Grand Indian, Bedford (30th March 2016)

Price: £20-25
Score: 7.500

NOT RECOMMENDED

Tonights trip for the curry club was to Bedford to try the gourmet night at the Grand Indian restaurant on Tavistock Street, the oldest running restaurant in Bedford opening in 1980.  A five course meal for £10 sounded like a good deal.

The meal started off traditionally with the poppadoms (7) in total as Tony was feeling rather hungry.  The poppadoms were accompanied with two onion salads, mango chutney, mint sauce, coconut and lime pickle.  A very good selection with plenty of it too.

Starters for Simon and Lee were Paneer Tikka with Tony going for a mixed grill to give him the protein hit.  The paneer was a little dry and needed the mint sauce, Simon scoring it a 6 and Lee going 2 points better.  Tony enjoyed the mixed grill and scored it a 9.  Overall the starters got a 7.667.

Mains followed with Simon going for the Chicken Rezalla, a medium curry with keema meatballs in the sauce with a generous amount of tender chicken, topped with an omelette.  Simon went for Pilau rice and a side of Sag Paneer.  Good food and reasonable portion size scored a good 8.

Lee decided on the Vegetable Jalfrezi, a Naan and Chana Massala.  Lee was disappointed with the vegetables, felt that it was all frozen and lacked some fresh vegetables, bit of a let down and not one of the best dishes Lee has had, therefore only scored a 6.5

Tony continued his meat fest with an Imperial Masala from the Chefs special selection.  A dish packed with all sorts of meat.  A little too mild for Tony which slightly spoiled the dish but the amount of meat made up for that.  Tony had a mushroom rice, as normal, and also had a Mushroom Bhaji.  Overall Tony gave a 9, giving an average score for mains of 7.834.

Service was good and attentive which earned a 7.5.  There was some debate about the VFM, the prices of the drinks really upping the overall price quite considerably, which meant that the final bill came to £20+ per head which meant a 7 for VFM.

Overall score - 7.500.

39 Tavistock Street

Bedford
MK40 2RB

Tel: 01234 359566
Website: http://www.grandrestaurant.co.uk/index.html

Cafe Spice Namaste, London (15th March 2016)

Today Lee was trying a new London venue, Café Spice Namaste.


This Indian restaurant is owned by celebrity chef Cyrus Todiwala. Lee was with 2 meat eating work colleagues and one of the dishes he had never seen on a menu before!


To start Lee had the Vegetarian platter, consisting of a 5 different starters including paneer tikka, veg samosa, lentil pancakes and potato poori and turned out to be a fantastic choice! His work colleagues ordered the meat platter for 2, again, came with a selection of meat and non-meat starters including chicken tikka, lamb, shish kebab and samosas.


For main, Lee went for the veg Thali so he could sample a selection of curries. The curries included Bindi Bhaji, Aubergine bhaji and a sweeter curry with a dumpling along with a daal, rice, raita, a roti and some potato crisps. One colleague ordered the salmon tikka along with a palak paneer and the other went for a surprise choice of Ostrich Boona – not something Lee had seen before in any Indian restaurant around the world!


The food was of a high standard and the price was sensible, given this is a celebrity chef restaurant in London!


16 Prescot Street

London
E1 8AZ


Tel: 0207 488 9242
Website: http://www.cafespice.co.uk/#!homepage/mainPage