Gulshan Tandoori, Exmouth Market

Overall: 5/10 I might consider going back but really the food was not nearly good enough.

Warm-up: 7/10

• Poppadoms OK
• Lime pickle a bit unusual - not thick but rather some biggish bits of lime peel floating in quite a lot of oil. Pretty good, actually.
• Mango chutney pretty good - possibly freshly made as the mango still quite firm. A bit sweet for my liking
• Yoghurt thing obviously made with mint sauce, but OK and at least not yellow
• Onion thing looked really good but still with cucumber, so untested

Prawn Puri: 7/10

• Fairly generous portion.
• Bread might have been a little crispier.
• Unusually, the curry came in a separate bowl. The sauce was a bit thick - I prefer it fairly dry. Used non-frozen prawns, but they were slightly overcooked. Medium heat.
• No wedge of lemon, but at least no salad either.

Lamb madras: 4/10

• Nothing like you expect from a madras
• Sauce not smooth but with little slices of onion and tomato, with quite a rich red colour
• Meat enormously overcooked to the point of falling apart
• Heat a little on the light side

Mushroom pilau: 5/10

• Rice overcooked to the point that you barely tell it was basmati
• Big mushrooms chopped small and overcooked to chewiness
• Whole thing tasted mushroomy, with no nice spice flavours

Keema naan: 4/10

• Dough very heavy - more like supermarket naan than something nice and crisp straight out of the tandoor
• Meaty bit OK texture but not spicy enough

Service: 7/10

• Competent, unobtrusive, fairly polite. Didn't nag about veggie dishes or anything (but then I hadn't exactly under-ordered)

Venue: 7/10

• Nice enough place.
• Gents pretty basic.
• Only hint of naffness was tinselly rope things on the walls.

Value: 7/10

• All the above and two small cans of Perrier for 18 GBP doesn't seem too bad.