Mushtaqs

Who doesn’t love a curry now and then. And there’s no better place to go for your Indian food fix than here. It’s an award winning restaurant with authentic and healthily cooked curry dishes.

I’ve been here a few times and on each occasion, I have to say, I feel more bloated than happy upon leaving! That’s not to say the food is bad, far from it, probably more to do with me opting for the buffet, rather than a menu option. That being said, the place appears to be geared at getting you to have the buffet — which is good value for money.
Anyhow, the restaurant itself is on the small side, although the layout of the tables stops any feeling of crampness — all too often I visit a small restaurant and I’m plonked beside loud-​talking-​know-​it-​alls in a table-​by-​table-​by-​table configuration (if you know what I mean…). Happily, Mustaqs avoids this.
The service is fast and friendly, with a plethora of staff on hand to attend to your every need… Well, may be not, but the staff are attentive and very efficient.
If opting for the buffet a starter of mixed pakora, chicken chaat and alu tikka are brought to your table soon after ordering. All very tasty. The buffet itself consists of 8 or 9 different dishes. On different occasions, I’ve tried most of these, and can say, they all meet with my approval. They varying from the mild to semi-​hot; the Roshan Deen being my favourite of the pick.
If in the area, definitely worth a visit. Good value for money, fresh and tasty food all make for a pleasant change from the usual run-​of-​the-​mill restaurants offering ‘Indian’ buffets.
As a side note: I’ve tried their home delivery service and they really do deliver within the advertised 29 minutes. Success.

First Unilocal outing!
I was really surprised how small this place was, everyone seemed to be telling me about Mushtaqs so I was really excited about going.
The UYE pakora passport was a great night all arranged by Martyn, so thanks for making my first Unilocal event 5 stars!
Pakora platters came out in big portions however not a massive selection. I love some sort of scallop pakora or prawn, even just a bit of fish!!! They did have this potato fritter type! I loved that!!!
I’m not the biggest fan of buffets but this place is clean! Plates out and we are up there filling our boots. Again not much of a selection but very fresh! I had a bit of everything but had managed to scoff it all before the nan bread came out — boy was that hot!
Really wish there was a half star to add on to this! It’s not quite 4 stars yet! But I will be back to try the full menu for sure and soon!

This week I ventured out of Glasgow to Hamilton to try this popular restaurant. I have had it recommended to me on many occasions and when I saw there was an unofficial pakora passport event happening there, I was keen to attend.
The décor is not what I was expecting, I really liked it as it was very modern and crisp looking. The car park however was exactly the opposite. Pitch black and about as shady looking as you could imagine. I am sure in the summer it fine, but they really should get it lit up for the winter nights.
On to the food now. The pakora I had for starters was nice, but I don’t think there was enough variety. With so many places doing great pakora these days I at least expect there to be fish option on the menu. The popadoms and dips were great though.
For mains there only really seemed to be the buffet on offer. I am not a big fan in general of buffets, but I gave everything a try and the curries on offer were nice, although I would say no more than that. The nan bread however was Awesome. Really fresh and tasty. However I don’t think there was enough and it was a bit slow in coming out.
Next time I visit I definitely want to try something from their main menu and made fresh for me. I think the food will probably be great then.
It was a good night and great to meet some fellow Unilocalers. Cheers for organising it Martyn and thanks for my socks Briony!

The amazing Martyn M organised a Pakora Passport outing to Mushtaq’s and I was super excited about it. They have a pretty funny website if you check it out — they are really proud of having a clean kitchen and 100% natural ingredients. By the time I arrived, Martyn was well versed on the Mushtaqs Faqts and regaled us with some beauties, including the fact they will be able to cater for 4,000 meals in their newly expanded kitchen. Amazing.
Anyway, the restaurant is nice, kind of small but modern. I don’t remember seeing a menu, it seemed like they wanted us to have the buffet which is around £13pp. I was happy with this but normally I’d rather just order what I fancy as I don’t really like buffets as I will always overeat. Haha!
The starters were great — poppadums and sauces at the buffet, a plate of pakora and some chicken pieces served fresh. I really liked the pakora and also discovered alu tikki — potato in pakora batter, kind of like a potato fritter. (Fun fact: I call them a potato cake. Other Australians call them a potato scallop).
There was a good selection of curries at the buffet, about 8 – 10 in varying degrees of hotness. I tried the chasni and korma as well as one of the hotter ones and thought they were both delicious. You could really see these were proper fillets of chicken which were cut quite large, obviously no dubious chicken-​plumping going on here.
We had to wait a little while for the nan bread to arrive but that’s because they cooked it fresh. I know it was cooked fresh because it was hotter than hell when it arrived. It was really tasty though and had a really light, soft consistency to it. Yum.
With drinks it came to around £16 each which is really great for that much food. I didn’t make return trips to the buffet as I’d definitely over eaten by the end of it. There were only a couple of things I didn’t love about here — parking in the pitch-​black car park out the back felt like the start of a Law & Order episode and I was sure I was going to get attacked by someone hiding behind the earth moving equipment. Thankfully when we were leaving we went to our cars as a group.
The other thing I didn’t like were the chairs in the restaurant. They were big arm chairs and made it difficult to get out without pushing your chair really far back, into the path of the waiter and probably the person next to you (sorry Austen). Maybe it’s to stop you going back to the buffet so much? Haha! I’d like to try the full menu before going up to 5 stars, as I said I don’t tend to love a buffet!

