Viajante, great food in unlikely places

A dark corner of the east end of London is a strange place to find one of London's most interesting  restaurants. Claiming to serve a (very) modern take on Portuguese cuisine Viajante, fittingly for us after our recent excursions, meaning "the traveller", is based in the old Tower Hamlets town hall. The frontage is very impressive and the dining room is quite grand although the chairs do look like they may be ex council stock. The main menu choices you have are whether you want 6 or 9 courses (we obviously went for the more is better plan) however you have no real indication of what the courses are. Once that is sorted the only thing that remains is to decide if you want a matching wine (much better value than buying it by the bottle) then you should sit back relax and enjoy a crazy culinary adventure.

Dinner by Heston? I bet he'll serve snails again!

There is no such thing as a sure thing in life, but you can usually bank on a couple of things at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant, 1) there are going to be snails 2) there is probably going to be a lot of dry ice and 3) I am going to really enjoy my meal there.

Our trip to Dinner by Heston (which shortly after my trip appeared at number 7 on the world's top 50 restaurant list) was a lunch time visit to celebrate our return to London and also the arrival of my soon to be in-laws in London. We booked in on one of the very reasonable lunchtime set menu deals which includes 3 courses for 36 pounds.

A tale of two curries

I love a good curry, so when, as part of London restaurant week, I got chance to try a michelin starred version I naturally jumped at the opportunity.

I should first say that I have eaten at a lot of London's more well regarded curry establishments, including Tayyabs, Mirch Masala and any number of the random places you find all the way down Brick Lane and popping up all over the city.

What I have found is that although quite a lot of finding a good curry house is a lucky dip, once you have got lucky you should be able to get a decent meal for around 20 quid (without cobra), although having said that I have had a very decent meal for less than that on many happy occasions

Sadly Benares, on Berkley Square did not fall into the category for great value, the deal they offered as part of London restaurant week was 3 courses for 25 pounds, which sounded reasonable enough for a michelin starred place but rather than do a selection from their tasting menu (which is the approach taken by many restaurants who take part) they used the event to promote their new(ish) Thali menu.

Now personally I think this was quite a large mistake, mainly because, to keep costs down, the menu they chose was almost identical to one you could find in most curry houses all over London, but while you were eating you were sat next to people eating a selection of amazing looking dishes from the real menu, putting into stark relief the very normal fayre we were presented with. Food envy is bad enough when it is your partners meal (because if you are lucky/quick you can get to try some) however when it is a neighbouring table you quickly feel like a poor relation. The thali platters were well laid out with a good selection of dishes, but to be honest both of the main curries (chicken thighs and sea bass) were pretty dull.

We also opted for the accompanying wines to see if the restaurant sommellier was up to standard, sadly for him he let himself down badly with one of my wines, a pinot noir, which was badly corked, completely opaque and dull. Even in the dim lights provided by the restaurant I could tell something was wrong when he set it down on the table. A quick sniff and sip confirmed it was as bad as I expected.

Having summoned the waiter the mistake was quickly rectified but to be honest it should never have been made in the first place, and even a complimentary glass of champagne with dessert couldn't really shake the feeling of disappointment. I think had it not been for the wine I would have been tempted to go back to try the main menu at some point but it put the tin hat on a really down experience for me.

Talking of dessert this was the best part of the meal, with a cooked yoghurt and fruit dessert which I would recommend to anyone, although I would have to say it didn't make the costs worth while.

To make up for this disappointment and also to satisfy my need for a proper curry I decided to go to one of my favourite curry houses in London this weekend, Gurkha's Diner in Balham. Technically this is Nepalese (rather than Indian) which usually means no coconut and also less ghee and cream, with more tomato and vegetable based curries.

The reason I love Gurkha is because it is an Indian that suits my tastes, the food is lovingly laid out  and the service is always keen and attentive. The food itself tastes great and is always well spiced (packing a pretty decent punch).

The best starter (pictured left) are the Momo Cha (spicy pork dumplings) which are so good I have tried to recreate them myself, with some success, although the Choyola lamb is also highly recommended.

The mains are less pretty to look at (arriving in standard serving bowls) but they are also incredibly tasty. The fact that the whole meal (including drinks and service) was 22 pounds each for me and my partner was also impressive. The best bit is that they also do take-away with free delivery giving even the laziest Balham resident no excuse for not giving it a go!

