Indian Chef

In the past, I’ve had some fantastic meals at Indian Chef. We went the other day though and it was pretty disappointing.
They were very very busy, which may explain it — and we were in a large group so they had a lot of meals to prepare at one time. It seemed like my curry (Lamb Madras) had been sat on a hot plate for some time before it was served though — it wasn’t very hot, and the sauce was starting to thicken up on top. Also just didn’t taste too exciting!
Other people in the group really enjoyed their meals though, and it’s a good cheap option, with a pub (The Ball) right across the road. It’s also a BYO. We had popadums with pickles, then everybody had a curry with nans, chapatis and rice to share and it all came to just £10 each.
Despite not being a great experience this time, I’ll definately go again.

After reading a brief review of this restaurant elsewhere, we decided to try it for ourselves.
The Indian Chef is a friendly unlicensed restaurant with a jug of water up front, a la Bradford.
The starters looked magnificent and were beautifully presented. However a book should not be judged by it’s cover. The starters weren’t particularly spicy and had a strong hint of over used or burnt oil.
The Chicken Madras (⁴⁄₁₀) was a little short of a full-​strength madras, but quite spicy — alas it was too watery and lukewarm. Also, the meat was of inferior quality and there was not that much of it. The portion size is definitely no more than average. Nick’s Saag gosht (lamb in spinach) was the best dish of the night (⁷⁄₁₀), the sauce was rather good, with plenty of spinach.
In addition to our individual Chicken Madras dish, Phil and I shared a Tarka Dall (²⁄₁₀) main dish. I can’t understand why the waiter, when we expressed an interest in a vegetarian main dish, did not draw our attention to the separate veggy menu which we later discovered on the counter?
The Tarka Dall was possibly the worst dish I have ever eaten on my curry travels. It was far too watery, the described onions were missing as appeared to be the spices, it tasted of raw uncrushed garlic and contained a derisory amount of lentils at the bottom of the balti dish. Shocking.
The restaurant does not carry any authentic Indian desserts.