I have a panicky disposition when it comes to buffets. Generally, I hate them. I don’t like my food lounging around for lengthy periods of time, I hate the idea of people breathing or poking at/​near my food. Yeah. I hate them.
Mushtaq’s is probably the only buffet I have genuinely enjoyed. When you come in you order your drinks and then they’ll bring you. Big plate of assorted starters — mixed pakora, chaat, bhajis, etc. They will replenish this plate as often as required, and you can help yourself to salad, dips and poppadums. I hate that there are so many different spellings for poppadom — I always feel like I write it a different way and nothing feels right!
The curries, rice and naan are all in hot holders that have sliding kids to keep them covered — I feel well assured that the food is safe. They have a good variety of curries, and I tend to try a bit of everything. Their food is absolutely delicious — my favourites are definitely the bhuna and the chasni. My dad is a huge madras fan and said that Mushtaq’s is a good one.
It’s great value for money and you definitely get your money’s worth. As I said, the food is beautiful.

So my fellow Unilocalers said ‘this place!’.
I said, ‘but wait, it’s all the way over there!’.
‘Ach, just get yer bottom over here’, was their reply.
‘Fair enough’, says I.
A bus, train and some shoe leather was my preferred mode of transport, with the journey taking a little over 45 mins from door to curry.
On arrival I was greeted by a waving of arms (from Unilocalers) and a waft of tasty smells from the grub on offer.
So this place. Well, it’s buffet, but fortunately it shy’s away from the ‘more the merrier’ ethos and concentrates on about 6 – 8 dishes ranging from mild to hot (ish). After grabbing some poppadoms and various wee dipping sauces and being brought a couple of plates of starters (chicken tikka legs, oooft hot!), we tucked into the mains.
Over all, I’d say I was pretty damn pleased with the grub. Flavours were strong. Meat was tender, with the lamb pretty much just falling apart in my mouth.
Service was very prompt given that they were pretty slammed. It was friendly and in terms of price… well given that I had a couple of beers and the full buffet, the 18 quid (including tip) was pretty damn reasonable!
Ok, I took a wee trip south of the river (I made it back eventually!), but it was totally worth it!

Right, the media reviews say its the best curry in Scotland. Cleanest restaurant in Lanarkshire — and it goes on and on. I say, its by far the BEST indian I’ve ever set foot in! I utterly love Indian food, but with this being my second visit to the resturaunt they only excelled themselves yet again. My first visit was choosing from the A la cartè menu — and this last time from the buffet selection. I can type paragraph upon paragraph of how it was but the bottom line was it is outstanding. With freshly cooked piping hot nan breads, to unlimited popadoms and the best curried dishes around. Highly recommended! Book now!

Oh my curry gods, you have given us, your children, a haven to attend and relax in and munch poppadoms with curry, and your children are happy.
No but really, this is curry! There was a small Hamilton Unilocal gathering this evening arranged by Mrs Roo, and I attended, mostly because it’s a rare occurrence to have a Hamilton Unilocal event, but also because I quite enjoy curry, and by quite I mean absolutely freaking love.
Before most turned up, I sat with The Roo Family eating poppadoms with dip, and pretty much filled myself up that way. Once other people arrived, our wonderful starter plates came out, with chicken and spices and chicken wings and mmmmm-​ness. A good combo. I don’t actually remember everything on the plate, or I would make a list! You then get some large naan bread, and go up and select a plate. With your plate, you then go up and choose some currys and some rice. There’s bhunas, masalas, kormas etc, with vegetable and chicken and lamb versions of all. It’s a curry heaven.
This is an award winning Indian restaurant with an award winning chef, and it most definitely shows in the quality of the food. It’s probably the best Indian food I’ve ever tasted, and trust you me, I’ve tasted a lot.
If this review doesn’t convince you to go here and munch away on some currys and pakoras and naan, then I have absolutely no idea what will!