Personally I would recommend the Sherpa hot (which is the lamb and potato dish on the right of the image. My girlfriend swears by the prawn raja rani but to be honest I have tried quite  a bit from the menu and haven't found anything disagreeable yet.

What makes a good restaurant experience: Oxo Tower and 99 Station Street

Recently I have been to a couple of restaurants at either end of the fine dining spectrum, which appear to have a very different outlook on fine food and what makes a good restaurant.

The first of these was a restaurant I have been meaning to go for for quite some time, the Oxo tower. With its panoramic views of the Thames and the city of London it has long been a favourite of business groups and people visiting the city. The problem is that because of this many people would go regardless of the quality of the food and sadly this showed in what we were served and the prices they are able to charge. Food wise we were on a lastminute.com set menu which cost 28 pounds for 2 courses, this seemed like a reasonable deal, but this failed to include the side dishes (which were necessary for several of the main courses)  and would also ignore the biggest expense which was the drinks. Even the cheapest bottle of wine came in at around 30 pounds and to be honest this was not necessarily a wine that should be complimenting a decent meal, in the end we settled on a lower end wine (in terms of their wine list) which was a Chilean pinot noir which cost us just over 50 pounds.

The service, as you would expect was very efficient but the food itself was nothing out of the ordinary, either in terms of quality, taste or presentation,my duck was a touch on the dry side and I got to try my girlfriends starter and main, a sure sign that all was not well. Having looked at the prices on the a la carte menu where a main is 20-30 pounds if this was representative of the quality you could expect we won't be going back to sample it any time soon.

The other slightly weird thing about the oxo tower is the lighting, to make sure you get a good view out over London they seem to have lit the dining area with a blue light, which was very much like one of those toilets in a night club, designed to stop drug addicts form being able to find the vein in their arm to shoot up. It didn't really add a great deal to the way the food looked either.

As a counter point to this we then headed to a completely different area of the country, to a restaurant that didn't rely on its views and high honed professional levels of service, but instead has built up a great reputation based on the quality of its food. 99 Station Street in Burton on Trent is not somewhere you would expect to find an award wining restaurant focusing on local produce, I was certainly surprised when my brother who lives in the area suggested it, but I am glad he did.

In stark contrast to the cold iron feel of the Oxo, which is full of chrome and glass the restaurant itself has a nice wooden feel, the tables aren't crammed in despite the fact it isn't blessed with a massive amount of floor space. I am not going to pretend that the service was anywhere near as professional, but to be honest that added to the home run feel of the place and also made us feel less frowned upon as we exchanged food during the courses. This was not because we didn't like our main courses but because the food we had was so nice we felt that everyone should try it.

I started my meal with the salmon, which was brilliant, beautifully cured and served with an excellent dressing, this was complimented by an excellent Chapel Down wine from the small but beautifully formed wine list. Unlike the Oxo the wine was not stupidly expensive with most bottles coming between the 12 and 35 pound mark. I followed the salmon with the Packington Pork, which was also very good, I also sampled the steak and the lamb shank, both of which would usually have made me jealous but my main was excellent. The desserts were also very good, I had the orange posit which tested great with the chocolate topping.

I have to highly recommend it if you are in the area as an excellent place to eat at very reasonable prices.

Bancogiro, San Polo, Venice. Adding a twist to stand out from the crowd

I went on a wonderful trip to Venice with my girlfriend on the first weekend of January this year, if you haven't been I cannot recommend it highly enough, although it was pretty packed with tourist even then, I can imagine it wouls only get worse in the spring and summer.

I get that if you are in the UK me talking about somewhere in Venice is not going to be very helpful in terms of you planning your next trip out, however I thought I wanted to mention this awesome little restaurant on the banks of the Grand canal, very near to the Rialto bridge called Bancogiro in spite of this, mainly because I think that good food and a great atmosphere is worth talking regardless.

The restuarant itself is an old merchant bank building set on a lively square. We had looked at quite a few menus while we were in Venice as we failed to read enough reviews of places before we went out there, and all of the places we looked at seemed to be pretty much the same, around 20 euros for a main, serving very standard Italian fare. This one caught our eye because it was a little bit different, it may have been a couple of euros more expensive (and only a couple) but some thought had been put into making the menu that little bit different, without betraying its Italian roots.

