Usha's, Glasgow

 

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will be aware of my embracing the whole #meatfreemonday campaign. I try and give it a go almost every Monday, apart from those days when I forget and eat ham straight from the fridge (what - that happened like TWICE). For the most part though, I am pretty good at keeping up the recent go veggie one day a week trend.

If I'm honest, I am a carnivore through and through. I live off white meat and fish during the week and often opt for the red meat option when I'm eating out. The real reason I do meat free Monday is more to do with cooking. I'm quite experimental in the kitchen and it gives me the opportunity to try my hand at vegetarian dishes. Monday is my 'I'm going on a detox' day anyway, and as veggie dishes are often healthier, it just seems to make sense. 

You get me? 

So when I was invited to the new Usha's Indian Vegetarian restaurant in Glasgow's West End for a pre-opening party I was pretty intrigued. Usha's is the concept of the guys behind the already well established TriBeCa restaurants and aims to bring something new to the Glasgow curry scene by being Glasgow's first ever dedicated vegetarian and vegan Indian restaurant. 

So we have the USP.

But forget the USP - let's talk about the party. And what a party it was. The hospitality and enthusiasm that was pouring out of manager Bunty and the entire Usha team was exceptional. They were literally so excited about the food that it was infectious and Jack Dee would have struggled not to get into the party spirit. The champagne was flowing, the food was in abundance and we even got some amazing entertainment from Britain's Got Talent runners up Signature. 

An early start and way too much table service style free champagne (I swear they were on a mission to get us drunk) meant that I didn't get to taste as much of the food as I would have wanted but what I did taste was pretty bloody good. You know you are onto a good thing in a restaurant when you invite a bunch of food bloggers to your launch party and they have already made arrangements to come back as paying customers two weeks later. And I can't wait to come back and test out more of the amazing dishes on the menu. 

The brilliant entertainment, the unbelievable hospitality and the gorgeous interior of the place coupled with the fact that they are doing their own one of a kind type thing in Glasgow at the moment means that this is one place you will want to tick off your food bucket list soon.

So I will see you all there?

Get the champagne on ice Bunty.

Some of the above images were taken from the Ushas Facebook page.