London Bridge Tandoori and The George Inn

The end of November, where everywhere you look men's moustaches are reaching their hirsute peak after the month of "Movember", although we find the presence of a moustache interferes with one's enjoyment of curry. November's curry night took us to the foodie heaven area of Borough, but would the curry be up to scratch?

The Pint: The George Inn is one of London's most famous pubs, and this National Trust-owned boozer is guaranteed to impress any visitor to the city. "London's only last remaining galleried coaching inn", the 17th century public house oozes character, with a number of inter-connecting rooms, all with stone floors and wooden beams and a nice courtyard area where you can tie up your horse. The George ale isn't bad either, and there are a number of other Greene King beers on tap, including Old Speckled Hen. After a couple of ales to cleanse our pallets we headed over the road to the Tower Bridge Tandoori.  

Only two dips, but double portions of raw onion!

The Curry: First impressions of the London Bridge Tandoori were not great. At least they are not deceiving anyone with the name, this restaurant literally is right underneath London Bridge, and it shakes every time a train goes overhead, which is charming. We entered to a slight mildewy smell and took our seats by the damp wall in the back room. Popaddoms promptly arrived but came with just two dips - the ubiquitous pale green raiti and mango chutney, and rather excessively two portions of that overrated raw onion stuff. With both dips being mild we could really have done with either some lime pickle or some of the lively bright red dip you sometimes get which has chilli seeds floating in the top. Not a great start.

The "Soupy" Madras

I ordered a chicken madras, which is usually a good barometer of a curry establishment. Any curry house worth its salt should be able to knock up a decent madras. Yet when mine arrived it had the consistency of heinz tomato soup, with a few lumps of chicken poking just above the surface. Taste-wise it had enough heat, but there was no grainy-ness to the sauce, it was all too runny and very disappointing. About the only positive I could think of regarding my meal was that the naan breads were good.

Elsewhere around the table, it was the same story with Sam's prawn madras, too much liquid and possibly too fiery. Paul actually enjoyed his Karahi Chicken, although at £11 it wasn't particularly cheap. That is the other thing about this place, you don't mind a disappointing curry so much when it is dirt cheap, but the extras (naans at £2.50 or £3 each) pushed our bills up to £23 (admittedly including three Kingfisher each).

As we were paying our bill, the two drunken businessmen who had been sitting on the table next to us, with full moustaches making them look like the Chuckle Brothers, left saying it was the worst curry they had ever had. This upset one of the other patrons sat near us, who called them a rather rude word which begins with "c" as they walked out. Fisticuffs almost ensued, but in reality this curry house was not worth fighting over at all.

The George Inn: 9/10
The London Bridge Tandoori: 5/10

The Yak and Yeti and The White Hart, Crystal Palace

August's curry night took us south to Crystal Palace and the promise of something different in the form of Nepalese food.

The Pint: The White Hart in Crystal Palace is a friendly and relaxed boozer with a fine selection of speciality beers, including Fullers India Pale, a weissbeer and a selection of lagers including Dortmund's finest Veltins. It has a nice garden at the rear and the huge interior consists of a number of different rooms, including even a vintage clothes shop. This pub is highly recommended, and the food looked good as well. You could imagine this place being packed at the weekends. We acquainted ourselves with the ales - the Fullers India Pale Ale went down well as did the Veltins - before heading over the road to the Yak and Yeti, which hopefully would not involve any yakking.



The dips - note the slight yoghut leakage into chutney

 The Curry: First impressions of the Yak and Yeti were along the lines of blimey, this is a bit posher than our usual curry night venues. In reality that simply meant folded napkins and moody lighting. The restaurant is in no way pretentious, and we were to find that the food is reasonably priced. The customary poppadom and dips arrived, which included the usual mango chutney - in this case tangy and mild, a refreshing minty yoghurt, onion salad and some deep red stuff of unknown origin which tasted fine. The dips were well-presented (despite the slight leakage of yoghurt into chutney that you see above) and tasty but lacked a spicy option such as lime pickle. Our drinks arrived in the form of Kathmandu Beer, a form of Nepalese Pale Ale which is actually a perfect curry beer, not too fizzy and a bland smooth taste.   