Instead of doing simple pasta for a started they served a crunchy Boer Raviloi (which was more like a pastry than a pasta), my girlfriend went for this, but I managed to steal a bite while she wasn't looking! The crunchy casing absorbed the juices of the Boer nicely. I started with a more traditional Squid Ink Taglettelle with prawns, which I have to say was amazing. I should probably at this point mention the wine, which was a Local Merlot from Venetto, I have never been a big fan of Italian Reds but this certainly went quite some way to changing my mind.

I followed this with lamb, which was stuffed with pancetta served on a mash and celeriac, as with all of the food the lamb was beautifully cooked, the flavours balanced well with each other. My other half had less of a good time with the main course, not because it was bad, but because the starter was filling. She had chosen rabbit, with eggplant and a stack of wedges, this was very rich and the lemony sauce didn't seem to break up the richness.

Despite having had a very filling starter and a main course and a half for the purposes of the review (yes, for you dear reader) I decided to sample one of the desserts which was a wonderful spicy fig and ginger mouse, served with a really lemony Muscat which complimented it really well.

Anyway, if you happen to be in Venice and want some authentic but also a little bit different i would highly recommend dropping in one night (although I would also recomend booking in advance, as it was full even on a quite Saturday in January.) http://www.osteriabancogiro.it/

Restaurant Review: Lunch at L'Atelier by Joel Robuchon

I know I haven't written anything for a while, Christmas was a blur of good booze, better food and relaxation, the main problem with this is that I have failed to write up a fantastic trip to l'Atelier we went on in the run up to Christmas. 

My girlfriend (who you have probably spotted by now, does most of the booking) found a great deal for a set lunch with a view of the chiefs preparing dinner in the Japanese/French fusion section downstairs. I think part of this was an attempt to get me to go Christmas shopping with her (although if lunch at a 2 star michelin restaurant is the bribe then I am there). I checked and they are still offering a set lunch menu which is 28 

The Restaurant itself is on a side street near Covent garden, on the same street as the Ivy, although it is very much about substance over style, when you walk in the decor is very modern, although it does seem a little bit dark at first you soon become accustomed to the light. 

The bar around the chef's where we were seated is interesting, you do get a pretty good view, but for a romantic meal for two you will be sitting side by side with the person you went with, to be honest I found watching the chefs pretty much made up for that.

The menu was limited but it did include some of the signature dished as well as an optional wine accompaniment which were mainly wines from the Loire region of France.

For starter I had an excellent chicory, apple and stilton salad, which was exactly the right blend of crunchy, creamy and tart, my other half had l'ouef coque sans coque (or an egg coquette with a mushroom sauce) which must have been good, mainly because I got nowhere near trying any of it.

The mains were also exceptional, I went for the pollock which was beautifully cooked and incredibly tasty, my partner went for the lamb, which I am reliably informed was excellent, which again was borne out by the fact there wasn't any of it for me to try.

Obviously we followed this up with dessert, I went for a selection of chocolate puddings which were all very different and exceptionally tasty. My girlfriend went for a selection of french cheeses, mainly because for some reason she doesn't like chocolate, these were a little limited in type, but still very tasty.

I would have to recommend the whole experience to anyone, according to the website the lunchtime menu is available for 28 pounds (for 2 courses) or 37 if you want the matching wine (which I would recommend), definitely one of the best eating experiences of what I have to be honest, was a pretty good year for food.

Cafe du marche:restaurant review

I recently started a new job so have been trying out restaurants near my new offices in Farringdon. As part of this I took my girlfriend out for a nice romantic meal at a French place that came highly recommended (the person who told us about it was sworn to secrecy by a guy who took her there on a date, it turns out she likes us more than him!)

The restaurant is hidden down a side street just off a quaint square halfway between barbican and farringdon station.

It definitely feels like you have made a special discovery when you walk through the door into the brick lined walls, there is a piano in the centre which was being played by someone when we arrived giving the whole place a warm and friendly feel.

Whenever I go to a new restaurant I am alway nosey and look at what the other guest have ordered, just so I can get an idea of size and also to maybe give me a hint about what I may have order myself, looking quickly from table to table I couldn't see a single thing I wouldn't want to eat, beautiful cuts of meat, fresh poultry and salads where pretty much everywhere accompanied by some very nice looking wine.

Once we were seated (right next to the aforementioned piano) we got to peruse the excellent menu, which offers 2 course for 28.50 or 3 courses for around 35 we also got told about some really very interesting specials, including quail and partridge. For started I went for the gratin of black pudding, which tasted sensational while my girlfirend chose the mushroom tartine. These were both generous in size and passed the clean plate test (there was nothing left of the tartine for me to try again, although I am told it was really good).

