basic from the outside and but you can tell how well loved it is by the hustle and bustle of the passing and repeat custom it receives. Often, people who enter the doors know the owner by name and this is usually a good indication that if the place was not here, it would be sorely missed. Also like Lazeez, the interior of this place is so understated that many people would never give it a second thought or would be put off by the lack of sophistication - those people probably eat entire pizzas with a knife and fork. The awards on display at the far wall are a telling sign; this place spends it's money on the food rather the decor.

I had to stop coming here for a while. Not because I wasn't a fan of the food - au contraire; the owner and his son knew exactly what I wanted every time I walked through that old-fashioned door: the Naan King Doner (that's what I like to call it, it really rolls off the tongue). I felt slight embarrassment that I had become so predictable and that I had been coming so frequently, I decided I would not have a doner from Kebab Mahal for a good six or so months. On the tail end of the year, I returned only to be greeted by the bearded owner with my order known in advance and told to me before I had uttered a word, almost as if the owner was looking at a clock and spoke the time - I couldn't escape it - they knew everything; the extra chilli, the extra onions, the slight splash of yogurt sauce! It would take much longer than only six months before they would ever forget my order. I really don't know whether this would be impressive if I was to attend to a kebab with company; would my friends be impressed? more than likely, they would joke that I was too deeply entrenched in the doner underworld and that there was now no turning back.

As I sat down on one of the round tables, I asked the garcon for his finest, most delectable of table waters to which he assisted in large jug accompanied by a small glass tumbler. The service was, as usual quite speedy, the fresh naan arrived with a chunky topping of doner meat and a sparse yet simple salad consisting of all the usual suspects but with an added yet often overlooked compadre - white cabbage.  Often enough, red cabbage is the desired accompaniment of the cabbage family, however in this particular establishment white cabbage seems to be considered amongst the penultimate items that deliver a higher state of doner consciousness. I don't completely disagree. I do however prefer red cabbage. Red cabbage feels like it can be overloaded in a kebab and it would not usually ruin it however, I've found that when the same happens with its white counterpart, it can feel far too crowded a kebab and must be shredded to thinner pieces. Another seriously enjoyable aspect of the red cabbage is the fact that it often comes soaked in a pickle vinegary liquid, similar to the jalapenos juice - a very desirable liquid indeed but this liquid, this liquid is not here as we have fresh white cabbage. Instead, the entire salad is soaked in a zingy lemon dressing, it really brings a captivating succulence to the entire experience.

...when the chilli sauces are having their way for you, make room for the captivating yogurt supremo!

The lady in red, lumpy and thick with it's chunks and probably slightly dry when compared to its sistren sauces; it contains a burn comparable to that of Original Best Kebab House.  There is a sister in red too; a sweeter, runnier affair. Whist the lady is quite an intense vinegar heavy condiment, the sister is way less dominant and lets her sibling take over as the main attraction.

And when it all becomes too much, when the chilli sauces are having their way for you, make room for the captivating yogurt supremo! Your stimulated taste buds will be cooled by it's creamy, runny coriander touch.

The doner meat has been cut medium to thin, think about as thick as Marmaris but not as wide cuts. This meat also extremely heavy, settles in your stomach like the meat of a burger and I'm certain that it is entirely beef, this is also ensured by the texture that tastes much more dense rather than the floatier, lighter taste of lamb. The meat has been seasoned to a medium spiciness but with the added density of the beef, the spiciness appears to be amplified.

The naan bread was fresh, warm and thick. It had all the delightful air bubbles that give it a wispy, soft texture. A grand companion to it's splendid content.

As I finish polishing off this fine feast, I look to the wall to my right and tell myself the same thing I do every time I come here after looking at the numerous awards indicated: I must one day get a curry here and one day I will but until the very charming owner forgets my order upon entry, I feel I really can't challenge the man.

Verdict: 8/10

Large Doner Kebab, Marmaris, Edinburgh

Offering: Large Doner Kebab

Establishment: Marmaris Kebab House (South Clerk St.), Edinburgh

Date and time: 21st November 2016, 19:34

Price: £7.50

Seating: Over 20 simple seats

There comes a time when when despite how good the food of an establishment is, if the service received is so underwhelming, it automatically has an effect on how you perceive their doner. If you go somewhere and find that they have very little value for the customer and appear to consider the customer to be a nuisance to their day-to-day lives, you may ask yourself 'Well, how good is the doner there anyway? is it really worth having to face staff members that consider you beneath them?' - this is my experience of Marmaris Kebab House.

I don't want you to be alarmed. It's not like every person behind the counter in Marmaris threatens you with a kebab skewer as soon as you greet them but there are definitely a few issues with the attitude of the staff and they need addressing if they want to reverse the bad feeling against them. If you don't believe me, just take a look at the Trip Advisor comments where you will find various users accusing the staff of discrimination to outright violence. I no longer wish to go into too much detail about the staff as whilst my experience of them has been unsatisfactory, I have thankfully never experienced any violence.

An especially great aspect of their kebabs is the presentation. Looking at the photo above, I feel that their plate set up and accompanying sauce bowls are truly a thing of beauty. It's not always that you can say that about lamb doner either; many people I've known are turned off by the fact that the average doner kebab is hardly a feast to their inexperienced anti-kebabist eyes. It could also be argued though that those people are snobs and barely qualify as people and that they should not be allowed to vote.

