Recent Curries

Raj Mahal, Penton Street

Place: A bit "modern". ie. a big glass window, wooden floors and no carpet on the walls.

Atmos: Deserted. I was the only customer, except for a chav girl who came in for takeaway and who was almost comically unaware of just how rude she was being.

Prawn puri - bland orange prawn thing, insufficiently crispy puri

Lamb dhansak - bland orange dhansak, insufficient heat or meat

Plain rice - hard to go wrong

Chana masala - bland orange etc

Overall, a poor showing.

Parsee, Highgate Hill, Highgate

I had wanted to come here for ages. It seems to be fairly well regarded, and apparently (now?) owned by Cyrus Todiwala, who has a number of other fairly well regarded Indian restaurants in London.

I had a fried chicken liver thing to start (masala ma murghi hi kalaeji). The livers were pretty good, but came with a roti which was in fact a chapathi which had been in the fridge long enough to dry out. Madam Scoffer had the wholewheat pooris (poori nay papeto) which rather than the puffed-out crispy things which seem increasingly available in flash Indian restaurants were more like dried-out mini chapathis, and which had clearly also just come out of the fridge.

For mains, I had their dhaansaak, which was a lamb in an OK but not spicy red lentil gravy (not a thick thing like curry house dhansak) with rice and, for some reason, a tiny lamb meatball. It went down OK but the whole thing felt just a bit pointless. Mrs. S once more went for the mildest coconut-creamiest prawniest curry (leeli curry ma soandh). It was "OK" but it smelled a bit fishy to me.

The extra chapathis I ordered were just the same as the one which came with my starter. We were there early (a bit before 6.30pm) but there is no excuse for dried-out pre-made chapathis.

The place: Modern, but actually a bit shabby. It would probably be soulless even if it was full.

It might not have been such a disappointment had I not been wanting to go for over four years, but I had and it was. I can't see the point in trying any of Todiwala's other restaurants if this is as good as it gets.

Indian Khana, Farringdon Road

Mixed grill starter - excellent lamb, chicken, sheek kebab: crispy but still a bit moist. There was a king prawn too which I ate but didn't like. I think I have gone off prawns.

Duck biryani main. Not bad, but it would have been much better as duck tikka biryani really. They swappped the vegetable curry sauce for chana masala without problem, indeed almost with enthusiasm. The chana was OK, though maybe could have been a bit spicier.

Place: Modern — a bit too much so if you ask me. Slightly distracting telly with Bollywood-style music going on, but I was on my own trying to read and sitting right underneath it so maybe I just got unlucky.

Service: Pretty good. Quick, friendly, and the guy actually seemed to give a monkey's whether I had liked the food. Despite its out-of-the-way location between kebab shops and down the road from what seems to be a fetishwear shop, I think this is a pretty good find.

India Club, Strand Continental Hotel, The Strand

An impressively shabby-looking hotel (actually it isn't clear whether the place still operates as an hotel) on the East end of the Strand contains the India Club and restaurant.

The restaurant is a lino-floored, formica-tabled room which resembles quite closely NAAFI bar. Last time I was there the place looked like a building site. This time it had been tidied up a bit but if it has been improved at all, I cannot imagine what it was like before. It's clean but otherwise no expense has been spared spent.

The menu is pretty short, but has many of the usuals. We order some poppadoms and lemon pickle and chilli bhajis to start. The poppadoms are a bit overdone. The lemon pickle is pretty good. And there's a sort of curd thing which might be yoghurt-based with some coconut. It is tolerable on dry poppadoms but not really my sort of thing. The chilli bhajis are medium-sized chillies grilled a bit then batter fried. The batter is a bit thick and doughy rather than crispy, which is a shame. They are pretty pokey though.

Since it's lunch on a work-day I can't have beer. (I do hope one day to go back to working somewhere where the four-pint lunchtime is a-OK, but the trading floor is an unsympathetic place to be pissed.) In fact it wouldn't have been a problem anyway, as this is a BYO sort of place. I order a lassi, but they are "not ready yet" at 2pm. So we stick with the big jug of tap-water on the table.

For actual food we order a lamb madras and a chicken dopiaza with pilau rice. The lamb is lean meat in a dark, rich, hot (but not painful) sauce with, a bit incongrously, onions and green peppers. The chicken is a bit tough, in a light, buttery sauce with onions and peppers. The rice is a bit overdone.

Total bill for two is about 20 quid ex. tip, which seems good value.

It's quite an odd place. After two decidedly ordinary visits I have been left with the feeling that I missed something and that it should have been great. The general shabbiness is quite fun but you might expect a cult place like this to have mastered rice, poppadoms and fried stuff.

NB: No photos or links here because the interweb doesn't really seem to admit that this place exists.