It was an Wednesday evening and in need some scran. Ian came through to see me and I remembered Fiona M. raving about Mushtaqs. I said «up for an Indian?» Ian agreed with great enthusiam. Yay!
It’s about less than 10 minutes away from me, so we were there in no time. Arrived no problem and we noticed they had a car park round the back. Car parked and ready for food.
It was fairly busy for a Wed evening, few couples and a wee party of 6. Ordered our drinks and the waiter explained how the buffet works as we hadn’t been before.
We helped ourselves to the pile of poppadoms with a fab choice of different sauces. There were some really lovely flavours and poppadoms were really tasty. Our starter to share soon arrived and it was a really good mix and it was delicious flavours. I think they should add fish pakora to the mix and I think it would be perfect. Nom!
As it was a buffet we headed up to the hot plate/​cabinet things. It started from rice, mild curries up to spicy. I had some white rice and oooh the pilau rice. That was the most delectable pilau rice I’ve ever had. I piled on some chicken korma and chasni, it looked so creamy and smooth. When we returned to our table there was a big fresh warm naan bread sitting ready for us. I thought that was a really nice touch, a lovely wee surprise as I was looking for the naans.
The food tastied amazing, the korma and chasni were scrumptious and the pilau rice really complimented it. For the third course of the buffet we were offfered ice cream or coffee. Ian had a coffee and I squeezed in a cheeky wee ice cream with strawberry sauce. It finished off the meal perfectly.
I’m so glad I remembered here and I would certainly come back. I didn’t know about all the publicity about the place and the award winning chef but after tasting the food I can see why. Yum!

I’d heard the hype, the adoration, the raving from pretty much everyone that has ever eaten from Mushtaqs, so I wasn’t too worried at all when my other half decided that we should go here for an early dinner on Sunday.
We had a look at the website to see what they have on offer, and to be honest, I thought the menu looked a little sparse. However we were going for the buffet so it didn’t really matter. The site also detailed, greatly, how Mushtaqs was the cleanest restaurant in Lanarkshire and seemed really really over promotional about this, and the fact that a few celebs liked the food.
We got a train to Hamilton West station, and Mushtaqs is literally a 2 minute stroll away. It was empty but for two people, understandable at 5pm on an Old Firm Sunday, so we were given our choice of seating. To describe how it looks, I would say it looks, well, clean! Everything was pristine from the tables to the huge glass front wall/​door. The buffet area was small, and laid out in front of the very trendy, 10 or so bottle bar which is next to a flat screen television flashing up ads of newspaper clippings and accolades about the restaurant. There was even a flyer on the table detailing how this restaurant, incase you hadn’t heard, was the cleanest one in Lanarkshire!
The waiter took our drinks order and said that he would bring our starters to the table, if we wanted to go up and get some poppadoms and dips. Next to the hotplates were the sundries, including poppadoms, salad, spiced onions and a selection of dips and sauces with small silver cups to transport them to our table. We had some ‘starter sauce’ which I would identify as pakora sauce, some mango chutney (very runny with no chunks whatsoever, but still very tasty) and some red sauce called Tomo Tomo sauce which was lovely, my favourite definitely!
Our starter plate arrived filled with chicken and veg pakora, chicken chaat on the bone, chicken tikka chunks and potato fritters. I really enjoyed the fritters and the chicken tikka but I didn’t think the pakora batter was crispy or light enough for a supposedly ‘high end’ Indian restaurant.
We grabbed a plate and went up to the main meal section. There were around 7 dishes, chicken, lamb and veggie, with two types of rice. I took both rices and picked a selection from the curries. When we returned to the table, there was a fresh nann waiting for us, which was a lovely touch! I tried each one in turn and I can honestly say, I only really enjoyed one of them. That is a matter of personal taste of course, but when it comes to curry I am usually pretty easily pleased. I loved the chicken tikka chasni; delicious, fresh and creamy, packed with flavour. The original chicken curry was nice, but the chicken was too soft for me. I really didn’t enjoy the faiselpuri, a spicy sauce with chilli and ginger. The nann was lovely though, as was the rice. Really fluffy and fresh.
We were then offered ice cream and coffees but I declined in favour of popping to the gorgeous Equi’s ice-​cream parlour across the road. My other half had a cup of tea whilst I waited and took in my experience.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this place, but I just can’t put my finger on what is right about it.
I like places to feel homely, friendly, like you’re in someone’s massive dining room and they’re cooking up a storm just for you in the kitchen. Instead, it felt too clinical. My boyfriend hit the nail on the head when he said it felt like we were sitting in a massive marketing or promo hub. Everything was about how great and clean the place was.
One of the really great things about Mushtaqs was the price. It cost just over £10 each for the buffet. Great value for money for such a popular place. I give Mushtaqs three stars because to me, it just wasn’t that special. I know many people that would disagree strongly with me though!

Fantastic original Indian food with a difference. Buffet has a great variety of curries and the people who secret are always eager to please. Little gem!