For mains we both went for specials, I chose to pay a supplement and had partridge, which was suuculent, tender and very tasty, servered with some chips and a salad while my girlfriend went for the quail, I did manage to get a mouthful of the quail (as I have never tried it before) and I have to say it was even better than my partridge, with a really nice flavour and texture.

I would highly recommend the Cafe du Marche as a great place for a date, it is everything you would expect from a quaint little french restaurant in the side streets of Paris, but stuck in the middle of London.

Foxtrot Oscar: restaurant review

What better way to follow an Evening with John Torode than with a spot of Sunday lunch with Gordon Ramsey at his Foxtrot Oscar restaurant (obviously we saw neither of them, but you know what I mean)

Foxtrot Oscar is set in the heart of Chelsea, right next door to Ramsey's head office and I think it could be considered a perfect location for Sunday lunch after a leisurely stroll through Battersea Park and along Chelsea Embankment. I have to say I have been before and I really like the small intimate feel, it is more gastro pub than fine dining, but I really do enjoy the experience.

Currently you can get some really good deals on the Sunday lunch menu, we managed to get a deal for on 3 courses for 25 quid. The selection is slightly limited, but if it isn't for you you can always go for the very reasonable a la carte menu (which comes in at about 8 pounds for a starter and 15 for a main).

The starter I chose was a very tasty French onion soup, my only issue with it was I would have preferred a bit more soup. My girlfriend and the friend who came with us chose to have the roasted marrowbone, although my girlfriend didn't particularly like hers, I think this was mainly because she hadn't tried it before and was surprised by how fatty it was (our guest was rather more glowing about it, pointing out, quit rightly, that the best bits for flavour are in the fat)

The main course options were roast sirloin, roast pork belly, a cheese burger or an aubergine pasta dish. Being the carnivores we are we ordered the first 3 options, I went for the burger as having had a big slab of pork the night before I fancied a lighter option, I was given a chance to choose how I wanted it cooked (pink or well done) which was a nice touch and also a good sign of the quality of the meat (I chose pink and it certainly didn't let me down).  Our guest was also given the option on how cooked he wanted his sirloin to be, which, like any one of taste would chose, was as rare as the chef recommended. He was treated to an excellent piece of beef, slightly bloody in the middle, but with crispy fat around the outside. The port belly my girlfriend was served up also looked amazing (again a good sign is that I can't comment on the taste because despite its generous size she finished the lot!)

This bought us onto the desserts, where accompanied by a really quite excellent Hungarian Tokaji we had a cheesecake and sticky toffee pudding. My vanilla cheesecake really was tasty (although by this time I was starting to feel slightly full) and again I am assured that the sticky toffee pudding was also good (I could have tried this but I have to be honest, I ran out of space to fit it in!).

So in summary I would highly recommend a trip to Foxtrot Oscar as good value and with its calm laid back and comfortable decor one of the best locations for Sunday lunch I have found in London

SOS: restaurant review

Smiths on Smithfield was the venue for a friends party on saturday night and as we were there I thought it would be a good idea to try John Torode's eating establishment for a spot of dinner first.

SOS is an interesting place, split into four levels with restaurants and food for different occasions on each floor. The ground floor is a nice bar with some good snack food, the first floor has an impressive stocked wine room where they serve pizza and more simple fayre. There is also a private dining room on the first floor that caters for parties.

The top floor is the fine dining room, with views of St Paul's and most of the city of London, but sadly we were a little short of time for a full tasting menu so we had settled on the second floor which specialises in grilled meats.

I started with chicken liver parfait which was served on a toasted brioche
with a homemade pickle, the whole ensemble worked well together, with the pickle cutting through the richness of the parfait. My girlfriend was less impressed with her choice of French onion soup, although it was solid it was a little acidic.

For main course I settled on the pork belly and mashed potato, while my girlfriend went for a classic steak frites. The pork was well cooked and the meat was tender and juicy, although some of my crackling had failed to crackle properly (which always a bit of a disappointment) it was served with an interesting parsley garnish which really complimented the fattyness of the meat.

My girlfriends mild disappointment continued with her sirloin steak, although it was cooked exactly to order she said it was the meat was good, not great.

The wine list was also pretty darn good, and in reality it would have been nice to have a red wine with the meal but as we were there for a night out afterwards we ended up going for a very nice 2008 Izadi white Rioja.

