IT’S the ad hoc approach to restaurant reviewing on these pages, which means zero planning, zero preparation and usually zero idea where I’m going until I get there. And even then I’m sometimes not sure.

Only the faintest sounds of garment rending, teeth gnashing and hair pulling drifting my way from the editorial suites of this mighty organ indicate that my esteemed production colleagues are not fully on board with this system.

Today, however, I change tack because one of those very production supremos is coming for dinner. So I’ve checked by phone and Facebook that the restaurant will be open and will have spaces, and that it is indeed trading under the new

name Mujigae.

Look, I say to Garry, as we cross Miller Street, there’s the sign. Mujigae. South Korean. And so we spring up the steps and into a murky close with a tight left turn, talking of topicality and the current missile crisis.

Frankly, it’s all downhill from here. The truth? We possibly should get up and leave when Garry asks for a Tennent’s Lager and the waiter reveals they’ve run out. I mean, how do you run out of Tennent’s in Glasgow?

We definitely should leave when the waiter also discloses there’s no beef for the Korean barbecue. No beef? And no sashimi, no temaki or nigiri tonight, sir.

No aubergine either for that crispy fried aubergine (miso sauce) I have just ordered.

At this very moment I spot that the name on the top of the menu is not Mujigae Restaurant at all but Seoul Restaurant. We’re then told that’s because no menus have arrived for the new restaurant yet so they are using the old ones.

By now I am looking over my shoulder and starting to recognise this empty – apart from two tables of people barbecuing away – restaurant from a year or so ago.

When I look back a woman is dealing with us and insisting that in fact they do have beef. Hurrah. She is also insisting that I should not be ordering fried pork belly with kimchi because I probably won’t like it and – weirdest one of the

night – that a proper side dish to have with that beef barbecue is a whole bowl

of pork or chicken yaki soba. At £8.60. What? You’re right. Long past time to go. But we don’t.

It’s now so bad it’s actually quite good. So the beef barbecue is reinstated. And after an exhausting discourse on why Chinese restaurants serve noodle side dishes and Korean restaurants don’t, I surrender and a pork yaki soba is ordered too.

About the only starter that is available tonight is crispy chicken Korean style. Hey, we’ll have two of them, then.

They’re on the table in minutes, small pieces of crispy chicken with a reasonable sweet gooey red sauce, but never in a million years worth £8.70 per serving.

And then the woman is back. Bad news. The beef’s off again. Indeed they may never have had it in the first place.

OK … My dining companion will now have Korean barbecue with chicken. Oh, it has been decided for us – I am assuming because we look like a couple of dafties – that there’s no point in bringing all that barbecue equipment to the table and letting Garry cook it. He will probably set himself on fire.

Instead, the woman will have the kitchen cook the barbecue chicken for him. We’re suitably grateful.

So, the pork belly with kimchi which I insisted on despite her advice? A tangy, garlicky, cabbagey flavour, a slap round the chops from the chilli, some almost unidentifiable thin slices of pork. I eat it all. The not-barbecued-at-the-table barbecue? Pretty much chicken and soya sauce run round a pan for a few moments with some onions. Utterly forgettable.

That side of, er, yaki soba? Utterly forgettable too. I can’t say that for the whole experience though. I suspect we’ll remember this for a while.

Mujigae

84 Miller Street, Glasgow (0141 237 9653)

Menu: The signs are up; 15 people apparently rave about it on Facebook, should be new and South Korean but in fact we just got the old Seoul restaurant very badly rebranded. 0/5

Atmosphere: Quiet and dreary with all the buzz of a restaurant that has either got badly wrong the launch of the new restaurant or the shutting of the old restaurant. 3/5

Service: Pleasant enough but a Fawlty Towers-like evening because it’s currently the old restaurant pretending to be the new restaurant – with virtually no food. 3/5

Price: We paid an astonishing £17.40 for two starter plates of South Korean Crispy Chicken, other dishes including the Yaki Soba were around £8. 3/5

Food: What they had wasn’t bad, but they didn’t have much. It’s an exceptionally daft idea to rebrand yourself and trade as a new restaurant without changing anything else. 5/10

Total: 14/30