The experience of pouring your sauce on the thin curved lamb slithers also adds a ceremonial sense to this occasion. The salad is very appealingly cut, in nice small pieces and all the usual suspects are present, they seem to have been lightly dressed in a lemon juice and combined with finely chopped coriander. Oh, what's this? fried potato sticks, of a previously frozen nature? Why not? I never expected to see you rear your respectable head in this neck of the woods. All this would be a masterclass in doner accompaniments had it nor been for the fact that it's just too much gimmicks and not enough doner! Taking a look at the photos and you find that salad and chips take up around two thirds to a half of the actual plate - I never asked for this!

I just wanted a large doner kebab, a nice big portion of meat, stuffed in pita bread with salad and sauce. What I got was a bleak look into the motivations of stingy kebab seller.

The chips are nothing special, they seem to just take up space and if they weren't there, they would not be sorely missed...

You can really tell the plentiful vegetable content of the chilli sauce when you begin to pour and see it land on the meat as it begins to separate into the smaller curvatures of the doner. There are also bottles of tangy salad sauce at every table in this establishment and if you're a bit strange, you can add some vinegar and so forth. Whilst the sauce adds a decent level of moistness to the meat, there isn't really a great deal of flavour - there is a tang but there is not much else at all, quite disappointing.

The chips are nothing special, they seem to just take up space and if they weren't there, they would not be sorely missed - fewer chips and more meat would be a step in the right direction. I'm not so sure I like having to fill the pita bread up with the doner and salad either, it seems like quite a task when presented like this, it will inevitably lead to a smaller filled kebab too as you will likely worry about getting it's contents on you and you will probably play it safe, just like I did - eating the rest of the meat without it's bread companion is not as satisfying.

The doner meat is good, its well seasoned and the quality can be compared to Topkapi but it still falls short of their standard. I will say though, the seasoning of the Marmaris meat is far better than Topkapi.

For all its pomp, for all it's grandiose presentation and it's plentiful seats, it's early opening hours and it's weekday lunchtime special prices, the Marmaris doner falls short for it suffers from stingy portions and sub-par sauce. To add insult to injury, I was charged more than I expected - Marmaris do not charge you the fee shown on their menu board if you choose to sit in. They don't clarify this on their menu board either; you can't help but feel a little bit stung by their staff members upon the sit-in visit. For this quantity and quality, it just isn't worth it.

Verdict: 6/10

Doner; Reclaiming Our Heritage From The Elite.

Around 40 years ago, if you wanted to eat a quick healthy meal after a hard days graft, you only had the choice of the local chip shop establishment at best, or if you were particularly poor, a packet of Golden Wonder would have to suffice. That was until a new exotic food from the continent started appearing on side streets and main thoroughfares; Scotland, the UK and the rest of the world had changed forever.

It was around this time that analysts noted the stark contrasts in the British socio-political landscape, such striking differences that still reverberate to this day. Indeed it would be the late 1970's when Margaret Thatcher would be appointed Prime Minister and the first notes of punk-rock had been playing in underground nightclubs in what seemed like urban wastelands, shattering all preconceived notions of what popular music could be.

Some 15 Years earlier, the Americans relentlessly raced the Russians to the moon and when Neil Armstrong symbolically first step foot on the reflective surface of that world, he was underwhelmed that he didn't find what he was looking for.

For thousands of years, books had been written; schools of thought had formed; entire civilisations had emerged, perished and re-emerged. The greatest thinkers of all time were about to be humbled: Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Zlatan. A momentous occasion was upon us!

Soon the day would come. Soon the day would come when a meal so delightful in it's presentation, so exquisite in its posture. So ergonomically advanced and ahead of it's time, boasting a mere 1100 calories...  Soon the day would dawn.

What Armstrong was looking for had been happening for centuries in the Middle East. I have no idea why he went to the moon. Neither did he.

Like the Whirling Dervish, the food known to rotate on a spit was almost upon us - it's rough textured slithers of only the choicest quality, cut to perfection by the only the most qualified artisan, complete with chef's hat, charming apron, preferably a thick moustache and non-native English speaking accent.

...overnight, those who had once been so powerful, saw themselves slip off the radar as each sharpened knife tore into grilled minced lamb; the regiments began revolting, the army as a unified single force tore through the establishment...

One incredibly fateful day, it was as if the birth of a new nation had taken place. A people united only by a shared desire of what culinary perfection could be. An unstoppable desire, a zeitgeist unlike any before it, a true moment of wonder was upon us!


As the slithers of delightful joy tumbled on the pitta, dancing on the bread like heavens children or the notes of a harp, a moment previously unimaginable had just taken place. When it rained a mysterious red along with the greenery one would only have seen in exotic gardens, topped up and presented to our subjects, the looks of amazement and euphoria were unquestionable.

Neil Armstrong finally found what he was looking for.

Golden Wonder would one day catch up, but it was too late. For by then the providential impact of the Turkish community on Scotland and the UK could never be reversed. The edible champion had successfully orchestrated what would go on to be considered one of the biggest, most relentless coup d'etats of all time.

There were suggestions...campaigns; demonstrations even!! This is where true power lies. This magnificent foodstuff must replace the face of the Queen on British currency. It was as if overnight, those who had once been so powerful, saw themselves slip off the radar as each sharpened knife tore into grilled minced lamb; the regiments began revolting, the army as a unified single force tore through the establishment like...well, like the artisan chef himself.

The Doner Kebab had finally arrived in the UK.