Madras Express

Food was mostly excellent except a little disappointed by the chicken tikka masala — a little too authentic, a little too sweet /​coconutty and not quite spicy enough for me.
We had it delivered. They forgot our bread but came back with it pretty quickly.
Wife says good.
The youngest gave it a 4 — really liked it, and he is the other Indian-​food-​eater in the family.

Yeah baby a traditional curry house with the added option of all-​day breakfast awesomeness.
This is a great little find for curry lovers as when we went they were doing a deal on a starter main and side for £10 though the waiter made sure we understood «no king prawn in deal» which is fair cos a king prawn is a luxury item and not really for the likes of me.
Pretty varied selection with a few house specials I went for the chilli chicken which the waiter said was fairly hot. Bleeding Nora it was a fearsome firey fella I can tell you there must have been about ¹⁰⁄₁₅ hot green chilli’s in that bum burner.
Good job they got Cobra on draught oh and a nice selection of ummm quality wines.
I would throughly recommend this curry house and the staff are kinda cool too.

I’ve eaten here twice now. Once through a groupon deal, and once my girlfriend and I used the set deal on the menu. Both times the sheer amount of food was awesome, and made for good lunch the next day. The curry is of a good standard. The peshwari naan is beautiful. The wine, of course, is awful. So all in all, a perfect curry house!

The Madras Express is a curious name for a business owned by a Ugandan Indian of Gujarati descent. (Madras is in the South East of India and Gujarat is in the North West.) That aside, everything else makes sense. With an extensive menu, tandori oven, take-​aways and deliveries, everyone is more than happy with what they do. This is an exceedingly popular restaurant.
Ali, the owner, is a chatty kind of fellow. He tells me that the Tandori Chicken is the most commonly ordered dish and that he’s not related to the Ugandan family of Gujarati origin that owns the Sweet Mart on St Mark’s Road — but they are friends. Ali smiled when he revealed that he hadn’t even visited India until 2000, but that he went at an inauspicious time, explaining that he was there when the massive earthquake hit at the beginning of 2001. I listened stunned as he continued to tell me that he had found a 6 year old Hindu girl whose family had all perished, and that he decided to bring her back to the UK. There ensued a long tussle with Social Services until eventually they granted her access. She’s now fifteen and studying for her GCSE’s. What is most astonishing about this tale is that Ali himself is Muslim. The food tastes even better when you know that!

For those of you who enjoy a good helping of hearty Indian cuisine from time to time, but can rarely afford the luxury of eating out, luck may be coming your way. The Madras Express, a relatively new curry house, is currently doing an eat in buy one get one free deal from Monday to Wednesday on all main meals, naan breads and rice. I had to double-​take when I saw the offer and hastily proceeded to arrange a group outing to the restaurant.
Our group arrived on a Monday evening and alarm bells rang as we walked into a practically empty restaurant. But the ringing soon began to subside as we sat down to pints of Kingfisher, a deliciously refreshing Indian Lager, and tucked into our obligatory poppadom starters. The toppings were copious and varied and our appetites were well and truly whetted. A few more customers began to show up after a while, and we were impressed with the friendliness and attentiveness of the waiters.
The main courses arrived in good time and were beautifully presented. Given the nature of the offer, we were not expecting exquisite food. Nevertheless, we were pleasantly surprised by the sheer quality of the dishes. I had a Chicken Karai which was oozing with sweet, subtle flavours and packed with juicy vegetables. The meat was succulent and tasty and my garlic naan was cooked to perfection. We all agreed we would have been happy to pay the full price for such culinary perfection. But a deal’s a deal!