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