Mirch Masala - A proper Christmas meal with all the trimmings.

Happy New Year to you all! I trust the festive period brought you loads of booze, unwanted presents and a realisation that your family are all mentally insane.

Before Christmas, we ventured to Mirch Masala for a slap up meal and a few cheeky cans of cider. Sorry for the late write up but I've been flat out gobbling turkey, eating cheese and consuming alcohol like it's mineral water. Now my life is starting to realign, I thought I best write up this gem of a location.

http://www.mirchmasalarestaurant.co.uk/mm/index.htm

Looking at this, the original opened in Norbury and this branch opened in 2001. Enough history. Here's the review.

Present were:

Berry7
The Chapati Kid
Desmondo
Spice Jet Farmer
Moun
Bad Drunk Ben
English Matt (Ithink)
Lurch (Edit - Who wasn't actually there it turns out)
Dubya
Sal
Angry Northern Steve

Plus a fair few others but its ages ago and I was drunk. Let me know and I'll add you in. (Edit - think that's everyone now...)

Now it is hard to review this place because we have always loved it, but we made a stringent effort to be honest and to give it a fair rating. We love it because it consistently delivers incredible curry, at very reasonable prices. Like Lahore it doesn't place too much emphasis on being swanky but more on the quality of its dishes. Being made up of people more concerned with the content of our plates, this sits very well with us. Would it deliver now though? When it mattered.

They managed to sit us very quickly despite being busy and us having about 10 people in our party, and we were ushered to the upstairs window seat. Because we have eaten here a few times we kind of knew what we were after and the service was quick as usual.

The popadoms and dips came quickly but were disappointing. For some reason they only give you two dips: a yoghurt and a chilli one. Both are ok but neither set the culinary world alight and I do like my mango chutney and onion salad. It just feels like a bit of a let down and sets a slightly strange tone to start the meal.

The starters however haul everything right back on track and provided a great variety of dishes for us to try. We tried to order a similar selection to our normal fare when reviewing, to give us a good comparison against other venues. The samosas were ok, the kebabs were very tasty and the fish bhajia we ordered was very enjoyable indeed. I had never had that before. The two highlights however were the onion bhajia and the tikka paneer. Both of which I am yet to see bettered round Tooting. The tikka paneer really is amazing. Worth visiting for that alone, in my humble opinion.

The mains fared just as well, if not better. I don't want to sound too gushing as I have already admitted that I love this place but really, the curry is amazing here. All the mains we had were great. The chilli chicken karahi, methi chicken and chicken korma all provided us with quality curry experiences but it was the fish tikka masala, okra curry (forget the name) and paneer tikka masala which really stood out. I am yet to have a better fish curry anywhere I don't think.

I'd like to write more about the mains but by this point I was quite drunk and my notes have personal insults about my fellow TCC members and myself scrawled in spider like writing all over them. It's not as professional as I'd hoped. Sorry but it was Christmas!

The place - 6 out of 10. Pretty average decor but clean and bustling with people. The upstairs provides quite a nice location for bigger parties while the downstairs is a bit more lively if you are in a smaller crowd. It's fine but it's really nothing special. Bit better than Lahore but none of the glamour of a posh restaurant.

The Service - 7.5 out of 10. I can't quite remember why we only gave it 7.5. I think the service was good and all the ordering was done correctly but we weren't blown out of the water by how we were treated. To be honest I was a bit drunk at the end. Good but nothing amazing I think!

Starters and Sundries - 8 out of 10. Fantastic. Like I said the tikka paneer is quite immense and all the others were great. For me the bhajia and the paneer are as good a starter as I have had in Tooting, on par with those at Lahore where the chicken tikka was really very impressive. Nans and rice were good quality also.

Curry - 9 out of 10. Brilliant. Really, really tasty, good selection and my fish tikka masala was simply out of this world. It really was enjoyable and possibly a bit better than Lahore for quality of curry. In our opinion obviously. I just don't think you can say much more really.

Value for Money - 8 out of 10. Not as cheap as Lahore but still great value. I did take the bill home with me but I may have eaten it in the Tooting Tram and Social afterwards. Sorry about that. Can anyone else remember the rough costs? All I can remember is it was great value considering how good the curry was. BYO keeps the cost down although we didn't factor this into our score. Good if you like a drink though.

Total - 38.5 out of 50. A joint leader! A great venue, really lively, excellent curry and value for money. Perhaps if you wanted a swankier venue you'd go to Vijaya Krishna but if you want brilliant curry then Lahore or Mirch. I think Mirch just edges it but I've only been to Lahore once so I think it's wise to say that could be personal bias. Get involved.

Happy meal costs were:
Tarka dall - £4.00.
Plain naan - 70p.
Plain rice - £1.50.
Plain lassi - 50p. (So mentally cheap I ordered one and it was very good)

Total - £6.70. Reasonable prices helped by a very cheap lassi.

So...good. Very good and one I would happily recommend to anyone looking to hit Tooting for a curry. I hope the review is fair and covers the good and bad parts of the place. Like Lahore though it goes straight for good quality curry and for us, that's really what it's all about. Give it a try. I doubt you will be disappointed.

I'm off for three months to South America. I am toying with setting up a chain of curry houses there. If that falls through I'll be back in April and until then, the Chapati Kid and Big Dunc will look after you.

Happy currying.

Berry7.