As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a meal at the Raja at the top of the High Street at the weekend. This was very spur of the moment stuff, as the restaurant we'd planned to eat in, The Palm, was not ready to receive us.
The Raja is a popular take-away locally, but it is also a pretty good place to have a relaxing, informal curry.
The restaurant is a contrast to the Bengal, where I usually get my take-aways, in that the Raja has a light and modern interior, with wooden veneer flooring and lights that let you see everything very clearly (essential given the use of italics and small fonts on their in-house menu). There is music played at a reasonable level which is intended very much to be in the background, for the benefit of the customers rather than necessarily for that of the staff. There are chirpy crickets also playing behind it, though this is not as annoying as might be imagined.
The staff are friendly and very happy to explain the dishes on offer, which are not all standard fare, though the baltis, vindaloos and other tandoori standards are mainly available. They did have a section on the menu called fish dishes, though these are mainly actually prawn, but they do also offer a tandoori trout, a 'crushed' sardine dish and a fish bhoona for those who are interested. They also offer duck curry.
Although the sign outside and the menu itself says that this is Indian cuisine (there is a picture of the Taj Mahal on the take-away flier), in fact the friendly staff are from Bangladesh, as, we were proudly informed, are about 70% of those in the 'Indian' restaurant trade in the UK. Given that they do it so well, I am pleased they are.
We'd been greeted at the Raja with just the right level of friendliness and attention, were offered a table but were able to choose to take another as we wished; there was an offer to take our coats, but again, not in a fussy way. We were given the menus and enough time to chat and discuss our choices, but not left feeling unattended.
We ordered some popadoms, which were fresh and crispy, and accompanied by some slightly dribbly sweet mango chutney, mixed onion salad and a minty yoghurt sauce. None of these looked or tasted like they had come from the usual caterers' suppliers. The sweet lassi and mango lassis we also ordered were fresh and excellent.
Being accompanied by a pair of fairly predictable, if well-travelled, diners and having had all my own thoughts about the evening's food completely knocked for six by ending up in a different place than I'd intended, we found ourselves playing it safe.
Despite the discussion of the treats on offer, we ended up sharing a fairly conventional meal, a raja lamb biryani, which comes with an omlette on top and a side dish of vegetable curry, a lamb vindaloo, a tandoori chicken with salad, some cauliflower bhaji and a couple of nan breads.
The biriyani was made with rice which appeared to be a mixture of broken and unbroken long grain and contained some very plump, moist pieces of lamb. In fact, it had more lamb in it and less rice than I would have wanted, which is not a complaint you often make in restaurants, but we had not ordered any other rice. The plain nans were fresh and well cooked.
The vindaloo was hot, possibly with more chili than it really ought to have, as it tended to over-dominate the other tastes, but it was a good one for all that. The tandoori chicken, we decided, was exactly what we'd imagined it should be. On the bone, there were two chicken quarters of plump leg and breast which had been cooked to perfection. They were meaty, moist and tasty. The only dish which dispapointed slightly was the cauliflower bhaji. My companion, for whom the humble cauliflower is, for some reason, some kind of a national vegetable, decided that there was something lacking - there was not enough cauliflower, and those florets which were provided seemed to be 'woody' and undercooked. She felt they seemed 'disconnected' from the rest of the dish they were served with, possibly cooked separately from it.
As we were not drinking, the whole meal came to a shade over 30 quid for the three of us, which is not too bad. We did not quite finish all the food in front of us, despite my valiant efforts, so the decision to shun the starters was a wise one.
I would not have needed it to be encouraged back but as we were given a 20% discount voucher to go towards our next eat-in meal, I may well be back fairly soon.