The Gorbals, 2009 September Restaurant of the Month    1 thumbs up

From The Gorbals web site:

"Too often the food world is hidebound by labels. When choosing a place to eat we look for ethnicity, location, head chef, price, celebrity. Spanish. French. Raw. Mario Batali. Asian-Italian fusion. New York. LA. The Gorbals cannot be so narrowly defined.  Its inspiration is a neighborhood in Glasgow, Scotland. This is where Ilan's father, the son of German and Russian–Jewish immigrants, grew up.   The post-war Gorbals, much like New York’s Lower East Side, was where poor immigrants (mainly Jewish, Indian and Pakistani) made their homes, cooked their meals and lived their traditions while excluded from the mainstream culture. The Gorbals of downtown Los Angeles is also an amalgam of many different ethnicities and tastes. It is Scottish, Jewish, Spanish, American; it is haggis burgers, paella, chicken skin sandwiches, gefilte fish ‘n chips, and bacon-wrapped matzoh balls.  But unlike its namesake, The Gorbals treats the foreign flavor as a chance to try, not a must to avoid. The Gorbals is not limited to a certain ethnicity, preparation method or niche.
The Gorbals is a spot for new and diverse ideas. For tasty, oddball food that is there for anyone who is willing to eat something that does not fall into a category. It is not an Italian restaurant, or an Indian restaurant, or a Scottish restaurant, or a Los Angeles restaurant, nor is it new age, traditional, old school, fusion, pretentious or plain.  It is simply The Gorbals."