To sum up I personally thought that the food was good, and the general decor was really cool as was the night out later, I would recommend it as a solution to a number of eating and night out conundrums. I am definitely keen to go back and try the top floor soon.

La Rueda: restaurant review

It doesn't always have to about fine dining, I really appreciate somewhere that is a bit different, has a decent atmosphere and also offers good value for money. With that in mind I thought I'd write a bit about La Rueda on Clapham high street, which me and a small group of friends visited for a Friday night meal before heading out for a few drinks.

The restaurant itself feels fairly authentic with a number of the staff who's first language actually appears to be Spanish, which we took to be a good sign. there was a wide array of tapas on the menu, covering many of the usual favourites (causing one of the group to comment that it was a fairly English style menu, although I would suggest that this is more because of the crowd they are catering for rather than a genuine lack of authenticity).

The wine list was certainly authenic with a decent number of both very nice red and white Rioja's (we went with the Marques of Carcares Red and White at around 15 pounds a bottle each).

We all ordered the recommended 3 or 4 dishes each (21 dishes between 6 of us) but I would say that this was far too much food, I suspect we could easily have fed another person and still have had something left over.

I always think that a good bell weather at all tapas restaurants, regardless of the claimed quality, is the calimares. They are always the first thing I try as I like to know how skilled the chef is. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised as they were excellent, tender and tasty, which set the tone for the rest of the meal really. The seafood was all really well cooked and I thought the sausage in wine and several of the other dishes were very good. I was slightly disappointed by the patatas bravas but on the whole I would recommend it to a larger group who want to try something different before going out for a few beers elsewhere.

I love the London Festaurant Festival: Gauthier Soho

Gauthier soho is one of the newer Michelin starred restaurants in Soho and in terms of ambience, in my opinion, it is one of the best.

From the moment you ring the door bell to gain access you feel like you have entered a really exclusive club, the staff are exactly what you would expect, efficient, knowledgeable and slightly reserved.

The dining room is small and cosy but there only a few well spaced tables adding to that exclusive feel and private dining like experience.

The festival menu had a good selection and there were generous amuse bouches provided in between the courses.

I settled on scallops while my girlfriend went for the lobster ravioli. We followed this with sea bass and duck marget. The food itself was all stunningly arranged and beautifully cooked. My scallops were some of the best I have ever tasted, I would recommend what my girlfriend ordered but it was so good she was in no mood for sharing!

As ever a very helpful sommelier was on hand to recommend some excellent accompanying wines for this.

I would have to say this is probably my favourite fine dining experience to date and I am already thinking that it would be really good to drop in and try the taste of winter seven course menu which is available for 70 pounds at present.

I love the London Restaurant Festival: review of L'escargot

Apparently a lot of London restaurants have pulled together a set of special offers and special menus in honour of London Restaurant Festival, and not being one to turn down a really good offer my partner booked us a couple of nights out at restaurants we'd been meaning to go to for a while.

L'escargot is part of Marco Pierre White's WhiteStarLines group and is to be found nestled on Greek Street in London's lively Soho. The restaurant itself feels fairly classic, well appointed and modern, however in some places the tables are a little closer together than I have seen in any other Michelin starred restaurant, my partner and I felt occasionally like we were sharing a table with a small group of people sitting next to us (this was also disappointing because it was a Monday night and there were a fair number of spare tables dotted around).

Getting over the seating arrangements the festival menu was a couple of courses for 25 quid, which is pretty good value in a place where an a la carte main course will set you back in the region of 20 pounds. I started on the Tian of Trout while my girlfriend carried on her recent fois gras thing by having the ham hock filled with the delicacy and served with a brioche. My trout was excellent, however the ham hock was a little short of fois gras for my partners taste

For main course I had the duck which was excellent, crispy skinned and in a wonderful sauce, My girlfriend decided to go for the bream which was excellently cooked and

For accompaniment we did the usual when faced with a monumental wine list, panicked and asked the sommelier, he was really great, giving us some good advice, we ended up ignoring the currenttrend of pairing a dessert wine with the fois gras and instead settled on a bottle of Chablis (from one of the minor appelations) to go with the trout, Fois gras and Bream and a glass of very nice red (which I forget) to go with my duck.

All in all it was a good experience and I really enjoyed my meal which unlike some other places doing special set menus had very generous portion sizes and gave a really good view of the menu, I think the only minor issues were the table layout and the fact that my partner was disappointed with her starter.