Khas Tandoori, Newington Green Road

Another random evening curry. Despite the wonky picture I've lifted from the web, the Khas has a light, modern décor. It's not particularly recent but hasn't become shabby as cheaply done up curry houses with pretentions tend to. There is music playing which is a bearable sort of Indian-themed ambient electronica, but a bit too loud.

A poppadom and some chutneys are brought when I sit down, but the chutney tray didn't have chilli or lime pickle.

The menu is pretty broad with some unusual things in the "Authentic Delicacies" section and a separate list of "Chef's Delights". Of course they might just be the usual stuff given a different name and vague description — for example, "Zale Zule Chicken (a fairly hot dish from south india)".

My sweet lassi is very good. Not too thick, thin, sweet or dry. They are easy to do, but somehow mine always end up rubbish.

I start with a reshmi kebab which is actually pretty good. The meat is lightly spiced but fried to an almost crunchy texture. There doesn't seem to be any onion or other filler. The two patties are wrapped together in a fried egg ("over easy" to the seppos, ie. lightly-beaten). It comes with a small pot of a dark red, almost purple, sauce, which doesn't seem really to taste of anything.

For my main course, the Achari Gosth Chana ("marinated lamb cooked in a fairly spicy mixed pickle sauce with chickpeas"). It was actually lamb tikka meat in a thick sauce with chickpeas. It was the disapppointment of my visit really. The meat, though lean, was very tough, and the sauce wasn't great though every now and then one could detect a bit of mustard, which was interesting.

Since I am on a lamb theme it seems, I accompany it with Keema Pilau, which is actually really good. Perhaps it's just the Scot in me, but mince with some kind of starchy staple is a great thing¹.

Service was OK, but it took me about 20 minutes from asking for the bill to paying up and leaving. The bill, at under 15 quid is very good value, but I see from the back of the takeaway menu that I should have been able to claim "1 starter, 1 main dish, 1 side dish, 1 nan or rice & 1 papadom" for only 8.95 Tuesday-Thursday, with my lassi an extra 2 quid).

The Khas is next door to the Lucknow Tandoori which I ate at about 18 months ago and don't remember being impressed by.

¹. Recipe: Keema aloo (or "spicy stovies") is a delicious, cheap, piss-easy dish to have on its own or as a side with some other curries. Heat some oil, add some cardamoms, fry a bit of garlic paste and a bunch of ginger paste, add a bit of turmeric and chuck in some mince (lamb mince by preference) and sliced chillies. Fry for a few minutes, then add some peeled potatoes cut into inch-sized cubes. Fry them for a bit, then top up with water and cook until the potatoes are cooked and all the water has been absorbed. Ta-da. If you are making other curries, chuck in some random stuff from the spice rack to make it a different colour from the other things. Your guests will be amazed that you are able to make curries which look and taste different.

Camden Tandoori Curry House, Camden Road

Stopped in for a sneaky Friday night curry at this place. Arriving at 7pm I am the only (probably first) customer. Later on a couple of people come for takeaway.

On the outside it's a very ordinary-looking side-street curry shop, though often with special offer banners. Apparently at lunchtime on Sunday you can get a whole tandoori chicken for a fiver. Inside there are nasty artexed walls about the colour of a raspberry milkshake, but otherwise it's bearable.

I order a couple of poppadoms and a sweet lassi to get me through the menu-examining process. The poppadoms arrive still hot from the frier, and come with pretty good lime pickle and the rest of the usual stuff. The lassi is excellent: sweet/sour, dry/creamy in just the right proprotions.

To start I have a reshmi kebab, which arrvies as a fairly spicy patty of bright red keema (they do not skimp on the food dye here) in a thin omelette. It's pretty good.

Since the sign outside really does announce a "tandoori curry house" I have the balti lamb tikka for my main, with pilau rice and a garlic-stuffer naan. It's a big disappointment: the meat is lean and well-cooked (and dyed bright red), in a thick, dark sauce which looks OK but doesn't taste of anything at all. It's not just bland but somehow completely neutral.

The rice is fine and the naan is passable, if a bit heavy, but the centrepiece is utterly pointless.

The service was fine and the bill, at a little over 20 quid including service was just abut OK. Despite the poor curry, somehow I took a liking to the place, so I might be back to see if they can do any better.

Euro Tandoori, Gray's Inn Road

Second visit to this place. The first was rather better.

The place is mid-refit; most of the surfaces, furniture, &c. are new but there are a few alarming wires sticking out of the wall waiting for lights to be fitted.

I start with the Euro Grill which should be a meaty extravaganza; a bit of lamb tikka, bit of chicken tikka, half a sheekh kebab and an onion bhaji. It's OK but a bit disappointing. Mrs. S. has the "cheese samosa" which turns out to be two small ready-made samosas.

