Smithfield Tandoori, Lindsey Street

Nice place, and relatively tastefully decorated - white walls, wooden floors, no velvet or mirror-and-gilt pictures anywhere to be seen. When I strolled in at 6.30pm, there was one other guy having solo curry, which seemed like a good sign.

A nice chap who I took to be the proprietor showed me my table. I ordered:

• 2 poppadoms
• Sheekh kebab Lahore (it seems to be a feature of their menu to put "Lahore" at the end of things)
• Gosht Bolliram (lamb with coriander and mustard seeds and red chilli. hot)
• Pulao Mogulai

Pops basically as expected, except that the yoghurt thing was bright, radioactive green. Pickle (mixed) might have been hotter.

Sheekh kebab was excellent. Not dry or bright red, just meaty. It did want to be more heavily spiced though. Disconcertingly delivered on a little side plate and a big dinner plate was put in front of me. I even ate the garnish (basically just a bit of shredded iceberg) because it had a few coriander leaves in it saving it from utter tastelessness.

Curry and rice arrived in little china bowls. I can never decide if this is better or worse than the metal things, but it does make it hard to judge portion size. Fortunately that was not a problem here. Curry was great - tender (if oddly-shaped) lumps of lean lamb, rich, dark gravy. The chilli wasn't visible to the naked eye, but it was certainly there. Gravy tasted good, and the occasional surprise of biting into a coriander seed kept things interesting. It was almost hot enough to be hard to eat, but not quite. Rice fragrant with saffron, cardamom and fennel seeds.

Since my mouth was still on fire, I finished up with a pistachio kulfi. It was just one of those ones from a little conical packet, but disguised by taking it out, cutting it into six segments and sprinkling it with a frozen raspberry and half a dozen frozen blackcurrants. Disappointing finish.

Service was excellent - attentive but not annoying, friendly but not impertinent. No hard-sell of bread or extra veggies. Food arrived promptly but didn't feel hurried.

Prices - starters all around a fiver, mains 7-10. Pricier than bog-standard curry, but worth it if you fancy something a bit different to bog-standard curry.

Definitely worth a trip.