After a year of living in the Isle of Dogs area, I finally stepped foot into The Gaylord Indian…read moreRestaurant, which is about a 5 minute walk from my flat. The gaudy orange sign, and the tinted windows with old men just hanging around the entrance made the restaurant seem less than inviting. I never notice any diners in there, maybe thats just the tinted windows. But a friend was visiting from out of town, and amused by the name - decided we should give it a try. And holy crap.. was I missing out!
The restaurant itself is dimly lit and quite dark, so I'm not sure why the windows are tinted as well. The waiters were quite friendly and served us papadoms with assorted chutneys to start.
For a small restaurant, they have an extensive menu along with exclusive items, but we didn't know what to order since everything was pretty much chicken / lamb / seafood mixed with "exotic spices, tomato, onion, and peppers"... but I think this is common for a lot of Indian restaurants.
Anyhow, we ordered the Rogan E-Murgh (chicken in medium spice sauce), Tandoori E-Bahar (chicken in special cream sauce) and the lamb xacuti (lamb with fennel seeds, garlic ginger, and other spices) - all ranging between £7-£8. The descriptions are pretty weak, but honestly - I think you can just pick any dish, it'll be great!
The food took about 30-35 minutes, a bit too long, considering we were the only diners and it was 9:30pm - but it was definitely worth the wait!
The Rogan Murgh was really nice and flavorful saucy dish, the chunks of chicken breast were really tender, my only complaint was that it wasn't spicy at all. The Xacuti was a really nice lamb dish, more on the dry side (ie: no sauce), and the meat was extremely tender. Served underneath the meat was grilled green pepper. The sauce was nicely done, but also had a sour kick to it - I wouldn't have guessed it would be sour at all, but I really enjoyed it. The clear winner was the Tandoori E-Bahar dish: shredded chicken in a sweet curry sauce with raisins, tomato, (potato?), and topped with shredded almonds.
In the end, the bill came out to £11 per person (we each had a curry dish, naan and papadom). Definitely a decent price for some excellent Indian food! Not sure what I'm gonna order next time.. the menu descriptions certainly don't do the food any justice, so I think I'm gonna have to randomly choose some other dishes to try.
Other things to note about the restaurant:
- all the ladies get roses at the end of the meal. A bit cheesy, but still nice :)
- for any takeaway or delivery order over £25, they will throw in a bottle of house red or white wine, along with a rose
- their menu states that they have been featured and recommended in several publications
- all meat is Halal
- portion sizes are very generous for the price!
- flame-heated metal trays were used for our curries, so they stayed hot the entire time
- there's an automatic 12.5% gratuity