Mirch Masala

... almost spectacular, for the price.

5 of us ate - make that feasted - last night for 52 pounds. It's a place a few of my friends frequent on the weekly basis as they have found that this canteen-style restaurant and local favourite for the South Asian community, packs quite the culinary punch.

Indian cuisine is by no means my favourite but I was game to go for a curry since my last Indian meal was pretty awful and I felt that I needed a redeeming experience. To start, we had 2 orders of onion bhajis, lightly coated in gram flour and deep-fried so that they came out entangled almost like a bird's nest. They were absolutely delicious and to be honest I'm having a hard time writing this because I am shocked at how good the food was... on to some excellent samosas, and then for our mains we had a lovely chicken tikka masala, grilled and then marinated in a beautiful sauce with fresh and lightly sauteed green peppers, an incredibly tender lamb gosht, a very gingery chicken dish, pilau rice, saag paneer and bombay potatoes, both excellent. It was all exceptionally good, but I think my favourite had to be the peshwari naan - I quite liked their take on it and it tasted as if I was eating some sort of gently spiced dessert bread as opposed to the overly coconutty concoction I ate, the last time I had Indian food.

The mango lassi was great - really refreshing and very mango-ey tasting, which is more than I can say for many that I've had in the past. Maybe I might be belting its praises out a bit too much, but it has quite the little accolade of dining guide stickers on the front door and the sheer amount of people stampeding in and out of the front doors is enough of a testament that I'm not the only one taken with the place.

Romantic it isn't - but at least they don't dress the restaurant up in the hopes that they will fob you off with ambience and jack up the price. Although the tables needed a bit of a wipe, the service was friendly and fast, and the waiters seemed happy to explain parts of the menu we didn't understand. This is South Indian food for Indians, and damn good it is.