This is the tale of another birthday party (not mine on this occasion). Since my friend loves Indian food, we were looking for a good Indian restaurant in central London that we hadn't tried before ... And there weren't many. A long search on Yelp led us to Mahal.
Located on Notting Hill Gate, about midway between the stations of Queensway and Notthing Hill Gate, this restaurant will not blow you away ... but it does have quite a few positives.
1. The restaurant is quiet ... probably too much so. However we visited on a Thursday night which might be the reason for a visible lack of customers.
2. The food is good and is significantly less oily than most Indian restaurants in a similar price range (oil is a cheap and easy way of improving the taste I guess). This made the food taste quite "homely" ... Something that I have felt only at Afghan Kitchen.
The kebab platter that I asked for as a starter was a mixed bag ... with some being very good while others leaving a lot to be desired. Among the main courses I would recommend the yellow dal and chana masala. The lamb was quiet good too. An useful feature is that they offer half portion of the vegetarian main course dishes. It would be good if they did the same with the meat dishes as it would allow the customers to try out more stuff.
However the service wasn't upto the mark. They had forgotten my order of wine and had to be reminded of it before I could get my drink.
Mahal might not be a restaurant where I would return very often simply because it's not in a part of London that I frequent very often. But at ~ £16 per person for a pretty full meal, it's a steal for those living closer. read more