Then I have the ginger murgh, and she has the kind prawn kashmiri. Both are orange and heavy with what I am confident must be generic curry powder. No subtlety and it doesn't taste very good either. Very poor.

Tandoori Nights, Great Queen Street

I came here for an emergency solo Sunday lunchtime curry about six weeks ago. After a bit of negotiation ("Really I don't want takeaway. Yes, I will be able to eat two courses before you close in an hour and a half") I am allowed to sit down and presented with a menu.

Starters look OK and reasonably priced at 1.95-4.95 GBP (the last for a king prawn puri). Unusual things — "bienets de aubergine indienne" (aubergines stuffed with roasted peanuts and herbs) and "hazarvi kebab" (breast pieces of chicken, marinated with home made cheese and spices, skewered and char-grilled). I have the hazarvi thing.

Main courses are more expensive at 6-9 GBP. I have lamb hindustani (lamb with spices and roasted almonds), pilau rice and tarka dall.

Looking around while I wait for my grub, I see that the interior is a bit pink and peach for my taste, with the walls supporting an impressively wide variety of nasty paintings, prints and drawings, but with a beautiful old wooden bar by the door.

My starter arrives as four bit bits of tender chicken breast. It is OK — very slightly cheesy but not really tasting of anything other than roast chicken.

The lamb hindustani consists of lean, gristle-free meat (it's a shame we must be grateful for this) in a fairly bland sauce made gritty with ground almonds. The dall is thick and buttery but plenty chilli, but not really garlicky. Rice is slightly watery.

The portions are OK, but not generous. Total bill comes to 23.50 GBP for the above plus a big bottle of sparkling water. 6/10.

Hot Chilli, Tavistock Place

from the archive

Food: 7.5/10 Service: 7.5/10 Solo dinner ambience: 7/10

Hors d'oeuvres: Poppadoms

• Bog standard crispy things
• OK lime pickle (why do so few curry shops offer chilli pickle?)
• Mango chutney a bit unusual - smoother texture, very glossy, looked almost slightly pink - almost like sweet and sour sauce. Taste still the same as usual if not quite as oversweet as some.
• Yoghurt thing green not yellow
• Onion thing seemed OK on first glance but closer inspection revealed that it still contained small bits of cucumber

Starter: Mixed kebab thing

• Amazingly large portion for 3.50 GBP
• Two big bits of each of chicken and lamb tikka - nicely spicy, tender, well cooked without becoming dry. Top marks.
• Sheekh kebab a bit dry
• Shami kebab seemed to be the same stuff as the sheekh which is lame. It should have lentils and a bunch of extra coriander IMO
• Came on a sizzly dish with nice crispy/caramelised onions

Main course: Lamb dhansak, plain rice

• Dhansak OK - neither curry nor meat were fatty. Pokey enough to get the sweat glands going. Could have done with a wedge of lemon though
• Rice poor - overcooked to the point that you could hardly tell it was basmati

Bevvy: Pint of Kingfisher - cold, not flat or off, hard to go wrong really. Nothing much interesting on the menu, booze-wise.

Have been back once since — about the same the second time. Well worthy a visit.

Short curry reviews

Raj Tandoori, Berwick Street

Had lunch in here while skiving from Christmas shopping. Tiny place which looks like it could only seat 20-30 (maybe there's another room upstairs?). Food was OK, pleasant service. I think I wrote some notes on something but can't find them now.

Rajmoni, Upper Street

I have been to Rajmoni a few times. Last time was after about ten pints of Guinness on Saturday afternoon, and both my wits and hunger were suppressed but having promised the ladies dinner, we were not going to escape having to eat. I don't really remember what the food was like.

Previous experiences have been OK but not amazing. One nice thing is that they keep sending you special offers in the post if you get them to deliver takeaway.

Tasty Spice, Caledonian Road

Cheap takeaway. Curries are so-so, breads ditto, but the tandoori is excellent. Why not get a lamb and a chicken tikka and a portion of vindaloo sauce? (The vindaloo sauce things is an excellent trick — it turns out that most curry houses will do this.)

A telly in the corner seems always to find Coronation Street or the local news. The table at which you can sit while waiting has The Mirror from yesterday and sometime last week.

Has recently changed hands and now has a much longer and slightly more expensive menu ("We have the great pleasure of having one of the most highly renowned chefs from India to prepare your favourite dishes") from which I have not yet eaten.

Hillmarton Tandoori, Hillmarton Road

Another takeaway-only place. The curries and the tandoori are pretty good.

They seem to have better taste in television and reading material.

Veeraswamy, Swallow Street (off Regent Street)

Veeraswamy aspires to be London's premier source of expensive, tasty curry. They claim that "Veeraswamy is the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in the U.K, and possibly the world." which is pretty bold.

