The Elephant’s Trunk

Outstanding intimate Indian.
So this little place is at a rougher end of town. Down a road that takes you off the main shopping street, littered with kebab houses and scruffy looking pubs and, erm, litter. Inside is clean and fresh, and the décor well thought about. Bronze elephant heads hold aloft red wall lights on bright white walls. There can’t be much more than 20 covers, so it’s a little cramped but clean and comfortable.
I love it when the menu has something I’ve not seen before. Even better when your friendly waitress is happy to answer all of your questions about contents and size of portions. We all ordered something different and our waitress asked how hot we would like our food. Brilliant for a spice wimp like me. I wish I could remember what we all had. But I’ll tell you this now: the only food left was the rice my toddler threw on the floor.
I had a (admittedly boring) chicken korma. Lovely nutty sauce, generous on the meat and perfect with the milk appam (a kind pancake). My better half had the Sri Lankan mutton curry. Full of flavour, slightly sour and definitely full mutton flavour, and not lamb. Our rice portions were generous, 2 just about fed 5 adults along with 2 nans. Thin and crispy, not the doughy excuses for nans breads so prevailing in other curry houses. The aubergine side dish was one of my favourites. Warming and rich, I would happily eat that for every meal. The spinach in our aloo saag was fresh, and not frozen which which makes such a difference.
My only complaint was the big standard out of the freezer selection of themed ice creams. However this was easily negated by a cocktail.
So, between us we had 8 side dishes, 5 main courses, an alcoholic drink each and 4 puddings and the bill was under £80. For the quality of food and friendly service, totally amazing. If you are in Southend and want some indian food, I would not hesitate to recommend this place.