Asli Zaika - God Only Knows.

After this recent visit, I asked myself what the reasoning behind this club was. Why did we start and what were we hoping to achieve? We used it as an excuse to go out and eat good food but the ultimate aim was to celebrate the amazing variety of "curry houses" in the Tooting area. Obviously not every curry can be an exquisite foray into the sub continent's finest cuisine. Without the odd disappointment, you would never appreciate the quality ones I guess but it's still a shame to write a bad review. I'd rather write gushing review after gushing review than to write what I am about to write but we can only report on things as we find them.

I had been eyeing up this restaurant for some time as I had been struck by their advertising board which said they did a curried kidney dish. It's not something I would want myself but I was intrigued. Turns out on further inquiry that they didn't actually do this dish. Still, something excited me about the place and I was keen to try it out. This was my first mistake.

Present were:

Berry7
Dubya
Paul
Paul's housemate Mark
Desmondo

Being a small group, we expected a quick and enjoyable meal from one of the many canteen type establishments that abound in Tooting. As we found with Lahore Spice Village (the old one), we know these more intimate venues can provide the best curries. Tragically this was not the case.

Let's get it into it then. The popadums came out immediately as we ordered them. As in, seconds after we uttered the words. They were cold, stale and had clearly been sat there for some time. I am not sure I have ever left my popadums before, mainly because I am always starving and just shovel them heartily into my mouth. I could not even finish it. This was not a good start.

The service was one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. I am not sure how to do it justice but I reckon we had to repeat every order at least twice and any questions we had about the menu were met with the blank stare of utter confusion. It wasn't even a language barrier because pointing at dishes on the menu was met with a similar response and then after it all when the order was read back, it was wrong. I honestly believe that someone drafted in off the street could have done better. It was so bizarre that we all had to bite our lips to not rudely break out into laughter. For a moment I thought it was a wind up. Tragically it was just the service.

The starters were very average. The kebabs and samosas were edible but then I assume they are mass produced anyway so it's difficult to credit them much with these. The onion bhaji was cold. Not just warm or tepid but utterly cold and the texture was chalky. My vague hopes that bad popadums and service would give way to a feast were rapidly disappearing. It was time to move swiftly onto the mains but by now we were all convinced that the meal was not salvageable. We weren't wrong.

Now, I have eaten a lot of curries, ranging from bright orange masalas back in the 90s to homemade fares whipped up by drunken mates. I am not sure I have had a curry this bad before. Sometimes you go somewhere where all the dishes look and taste the same or just reek off curry powder but this was just indefinably bad. The aloo kheema had minced meat that looked vaguely like it might once have seen an animal. It was almost dusty and floating in the sauce. The bhindi ghost, my own choice, had such horrific lamb that I could not take more than one mouthful of it. The chicken jalfrezi had stringey bits of chicken in it, as if they had just scraped together enough for the dish from the bottom of the freezer. The chicken chilli was ok in fairness but just ok and the lamb curry made me feel sick when I tasted it. I'd to like to point out at this point that all five of us love curry and tried very hard to find something in this meal that was decent. This was not easy.

The breads were very very good. The garlic naan in particular was exceptionally fluffy and fresh and the chilli naan was similarly enjoyed. The tandoori paratha was bland however and these two naans were the only thing that salvaged a terrible meal. Actually, that's not fair, the mango lassi was good as well. So just go infor a garlic naan and lassi if you ever find yourself inside.

Sorry to be so harsh. I am aware that the owners probably work very hard in running their restaurant but if I am paying for it, I expect it to be edible.

The place - 4 out of 10. It was clean. The toilets were well maintained I suppose. It was a canteen type venue with not a lot going for it but this is not a problem if the food is up to scratch. I think we all know how those scores are going to go.

The Service - 3 out of 10. As I said, this was laughably bad. It's one thing to struggle to understand your customers, but it's another to be utterly confused, even by your own menu. Every single thing we said was met with a blank look of terror, as if we were asking for the theory of relativity to be explained in Latin. He was nice enough, he never punched anyone in the face or anything but that was literally it.

Starters and Sundries - 3 out of 10. We realised that we had to give it 3 because the naans and lassi were good. It got that desperate. We were sat there in the pub trying to find somewhere to give this place some marks. Sad times.

Curry - 1 out of 10. It took us a while to come to this mark but it was universally agreed on. At first I think we started a bit higher because it seemed almost rude to give it less but the more we discussed it, the more it became clear that anything higher was utterly unjustifiable. A curry made in your own house with the worst supermarket sauce would have been better. In fact it would have tasted like a feast from the heavens in comparison. As bad as it ever gets.

Value for Money - 1 out of 10. I mean it wasn't expensive so you could argue it represented ok value but then you have to ask yourself if it was worth 50p let alone a tenner each? I would rather pay five times that much and be able to eat it than take one bite and slide my dish away. actually scratch that I'd rather just eat somewhere for the same price that served excellent food. But you get my point...

Total - 12 out of 50. Good. Lord. Really that bad. We tried so hard to give it marks because, as I said, we aren't doing this to take glee in bad restaurants. We'd love to have a load of amazing venues to bore you with but tragically this cannot be dressed up as anything but a disaster. I can only hope we caught it on a terrible night and that one day we will go back in and be forced to apologise for this review. I won't hold my breath mind.

Happy meal costs were:
Unknown.

I totally forgot because I was so shocked by it all. I will try and find out but it's all irrelevant really. It could cost 10p and I would still not bother.

So that's that. Sorry for the harsh review but hey, we can;t just make up good dishes. We have another to review tonight. We are hoping for better! We are hoping to be able to finish it...

Berry7.