The restaurant is on the first floor, so one enters through a weird narrow corridor-cum-cloakroom and a tiny lift. The space is a bit variable; there's a lovely open space by the big windows from which one can look down on the hoi polloi on Regent Street, but most of the tables are hidden in a sightly unfriendly dark bit at the back. Decoration is quite sparse; there is a display of a variety of turbans on the wall and that's about it.

The menu (not on their website, but there is a subset here) is pretty short. Hotter things have chillies next to each other. One is "fairly hot" but not pain-inducing - this is probably only proper given that at a full-price of 15-20 quid one should aim to taste some of it. Only the crab sheek starter has two chillies, and only only one each of the lamb and chicken curries has a chilli next to it.

Starters we've tried include the mixed leaf pakora (crispy fried leaves like mustard greens and maybe bok choi), the crab sheekh kebab.

Like the food at their (rather less flash) chain sister Masala Zone, the curries are very different from each other, generally light in texture but strongly flavoured led by just a couple of spices. The rogan gosht is dark red and rich with cardamom. The lucknawi (or was it hyderabadi?) chicken stew is creamy but still with a good kick.

The bread is excellent. Get the chef's bread basket of the day - three fresh, soft-yet-crispy kinds of tasty bread.

As you can see it has been a while since I was there and I don't remember the food that well. But I do know I enjoyed it.

The portions are not particularly generous, but given the quality it's nice to have an excuse to try more things. If the prices seem a bit steep — I was glad to be on the work dollar the second time — they have a three-course Sunday lunch menu for the bargain 20 GBP per head.

Beers of the World - Ch'Ti

Surprising as it might seem, I have found a nice French beer. Perhaps there are others but there surely can't be many. I am not going to ramble on about it because I have neither the memory (it was Saturday night) nor the vocabulary, but I advise getting hold of some Ch'Ti.

On Saturday I mamaged to get hold of a pair 750ml champagne corked bottles of each of their Amber and Blonde beers.

The Amber (5.9% ABV) is a light brown colour, slightly dry but not gassy — there is no hoppy flavour but a little fruitiness, a little malt but not overpowering.

The Blonde (6.4% ABV) is slightly darker and more viscous than the usual yellow piss.

Neither has any sediment, despite claims on the bottle which appear to be about secondary fermentation, &c. Perhaps it was the spicy food I had just eaten, but neither of them seemed to have much in the way of odour either.

Where to get it? I have, once or twice, seen this stuff in a large supermarket, but the place they can most commonly be found is Budgens. I don't know why a place best known as a source of late-night porn and Ginsters should make the effort to import this stuff but I am glad they do.

NYC Burrito Report

Day 1

"Today" I had a chicken Holy Mole burrito from Burritoville.

It was OK. Tightly packed, fairly generous on the chicken (roasted rather than grilled and not all breast, if any), light on the salad (this seem to help it not to fall apart), uncooked tomato salsa. Not very spicy. Weakest part was the beans which had been overcooked into a sort of grouty amalgam (I think this is intentional, but I am not a fan).

Day 2

Yesterday's lunch was "Bob Marley's Last Burrito" again from Burritoville - jerk chicken and a whole wheat wrapping. Except for the tortilla, it would have been hard to distinguish from the other one to be honest.

I have realised that a Burritoville burrito is basically a big sausage with tortilla instead of skin.

They're OK, but I will be leaving early tomrrow to get to Chipotle instead.

Day 3

Chipotle burrito with carnitas (slow-cooked pork). About mid-way between donkey and 'ville produce in texture. The red tomatilla salsa is pretty good and they have bottles of Tabasco on the tables if it doesn't quite provoke the sweat glands.

The generous portion of meat was pretty tasty (it's cooked with juniper berries among other things, though I couldn't discern any actual gin flavours). Coriander-lime rice is almost pungent - perhaps a little too much lime. The beans are a bit nicer than Burritoville's efforts.

Obviously with slow-cooked pork you can't expect it, but the grilled chicken and beef are pre-cooked in large-ish quantities so I suspect would lack the crispy freshness of donkey fare.

Finally, and perhaps this is because I had to go before I was hungry to avoid the ludicrous queues which form at lunchtime (people will wait over 40 minutes for one of these) it was incredibly filling. I got some chips and salsa for after and couldn't even consider them.

Diwan-e-Khaas, three downtown locations, New York city

Diwan-e-Khaas (motto: "Tradition of caring for your health & taste!") is a small chain (well, there are three of them) of cheap Indian canteens which has provided me with many delicious lunches on my various visits to NYC. I only went once last week as I was collecting material for a forthcoming burrito review.

The setup is a dozen meat and vegetable curries behind a counter in a bain marie and a kitchen in the back from which issues forth an apparently unending series of fluffy, crispy, almost impossibly fresh naan.

There are other dishes on the menu, including biryani and tandoori things, but I tend to stick to what's behind the counter.

