Okay before we go any further it's time to fess up. I'm a really pansy when it comes to curry but really do want to get better and train the palette and I have seriously neglected the good Indian restaurants of W12 and surrounding areas so thus I can kill two birds (ouch!) with one stone - find the best curry house in the Bush and also "man-up" my taste buds!
So Thursday night I met Mo in Hammersmith where she works and after a few obligatory happy hour drinks in Be At One (a long standing favourite for cheeky cocktails and even cheekier barmen) and then we shimmied up to Goldhawk Road for a meal at Ajanta Tandoori.
Ajanta has all the right front of house ingredients: comfier chairs than your average restaurant, dubious fishtank/artefacts, waiters in dodgy sailor-come-hotel porter-come-straight jacket shirts who move tables, chairs and the earth for you to sit down, and of course incredibly piercing at time uncomfortable off beat bollywood-esque soundtrack. I was in heaven.
Poppadoms were served after asking us "how many?" as opposed to "would you like some poppadoms?" (Tick) and the condiments to accompany them were the usual 4 (onion salad, mango chutney, hot stuff we don't go near, mint yoghurt yummy stuff) plus an old friend I hadn't seen in a while since an amazing curry in Bromsgrove (don't ask) - coconut chutney! (Big tick!). It's the surprisingly red stuff in the piccie below.
This was like eating the inside of a bounty bar as a starter - perfection. I got so carried away Mo had to stop me to come up for air with a perfectly timed quote:
"You've got poppadom on your boob hun". She wasn't lying.
I ordered the Chicken Jalfrezi and Mo wanted to try the Chicken Tikka Makhani which was a dish I'd not heard of I have to admit but she seemed to think it meant mild and I quickly learnt she was as much of a pansy as I was! Indeed the waiter taking our order (who had a black straight jacket on so therefore must be well important) squared me with his eyes and told me the Jalfrezi would be hot. "How hot?" I gulped. "We make it milder." "Thank you." I beamed my bestest grateful "I-will-tip-you-well" smile at him.
I've since Wiki-ed it and Makhani is a term used in Punjabi cuisine and literally means "with butter" and indeed it was deliciously mild yet full of flavour and funnily enough buttery/creamy so I guess we got lucky as the term "with butter" isn't necessarily a guarantee that it would also be "without tear inducing heat". Phew. We shared both dishes and I was pleasantly surprised by the Jalfrezi too. It definitely still had a kick (a very oniony kick I found out afterwards as did my work colleagues the next day) but it was rich in flavour and worked well with the Makhani which to be honest could have been a creamy Tikka Massala, though still delicious.
One odd thing about me and my love for curry is that I don't like rice. It's all based on a weird childhood thing about it being like maggots that I've never got over. I know, I know I need talking therapy about it. Anyway I often think it works in my favour as I'm perfectly happy with a Peshwari naan and a shared portion of Sag Aloo/Bombay Aloo (one or t'other - am not THAT greedy). And on this occasion Mo actually chose not to have maggots, I mean rice, also and we got our hands nice and messy mopping up sauce with our naans.
They let me take all the leftovers in a doggy bag (another tick!) and the total cost of the meal was 20p over £30.00 which is more than fair enough considering we were both full to bursting and with our over-zealous poppadom order got best part of two courses each plus 1 massive Cobra for me (Tick) and an "all right actually!" glass of white wine for my mate-date.
Overall I'm going to give Ajanta Tandoori a rating of 7 out of 10 poppadoms. It was in many ways just how a good Indian meal should be - cheap in cost and cheerful in flavour. My only criticism was there could have been more atmosphere (I think it was too bright/light wheras I prefer dining in a room where a few bulbs have blown) and there was a serious lack of ("verrry hot") hot towels and those handheld table crumb hoover-brush gadgets!
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