Delicious Hariyali Chicken

For the mains I ordered Hariyali Chicken (left). Although on the menu it had an H next to it which we presumed indicated Hot, there was little bite to this. The thick sauce was however extremely tasty, with a perfect slightly grainy texture that seemed to include blended nuts. This went down an absolute treat. Grimmers ordered an under-the-table special in the form of the Hanse Bhutuwa - a Nepalese speciality consisting of duck cooked in Nepalese spices. The Achari Gosht - lamb in a tangy yoghurt sauce - was a fine "marvellous" blend of spices and excellently cooked lamb, according to Rob. Finally, Jake's Chicken Bhutuwa was a spicy, succulent chicken in a rich sauce. All dishes were a decent size and the sparkling clean plates at the end were testament to the quality of the food.

The service throughout was top notch, and we were extremely well looked after, even getting an extra naan bread on the house. General consensus was that although all the dishes were fantastic, the food could have been spicier, although Nepalese cuisine is apparently milder than Indian on the whole. The damage came to £25 per head, including tip, for mains, naan breads and two Kathmandu's each. All in all, a superb curry night, one of the best curry houses visited so far. What's more, nobody yakked.

The Yak and Yeti: 8.5/10

The White Hart: 8/10

The curry club

Nepal's finest

Southbank Tandoori and The Stage Door, Waterloo

If you ever find yourself in Waterloo in need of a curry, you could do a lot worse than head to the Southbank Tandoori.


Chicken Madras (left) and Chicken Karahi



The Curry: The classic Indian restaurant starters of poppaddoms and dips were pretty much spot on - crispy and non greasy, whilst the mango chutney was just the right consistency, although the lime pickle could have done with more bite, and the red stuff - well, noone really likes that anyway.

Onto the mains: Chicken dishes were reasonably priced at around £6.95 each. The Chicken Madras was on the HOT side of Madras, which is no bad thing in my book but others may want to take note. Meanwhile, the spices in the Karahi Chicken were delicately blended. One foolhardy member of our party opted for teh lamb vindaloo, which was definitely hot but deliciously so and certainly edible without the need for an asbestos stomach. The naan breads were crips and not at all doughy. The Southbank Tandoori is licensed and offers Kingfisher on draught so my advice would be to fill your boots on that one.

The Pint: Post curry we headed to the Stage Door, just round to the left as you leave The Cut. A friendly back-street pub with a couple of real ales, this place also offers a tightly-squeezed-in pool table in one of the rooms and is a good option for a few impromptu beverages.

The Southbank Tandoori: 8/10
The Stage Door: 7/10

Mirch Masala and The Selkirk

The Pint: Tooting may be better-known for its curries than its pubs - in fact just walking down Tooting High Street whilst hungry can be torture as the whole place smells of curry - but it has at least one gem that we know of in The Selkirk. The Selkirk is a decent boozer which serves a good pint of Junction, for the ale lovers. Its not too loud but definitely not an old man's pub, and it seems to have plenty going on such as pub quizzes and the odd bit of live music. It has an impressively-sized beer garden which I imagine must be busy on a sunny Sunday afternoon and all in all makes for a perfect pre-curry pint.

The Curry: From there it is a short 7-minute walk round the corner to Mirch Masla. Mirch Masala has recently capitalised on its success by opening no fewer than 7 branches in London, the first being opened in Norbury in 1997. Tooting is the second branch to open, in 2001, and has been a staple of South London curry-lovers ever since.

The Mirch Masala has a simple cafe-style interior, nothing fancy about this place at all. The restaurant is BYO, so beer and wine are encouraged (we grabbed a few bottles of Kingfisher, our favourite of the Indian lagers, from an off-licence next door). If part of a large group you may like to book, but for smaller parties there is probably no need, given the quick turnover.

To begin we had onion bhajis - crispy and not too oily, and chicken tikka, which was a lovely deep red and tasted excellent (although not sizzling like Tayyabs). All the mains are actually "Karahis" - named after the cast-iron pan with a rounded bottom that the curry is cooked in. I ordered Karahi Ginger Chicken, which packed a nice punch - and my friend ordered the Karahi Chicken Tikka Masala, which tasted superb. The portions are not enormous - the bits of chicken are slightly on the ungenerous side, until you consider the cost. Our bill came to just under ten pounds per head, representing excellent value for money.    

A textbook curry and pint combination this.
The Selkirk: 8/10
Mirch Masala: 10/10