My recommended package is the "Executive Lunch Box". This is comprised of rice, a chicken, lamb or vegetable main course of your choice, two vegetable side dishes and one of the aforementioned naans. If this seems a bit too much (or you want more meat at the expense of the other stuff), you can take away a box with just rice and one of the curries.

The curries are OK. The gravy is thin — again, they seem to skip the blended onion base which gives bulk to the cufrries of home — but tasty and they don't skimp on the spices, chilli especially. There seems to be little in the way of herbs or chilli which leaves them with a heavy sort of flavour, if not texture.

The menu is proud to say "No butter added" which I take to refer to fat in general. The chicken is not all (at all?) breast meat and the lamb can be just a little on the fatty side but it's OK, and for the price (7.60 USD for the lunch box, 5.30-6.50 USD for single curry).

One of the Friday specials at the one on Cedar Street seems to be a stir-fried cabbage masala. Since I tend to be shortly to spend a confined six-hours en route to London, I have found it wisest to avoid this so far.

(Incidentally, one of the best things about New York is the range of places you can eat cheap, tasty food which is edible even when not driven to desperation by hunger or booze. However, we all worry about what lurks behind the scenes at these places, especially when reminded of the local cockroach problem. As reassurance (and incentive!) the health department makes available the results of its inspections online. It's sad to see that failure to show a patronising poster about what to do if someone if choking earns a restaurant more violation points than having evidence of live mice in your kitchen, or failure to keep food hot enough to prevent bacteria from multiplying, but it's a good start. I, for one, would like to see London's HSE branch do the same.)

Baluchi, Spring Street, New York City

Two curries last week, both of which from chains. The first was at the Baluchi on Spring Street, Soho (menu). I'd been to the downtown one a year or so ago and this one is very similar in appearance. The bar, tables and much decor are of dark carved wood, serving dishes, water cups and cutlery handles are copper, floor and walls are dark red and terracotta.

A couple of spiced poppadoms appear, with a mango chutney (light and syrupy with some big chunks of perhaps uncoooked mango), tamarind chutney (seems to be standard in the US, and not bad) and the usual yoghurty thing.

The menu is a bit narrow but the curries seem to show a rather greater range than the usual English variations-on-a-heavy-theme curry house menu.

I opened with the Tandoori Combination Platter, which wasn't bad. A big sizzler plate with a couple of big bits (not far short of 2" cubes) of each of (what in the UK would be called) lamb tikka, chicken tikka and tandoori chicken and a big deep-fried prawn thing stuffed with cream cheese. The meat was pretty good — nicely cooked, well marinated, if anything the bits were a bit too big to have taken enough spice flavour. The prawn thing was weird. A single king or tiger prawn, butterflied, stuck to a big lump of cream cheese deep-fried. Even allowing for the theoretical possibilty of cream-cheese having a purpose to its existence it was a bit of deep-fried pointlessness with a limp not-that-big prawn attached.

Main course, just the lamb rogan josh with peas pulao. The curry tasted fine, but the meat was gristly in parts and the sauce had no real body. Rice was stuck together, had no spice flavour and a few garden peas scattered on top.

To drink, a couple of OK mango lassis.

The bill was just about reasonable value at about 36 USD but the whole experience was a bit lacking, nevertheless.

Christopher's, Wellington Street, Covent Garden

I've been to Christopher's American Bar and Grill for weekend brunch or for evening martinis a few times, and finally had dinner there on Saturday.

Booze

The downstairs bar (The Martini Bar) is fairly small - you couldn't get more than about 50 people in it, including a few standees - and a rich red colour, with only hanging lights shaped like interplanetary jellyfish of various sizes and four big windows to the outside preventing it from being a just bit too uterine. There are four or five horseshoe-shaped booths which can comfortably accommodate six, a corner table of similar size, a few smaller tables and about half a dozen stools at the bar.

There is a menu of martinis and other cocktails, as well as some other stuff. Ignore the rest - the point of this place is martinis. A martini is not a difficult thing to make, and they do not fail here, so that is not why you must drink martinis here. The reason is that you will look completely out of place if you have a fruity cocktail or, The Lord Forbid, a glass of wine or a beer in here. I know this because I am off booze at present and I felt utterly stupid drinking my bright pink "Shirley Temple", and faintly embarrassed that one of my companions was drinking Becks from what seemed to be an oversized snifter glass.

Do beware, however. The martinis (most at 8 GBP each) are made with 75ml of spirit. Four or five is a sensible limit for drinkers of reasonable skill. My record (fortunately on the work dollar) is somewhere north of 8, perhaps as many as 10. It left me with no recollection of getting home and the only pieces evidence for the later part of the evening I was left with were that the price of a cab home was missing from my wallet and that my shoes - but no other part of my clothing - smelled quite strongly of vomit.

