Spice Valley Restaurant

Good food, although I’d suggest going for the spicier dishes; the mild dishes are really very mild. The Tandoori Mixed Grill was very good.
The service was good and friendly (we were with friends who knew one of the waiters, though). I found the atmosphere pleasant, but a little sterile; the décor would suit a trendy wine bar or French restaurant just as well.
In summary, well worth a visit.

Have to say me and the family love this place! When I go in with my little girls they always give them a pile of the leaving chocs! Which they eat while drinking lemonade while our takeaway is cooked! The food is fab and the boys love the tandoori chicken. Top Service.

We went there for my birthday meal. I was not dissapointed. The Spice of Bengal resturant in Calne is amazing, this was as good. Their Dansak was very spicy and very sour. The service excellent and the ambiance of the place was good.
The menu original and varied with a range of different meats from poultry to game.

The service and welcome you get at this restaurant is second to none. Ali knows all his regulars and make us and newcomers feel very welcome.
He is able to offer great advice to tempt you off your usual dish with great success and the food never fails to be delicious.
Here’s the rub; Spice Valley scores NO points on the Scores on the Doors database, with an inspection dating back to Jan 2009. My family and friends now refuse to eat their food and this will not change until the score does. My advice to the proprietor is to get this fixed, it’s adversely affecting your business.

Whenever I’m back in the UK I have to have at least one curry, what with Vancouver not being particularly blessed with decent curry houses. Despite working in Abingdon for many years, I had somehow managed to miss this place — it is rather obscured from view round the back of a small collection of shops squished between the Ring Road and the school grounds. It was recommended by a colleague, who believes it to be Abingdon’s finest. I had always given that title to the Dil Raj, so I was intrigued.
The atmosphere is what I like to think of as mid-​90s revival curry house. It’s not your original flock wallpaper, dark style — it’s cane furniture, light colours and large, round tables. The staff were somewhat cold in attitude — the waiter who greeted us made it clear that in eschewing the buffet and choosing to select from the menu we had made the Wrong Choice. It also took rather too long to get the bill and settle up at the end.
The food is pretty good. There’s an extremely densely packed menu with all the standard choices as well as some extras like a selection of duck curries. My benchmark for a curry house is the King Prawn Puri and this one was very pleasant — the puri was tasty and not too greasy, the prawns were tasty and firm and the sauce was a rich coconutty zinger.
We ordered a selection of main dishes which were generally tasty, spicy and distinct, although the Korma (which I would never usually order) was more than usually bland. The best of the dishes was a creamy, almondy duck thing whose name I can’t remember (sorry) and the Chicken Jalfrezi which had just the right number of bright green chillis to cause the kind of mild discomfort that makes curries worthwhile.
All in all, it was a good place to have my ration of Indian food for this trip, although it will not stop me from trying somewhere else next time in the never-​ending search for curry heaven. I still stand by my judgement on the Dil Raj, too.

Spice Valley is our favourite Indian restaurant in Abingdon because their service is so much better than everyone else’s. Whether you’re eating in or ordering a take-​away, they treat you with respect and are very efficient.
They have a varied menu, with some dishes you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere (venison curry?), but as a bit of a curry lightweight I find most of the things on the menu a little bit on the spicy side.
Although they do have milder dishes on the menu, they can be a bit bland and disappointing. If you’ve got a reasonable heat tolerance though, you won’t go wrong at Spice Valley. And they do a buffet on Tuesday evenings that is very good value (and popular — you’ll need to book).