We were with friends and they had decided to get the take out meal for four from here so we could sit in their home and chat and chill. It was a great night in.
We walked to the place to order and take home the order. From the outside the restaurant looked like a run down sort of dump.
The server was mega-friendly, and he clearly knew my friend well. They allowed variations of the main courses listed in the menu so we weren't confined to what was specified on the menu. The speed of service was pretty efficient given that the order was pretty large and they threw in a 1.25 litre of Diet Coke as well as the usual dips that are routinely complimentary.
One novelty here was the food serving hatch. We were cramped into the ground floor entrance space with the kitchen upstairs and the food orders arrive from above via a dumb waiter above head level where the guy sits who takes the orders.
I chose the butter chicken. There was a chicken tikka masala, a chicken biryani and another main. I also sampled a paneer side dish but didn't get round to trying the aubergine curry. The paneer was very good.
The nan breads were good too. The only dish I wasn't impressed with was the onion bhaji starters. It really is a wonder how they can give so much food for the money.
One of the highlights of the evening - apart from the large bottles of icy kingfisher beer that flowed - was the arrival of a fresh Carolina reaper chilli cut into shards. The worlds hottest chilli with a distinctive tail that gives it the reaper title.
It averages over 1.5 million on the Scoville heat scale with individual chilli going over 2 million. The one in front of me was supercharged, fruity, complex and enough to make me go purple, which provided some hilarity around the table. So I had another shard which was equally explosive. Some days are Diamond. read more