The service (all at your table unless you are drinking at the bar) is polite but seems to vary a little in competence, especially when the bar is busy.

The Restaurant

The eating area is upstairs in a single large wood-floored, high-ceilinged room with a slightly separate alcove. The martini rule does not apply here.

Weekend brunch

Brunch is a shit word, but often an enjoyable meal and that is certainly true here. The brunch menu at Christopher's (available Saturdays and Sundays, 11am-3.30pm) comes in two courses for 14.50 GBP or three for 17 GBP for the extra two and a half quid you might as well go for three courses, but unless you have a well-developed appetite you will probably not finish it all.

The way it seems to work is that you choose your two or three courses and nominate one as your main course. This is important because it will beg twice the size of the other courses. I won't bother going into detail on the menu - everything I have had has been good (generally meat-heavy) as has everything I have seen anyone else eat.

Since the martini rule is suspended until you descend the slightly scary round stairs, you should have a Bloody Mary. It has the too-often-neglected requisites - horseradish and dry sherry - but you might want a to demand a little more tabasco for your second if the first disappoints. (They make it with Absolt Peppar and apparently no extra tabasco by default.)

Three courses, a Bloody Marys each, water, coffee and 12.5% service totals a nudge over 30 quid per head. The service is good, though last time they were full and didn't have quite enough staff on.

Dinner

We finally tried dinner at Christopher's last Saturday. I hadn't looked at the evening a la carte menu before but it is pretty steak-heavy. The wife, who is one of those vegetarians-who-eat-fish, didn't have a lot of choice, but I was happy.

We opened with beef carpaccio (twice), pumpkin risotto and the celeriac+porcini soup. The carpaccio was Ok, but not spectacular. Six large, thin circles of (presumable) sirloin, apparently rolled in some herbs before slicing, drizzled with something a bit bland which I guessed to be a sour cream with lemon. The meat was either too cold or too immature to have much flavour and the dressing didn't add much except moisture which wasn't needed. The other starters looked fine but I was too self-absorbed to ask if they were.

For the main course, the beef eaters stayed on course with the prime rib for two, and the others had baked halibut and the squash tamale. "What the fuck is tamale?" I hear you cry. Well, it seemed to something close in texture and taste to vegetarian haggis, but wrapped up in some kind of dried leaf thing a bit like an old-fashioned boiled sweet or a Christmas cracker. It looked pretty neat, but I'm glad it wasn't on my plate.

The halibut looked OK, but a bit small.

And then the beef arrived. Not really knowing about the American cuts of beef, I had assumed that we were getting a small roast from the fat end of the sirloin, to be carved at the table. I still don't really know where it comes from, but it was a roasting joint from the top of the cow. The two of us sharing were given clean plates and the waiter had a serving plate with a round bit of beef of about 6-7 inches in diameter and 2 inches high. "Goody," thinks I, "half of that will fill a hole". But rather than carve it, they put it on my opponents plate. And then they put the other one (how they managed to hide it I have not been able to work out) on mine. Fucking hell, we had what I estimate at 12-14oz of cow flesh EACH. Re-fucking-sult.

And it was pretty good. It had a reasonable roast-crust around the outside, but I think medium might have been a better idea than medium-rare, as once this had been eaten, we were still left with just the pulpy pink bit in the middle. I fought valiantly on and completed my task. My oppponent did not fare so well (being about half my weight I think we can excuse her this) and they were good enough to wrap up the remainder in a bit of foil to take home. Honestly, the experience of eating such a cartoon-style pile of steak was slightly better than the piece of meat, which should probably have been a bit more mature and (our own fault, this) a bit more "done".

The above were accompanied with a couple of portions of chips, the same of mange tout and some creamed spinach, about which nothing interesting can be said. Except maybe that I still managed to get through my share of the green stuff after (and only after) the beef was gone.

Puddings were a bit of a low point. My "ice creams and sorbets" involved three small scoops of obviously commercial ice cream and one of those long triangles of crispy waffle or pancake batter. The peach melba was an unimpressive sundae. The bread and butter pudding looked alright, but not amazing, and it wasn't clear why they have that sort of stodge on the menu after such heavy main courses.

The service on the night was pretty good - prompt and unintrusive, and the food arrived very quickly - but there was a bit much leaning over the table rather than going round to the relevant place, the bread and butter pudding arrived with ice-cream which we had specifically asked not to have (I ate it, of course) and Mrs Scoffer was annoyed that her wine glass didn't get topped up as often as the other drinker at the table. If these sound a bit petty, it's because the basic service and polite and competent in a way you shouldn't have to be grateful for but somehow are, especially in central London.

Total bill including a round of drinks at the bar, water, a fairly cheap bottle of wine and coffee, and again with added service, was a few pence under 230 quid, which I consider reasonable value for the experience. It was made very good value by the fact that I had a 25% off voucher we'd been given when we visited for brunch just before Christmas. Result!