Artichoke, it’s all about the foam on the Michelin Watch list.

On Friday we happened to find ourselves in the suburbs in North West London, Rickmansworth to be precise. While we were there my partner and I decided to try a restaurant which was recommended to us by a couple of friends who live locally. Apparently it is on the way up and is on the Michelin watch list, which means they are on best behaviour in case that scruffy couple in the corner area couple of inspectors seeing if their staff are always courteous regardless of the apparent dress of the clientele.

As this was a slightly special occasion for us we decided to give the tasting menu a whirl, if you have never tried a tasting menu I have to say it is a really good experience when done well. The theory behind this you get to try the best of the menu and experience what the chef can do. The food bit is great although I have to say that the best bit about any tasting menu in my opinion is the matching wine.

I am a late convert to this way of eating, I think I had my first one just over a year ago but since then I have been making up for lost time. In teh past I had always assumed that I would never be able to eat all of the food served up as these tend to be 6 or 7 courses which may sound like a lot but the portion sizes tend to be relatively small.

The Artichoke was the location for the latest meal, it is apparently on the Michelin watch list, which as a friend succinctly put it means that there is going to be "a lot of foam".

The amuse bouche and starters were interesting and very well paired with the wine, although the first starter probably had a few too many types of beetroot but was interesting and worked really well with the wine. The second starter was a couple of curried scallops with carrot and coriander, this was interesting and unusual but very tasty, the pairing with the wine was also very good.

The only complaint I could really have was the middle course for the evening, which was a shot glass full of fois gras, a pickled Victoria plum and an apple foam. The foam and the fois gras worked really well together, I could even get over the fact we were served a very sweet dessert wine with it but the Victoria plum in the middle of it really didn't work well.

After that we were served a couple of excellent main course, first a very tasty rock salmon, this was followed by a pork main course, this consisted of belly and a couple of fillets which were amazingly tasty but probably were a little bit too much (in terms of quantity) for my girlfriend.

I would have to say that the whole meal was a really good experience helped by friendly, knowledgeable staff. and would recommend the restaurant for any upcoming special occasions. I would also suggest that it is not quite Michelin star worthy yet, but I imagine its time will come fairly soon if the food and service continue to be of such a high standard. 

Restaurant Trip: Maharini on Clapham High Street

 

Like catching up with an old friend for a drink and discovering that it is just like old times.

Before I moved to Balham 4 years ago I spent a happy year living in Clapham North with some close friend, all of whom were big fans of an occasional curry. While there, one of the regular places to get our Bhuna fix was the Maharani (http://www.maharani-clapham.co.uk/), now since the move (slightly) south I haven’t really been back and it was really nice to take my girlfriend there with the promise of a good, traditional English curry and find that I really wasn’t disappointed.

Now I am not saying this is the most up to date place in terms of décor, however if you can look past the fixtures and fittings the service was excellent and attentive and the atmosphere was pleasant enough (although obviously it is a big restaurant on Clapham high street so occasionally on a Friday and Saturday night I imagine you get a football or rugby team in there which may cause a few problems if your plan was for a romantic meal for two).

As well as fast and polite service, the food was excellent. We ordered a couple of specials not on the online menu ( a Rajistani chicken and a lamb dish which I forgot to make a note of) along with a Saag Paneer which according to my foodie girlfriend was one of the best she had ever tasted.I have to say both of the curry dishes were also really tasty and we’re delivered to the table still sizzling. The lamb was tender in a thick gravy, the chicken was also really tasty, neither was excessively hot, but they definitely packed a little  bit of a punch.  The food was also pretty good value for money, nearly all of the mains cost less than a tenner and the assorted sundries came in at about 3 quid each. As is the norm with curry houses 2 dishes and a vegetable side were probably a bit too much for two of us when you add in a portion of rice and a Naan but we really weren’t complaining and ended up finishing the lot.

The wine selection is somewhat limited (I know what you are thinking, who goes to a curry house and orders a bottle of red, the answer would be “my girlfriend”). The 2007 Saint Emilion we eventually settled on was under 20 quid and very nice (although it I hard to talk about wine complementing food when that food is curry) and obviously they also serve the usual array of beer if you prefer to use that to douse the spice fire.

Cost for two of us (including half a bottle of wine and tip) came in at a very reasonable 55 quid and I’d definitely recommend a visit as part of a night out.