I recently moved into the area, and my partner and I had walked / driven past Kismet on the A6…read moremultiple times. We'd long been intrigued by their Happy Hour and Sunday Buffet offers, and recently decided to check out the buffet and see what was on offer over the "20 courses" claimed on the A-board.
If I'm being honest, the only real gripe I had with our visit to Kismet was the service. Granted, it was a Sunday, and yes we turned up at a point where the restaurant was not particularly busy, but the waiter just didn't seem arsed. I don't know whether he was going for a broody silent vibe, but it was a bit... offputting. One of his colleagues, on the other hand, who brought some of our food and drinks over was great so maybe just an off day...
Right, the real reason we went - the food. The Sunday buffet deal is £8.95 a person (as of May 19 when I wrote this), and genuinely I cannot complain at the amount of food available for the price.
Obviously, the first thing we were presented with - unannounced, thanks to the surly waiter - was poppadoms and the usual accompanying goodies. We got 4 poppadoms, so 2 each, and they were fine.
Next up was a mixed starter, comprised of some fried potato slices, onion bhajis, samosas, some spicy chicken goujon-style things (which were my favourite) and some bone-in chicken. Aside from some of the chicken being a tad overcooked, this was great and they didn't skimp on the portions.
Then, once you're done with the starters, it's on to the main course. As you might expect, it's self service and you basically help yourself to the contents of the serving station. Our options included chicken tikka masala, chicken rogan josh, chicken madras, lamb karahi, bombay potatoes, a lentil curry I can't remember the name of, as well as the usual pilau rice and plain naan bread.
Of the dishes I sampled, if you'd given me any one of them at an a la carte price I might've been underwhelmed. At £8.95 and help yourself, I'm well happy to munch a little bit of various perfectly decent curries. I probably could've done with eating a bit less, to be honest, but you can't argue the value of the offering.
Not sure how they worked out the 20 courses, though. Didn't really matter, I didn't have the capacity for much else after my second visit to the curries...
To round out with everything else, I don't think they have a soda fountain - the coke I ordered was room temperature-ish with ice, so likely from a large bottle? (For a little family run place, though, not surprising if it is.) The decor is... vintage, let's put it that way. But I think that's part of the charm.
I'll definitely be back... there's more curry to try!