In Summary

Of the three possible reasons to go to Christopher's I have listed above, the first two are very good reasons indeed and the last is not bad either.

Meat-shopping in the City

Meat City, Farringdon Road

Meat City (article here) is a one-man butchery run by Nigel Armstrong, who is a nice chap with a real passion for quality meat. Unlike a lot of "butchers" which are actually just meat shops (including most of those just round the corner at Smithfields Market), Nigel hangs and butchers his own meat, the beef for a full 28 days. Treat yourself to some steaks from here - I defy you to find a better bit of beef anywhere. Butchery is done on a weekly cycle which means, for example, that you will not always find a bit of rolled roasting sirloin except at the end of the week. There is a freezer at the back which will always have a bit of topside and often some interesting game and meats from elsewhere, including kudu, springbok, kangaroo, ostrich as well as rabbit and venison.

It is expensive, but in this case you really are getting quality in proportion to the price. Compared to a bit of fillet, sirloin or rump from Meat City, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference-Jamie Oliver-Happy Cow-Hung for 21 Days or Tesco Finest steak (let alone their cheaper steaks and cuts) might as well be burger bun for all the taste it has.

The meat is mostly from happy animals - a leaflet on the counter explains where most of it comes from, why it isn't all organic (sheep, in particular, apparently have a much better quality of life if they are given small doses of medication to fend off irritants and parasites). The shop is open until 6.30pm Monday to Friday.

If you like to make your own stock, ask Nigel for beef and pork bones. I don't know if bones vary in quality as much as meat, but I have always been pleased with the stock I have got from them and at a pound per kilo you might as well ask when you're there.

Good dry-cured bacons and black and white puddings make a fine contribution to any fry-up. And finally, the pork sausages are top notch - in my opinion better than the "award-winning" ones from the also excellent:

Simply Sausages

Simply Sausages sells pretty much just sausages (there is a rack of packets of biltong and some shelves with sauces and relishes). They have about two dozen kinds, including an award-winning pork banger, a peppery breakfast sausage, an organic pork banger as well as lamb, venison, and various spiced sausages including a good merguez. The pork sausages are really excellent meaty things. I am not a huge fan of beef or game sausages, but they seem pretty good. As with all proper sausages, the fat and breadcrumb are there for taste and texture rather than filler. One welcome side-effect of this is that they seem a lot healthier than comparable bangers.

The prices are pretty reasonable - certain no more that you would pay for good quality sausages in a supermarket. Wander in late-afternoon and you will often find a mixed tray of about dozen saugases "to be cooked or frozen today" for a couple of quid.

Northfields Farm, Borough Market

I can't decide whether I rate the staff at this stall at the famous Borough Market very highly as butchers - perhaps I am prejudiced, but they all seem a bit too young and they seem to have mostly prime cuts which makes me wonder where the rest of the cow/etc is going - but their meat is excellent. It is expensive but worth it, and open on Saturdays which Meat City is not. Again, it is substantially humanely-reared meat, allwed to mature without adulterants.

Don't let the name mislead you, this isn't a better-organised stall at a farmers' market - Northfields Farm is a butcher which happens to be attached to a farm. They have a farm shop in Rutland, stalls at Borough and Broadway markets and will be often found at food fairs and festivals around the country.

Aside from meat they have a burger/sausage-frying area, where you can sample some tasty, tasty food in a bun, and a slightly pointless shelf of chutneys and relishes.

J C Continental Stores, Caledonian Road (just by Kings Cross)

This lovely little Italian shop is nt a meat shop per se, but does do fine meaty things. It is run by a tiny, old (I guess not far short of 70) guy and his wife, and specialises in imported Italian staples. From the old-school, the shop is not self-service but rather you must direct one of these lovely people around the back of a horseshoe-shaped bar behing which are shelves of sauces, pasta, biscotti and wine, as well as cheeses, salami and other sausages, mortadella, bresaola, cooked hams and a big rack of delicious parma hams.

This last is the main attraction - the prosciutto is usually excellent (it does vary a little) and at 50p/oz, impossibly cheap for those used to spending a fiver on eight transparent slices at Waitrose. This is old-school shopping - ask for half a pound and you will have to wait 5 minutes while it is sliced for you on a beautiful ancient hand-cranked machine, laid out a slice at a time on waxed paper. The salamis are generally good too, in particular a splendid spicy salami which reminds one that fiery food is not the exclusive province of the East. One tip - don't over-order. Aside from taking ages to slice, the parma especially will dry out in the fridge.

They also do a really, really good pork banger, which is rich and pungent with herbs and spices but not so much so that it becomes something other than a good Britist-style sausage.

