Bollywood Masala

Ce n’était pas le bon soir visiblement pour Bollywood, dommage j’y étais !
En Angleterre, les restaurent indiens sont légions et connaissent un grands succès, surtout quand les Anglais décident de sortir, ça né rigole pas. En temps normal, Bollywood travail de concert avec un autre restaurent un peu plus loin, qui connaît un plus grand succès. Sauf que quand celui-​ci ferme, il faut savoir absorber et anticiper. Et c’est là que ça pêche ! 1h d’attente avant d’avoir une table (contre 20 annoncés), 30 minutes avant la commande, clairement on a perdu notre soirée. La faute à un problème en cuisine visiblement mais bon, c’est pas notre affaire.
Sous l’effet du rush, l’équipe était complètement dépassé. J’espère qu’ils ont un bonne colle car y’a eu de la vaisselle cassée. Le pompon, c’est quand même ce client qui s’est fait renversé un plat dessus. Enfin bref !
Côté repas par contre, c’était correct, à la hauteur de la réputation indienne. Les plats sont servis rapidement, savoureux et copieux.
La salle par contre devient très bruyante dès qu’il y’a du monde, tant pis.
Mais bon pour un Momo, un Sholay et une bière, comptez £17,8, c’est pas donné. Et pas de remise pour la qualité déplorable du service.

GREAT curry place! Don’t queue up for akbars this place really is the same standard! We actually ended up coming here after a few drinks down the road, because the queue at Akbars was crazy– as normal! But I’m so glad we did.
Friendly service right away and ordered some chilled cobra beers– great with curry.
Poppadoms and sauce are tasty and lots to go around– thumbs up.
We ordered a prawn rogan josh, tikka masala and dansak with pilau rice to share and a family sized naan.
Food came quickly (or seemed to, perhaps quite drunked…) and was tasty! Only thing was we though the tikka wasn’t anything to shout about so kindly gave our feedback to waiter who wasn’t the best at taking feedback. He then came back trumps however with the bill and a 30% off for next time!
Apart from this hiccup I would definitely come here again, it was just as busy as Akbars and definitely as tasty!

Gonna give this place four stars, as I really value it, when staff go out of their way to turn around the opinions of disgruntled customers.
Not that we were particularly disgruntled actually. We’d all agreed that the Tikka Masala was just average, nothing great. We did think it was Wetherspoons-​level and I politely told this to our waiter, to which he said ‘well you’ve eaten it all’. Jesus, I would have eaten a plate of witchetty grubs, I was that smashed — and of course I told him that too. Cue a 30% off discount card to be used on our now-​imperative next visit. Genius!
We only went in here as — like most — we were too hungry to wait the 45 mins at Akbar’s. Similar food to Akbar’s and same sized family naans on those big table hooks! Don’t bother with the queues down the road and come here. Time is precious and the food is pretty much the same.

I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say we never got to taste the food because it never came. We sat and waited for well over an hour before giving up and walking out.
Now, they had a big group in the restaurant which was obviously taking a lot of time and attention to attend to. However, if they couldn’t have handled more customers, they shouldn’t have offered us a table. And there was no excuse for the fact that the table next to us was left uncleared for an hour as well.
I understand that the food here is supposed to be really good. The problem is, we never got that far.

Thankfully the food saved Bollywood from a two star rating — the service was some of the laziest I’d ever experienced.
Fancying a curry after a couple of beers in nearby Cask, we first ventured to Akbar’s but left when we found there’d be at least a 45 minute wait and they wouldn’t take our details to contact us when a table was ready. But that’s another story.
Strolling back up Liverpool Road we decided to give Bollywood a go, even though it looked very, very quiet inside compared to the pandemonium of Akbar’s. Shown to a large table, we perused the menu and ordered the obligatory poppadoms and pickle trays. Opting for a few starters to share between us that’s when things started to falter. We ended up waiting nearly 40 minutes for the starters which was ridiculous as there were only four tables occupied and at least three waiting staff, two of whom spent most of our time there having what seemed to be a heated discussion (in between just gomming around not doing anything). Ironically we probably could have been eating at Akbar’s at this point.
When the food finally came it was pretty good to be fair, the mains followed fairly promptly after the starters and everyone did enjoy them — though a few of the group said the spiciness they’d asked for wasn’t there. The family naans, served hanging from hooks (like their more well-​known competitor further down the road) were a bit hit and miss.
My advice would be to endure the wait at Akbar’s.

I enjoyed my meal, the food was lovely and I would probably consider going back on the strength of this alone. The staff, however, were impolite; bordering on rude at times.
I don’t expect much from a restaurant, but manners are an absolute must. The menus were thrown at us rather than handed to us in turn. Whilst ordering, the waiter sighed audibly as we asked each other a question regarding quantities of rice, breads etc. The menu was then snatched out of my hands, something I have never experienced before. I was served my main meal without a plate and had to wait several minutes before one arrived. I must stress that this was a Tuesday evening and it could hardly have been considered busy. When I asked where the toilets were, I were simply pointed in the general direction. This hardly helped me as they was down a flight of stairs and behind a poorly marked door. The facilities were very nice and clean though. Finally, when it was time for payment, the waiter’s hands were virtually inside my wallet to take my card, again, not waiting for me to hand it over.
To end on a more positive note, the restaurant was very clean and looked lovely. We were seen to very quickly and the terms of the special offer were explained to us very clearly. The food was fantastic, up there with Akbar’s which others like to use as the measuring stick for Indian cuisine in the City Centre and I would be happy to go back again. I only hope that if that day does come, the service will be much better and we’d be looking at ⁴⁄₅ stars.

Very good food. However Akbar’s is just down the road a bit, and is much better. Bollywood tends to have sweeter food.
It is a good alternative if its hard to get a table at Akbar’s.

Had a great lunch. Huge portions and delicious food. I was only visiting Manchester on holiday, but Bollywood was so delicious that I wish I had one back home. Awesome curries… the executive lunch is a great deal. The chicken and lamb we tried were so tender. Love it! Love it!