'Top Chef' Ilan Hall goes downtown with the Gorbals

What kind of restaurant name is "The Gorbals"? We'd better let Ilan Hall, Season 2's winner of "Top Chef," explain:

According to the handsome and bespectacled chef, who was born to a Scottish father and an Israeli mother, that would be serving a variety of small plates heavily influenced by his mixed ethnic background -- but without adhering to any rules of tradition or decorum when it comes to their creation. One such dish is a bacon-wrapped matzo ball, which could be the punch line for a joke beginning, "A rabbi and a pig walk into a bar . . . ."

But the menu as a whole is not a gag. Read more here:

Photo caption: Patrons sit at the counter of the Gorbals restaurant while chef Ilan Hall, back, is busy during opening night in downtown Los Angeles. Photo: Stefano Paltera / For The Times