The cheese is good value too. If memory serves mostly around 50p/oz for good Parmigiano , Gorgonzola, Provolone, wonderful Tellegio and with mozzarella at 50p/ball (or a bit more for proper bufala).

Other products are what you might expect - sauces, pasta (dried and fresh packet), breads and wine. I got in trouble once for asking for "one of the big bottles of your red cooking wine", because even at 7 or 8 quid for two litres it is actually perfectly acceptable.

It is fabulous little shop, the sort which make a town a better place by being there even if you only go once a month. When it closed for a month last year after the old guy had a heart attack, I was miserable, imagining that it had shut down.

Curry Leaf East, City Road

From the name, one assumes that the new-ish Curry Leaf Easthas a North, West or South counterpart. Perhaps this one is related, but I was not able to find any indication that that is so. Poking around on the interweb I see that is it for sale though apparently, and oxymoronically, "developing into a well-established business".

The interior (with which I was familiar in its previous guise as a nice, if over-trendy bar called "Liquid Lab") is a nice space; narrow and slightly cave-like, with a second floor at the back which isn't visible from the street. The bar is an attractive curved wooden thing with a good selection of the usual whiskies. I am seated at my table for one half-way back, with a weird wooden whalebone thing separating me from the dumb (and live) waiters. The walls are all scuffed at the height of the tops of the chairs. Why oh why oh why don't they paint the damned place on a Sunday when they're closed? The only reason I can think of is that there is nobody with a proper proprietorial relationship with the place to object to this creeping delapidation.

The place feels slightly sterile, which again I put down to too-bright lighting and lack of music. The latter is a matter of taste but eating alone in a restaurant which is three-quarters empty and nearly silent can be a bit soul-sapping.

The menu is contemporary with a lot of unfamiliar options, but not as short as many trendy curry houses. This is actually quite confusing to my booze-addled brain. It's also pretty pricey - starters are all about 4 quid, mains vary from 7-11 quid, pulao rice nearly 3 quid, vegetable sides average about 4.50. It had better be good.

There don't seem to be any poppadom options, nor is anyone else obviously eating them so I grab a waiter (of which there is no shortage) and order.

Once the order has been taken, I am offered poppadoms. This would be annoying were I not hungry enough for pops and a starter. Fortunately I am. They come with a watery minty yoghurt (obviously made from Colman's mint sauce), a runny mango chutney with a few chilli flakes and a little pot of chopped red onion, red and green peppers and, praise The Lord, no cucumber! There is no lime or chilli pickle, though later on I hear an adjacent table request and receive some. My sweet lassi arrives soon thereafter and is good - yoghurty and dry while still sweet and not too thick.

My starter, Chicken Chatpatta - "Juicy fillet of chicken with an unusual blend of hot, sweet and sour flavour. Served with mint sauce." - takes about 25 mintes to arrive and while OK isn't really worth the wait. A big round plate arrives with a small pile of shredded garnish, and a slightly larger pile of little bits of chicken in a dry sauce with some bits of green and red pepper. The sauce is hot and sour and very slightly sweet and interestingly with a slight smoky flavour. The chicken is indeed juicy. The a small pot of mint sauce is bland and not even minty. Indeed, until rereading the menu now I had thought it was a disappointing coriander chutney. In summary, it's a small, poncy chicken pathia. The next course had better be good.

For my main course, I choose Laal Maans (no, I hadn't seen it spelled with an "n" elsewhere either) which is "A traditional Rajasthani speciality of diced baby lamb cooked with dried red chillies and crushed garlic" and which I have rather enjoyed elsewhere. The rice options are plain, jeera pulao, mushroom pulao and special fried rice (onion and tomato flavoured mildly spiced pulao with egg and peas"). I don't like cumin that much but I go for the jeera pulao anyway. I allow myself to be taking into a veggie dish I don't really need, choosing chana masala (extra hot, please). It had better be good.

It arrives and the portions are OK but far from generous. I don't mind as I have ordered too much anyway. It had better be good though.

The rice smells powerfully of cumin though fortunately the taste isn't too strong. A third is buttery yellow, another third is all stuck together. It is overcooked but passable. The curries had better be good.

The laal maans is a little less dark than one might find elsewhere, garnished with a big kashmiri chilli and either semolina or chopped sesame seeds. The sauce has a deep, hot flavour. The lamb is lean, but slightly overcooked. The chana is pretty ordinary but again has a slighty smokey flavour. (Are they using smoked paprika?) Neither of the dishes has that oily sheen - they seem to be careful about adding fat here.

Bill for the above and a second sweet lassi plus added service came to a touch over 28 quid.

It's not a bad place and they've put a fair amount of effort into the menu (or pinching it from elsewhere) but the cooking isn't good enough, the place too scruffy and the service just a bit too slack to justify prices about a 50% over a bog standard curry house.