CURRY SCENE

Stamford town centre has four Indian restaurants, three of which are conveniently situated at the same end of town within a couple of hundred yards of each other by All Saints Church (although the fourth is not far away in Broad Street).

At the top of All Saints Street is Stamford's first Indian restaurant, the Raj of India, which was established in 1982. It's bigger than it looks, seating 86 in total, as it has an upper floor and also offers a private suite for special occasions. The menu offers all the usual dishes, plus one or two less common (Sardines with Spinach, Stick Lamb or Chicken, and Duck Tava for example). On my last visit to Stamford a few years ago I ate in this restaurant and recall the meal was very good.

A stone's throw away, overlooking All Saints Church in All Saints Place, is the Stamford Balti Hut, which opened in the spring of 2006. It looked smart and comfortable, with seats in attractive alcoves, and the prices looked marginally cheaper than the others, although it was a a standard high street curryhouse menu. A slightly jarring note was that while the menu stated, as they all do, that prices include VAT, it made a separate and less usual statement that prices do not include a service charge!  

A hundred yards or so along Scotgate from All Saints Church is The Bombay Cottage. This is another long-standing restaurant having been there since 1992. This seats getting on for 60 in attractive surroundings. Going in the other direction is Stamford's newest addition, Voujon, opened in the Spring of 2007 at 26 Broad Street. It is one of a small chain in this area of the country. 

When I last visited the town in the summer of 2006 there were only three restaurants to choose from, but even so it gave a problem of which one to visit, as they all looked enticing. I visited each for a menu and to get a 'feel' to help me decide.  I called into The Raj during the morning and the manager was extremely friendly and helpful, particularly by informing me of the fact that there were only three Indian restaurants in Stamford (as there were then), which saved me considerable exercise in tramping round smaller streets in a fruitless search for the purposes of this overview. For that, I am very grateful to him, and was very tempted to return in the evening for my meal, particularly as my previous experience was that the food was good (unfortunately I wasn't reporting at the time).

I popped into The Bombay Cottage, and again the person I spoke to (? the manager) was very friendly and helpful. Lastly I visited the Stamford Balti Hut, but although it looked smart and comfortable (as I would expect being only four months old) the two young waiters didn't exude the same degree of friendliness. They gave me a menu politely enough, but without smiles, and their command of English appeared very limited (for example, on enquiring how long the restaurant had been established, the answer was 'Yes', and then when I asked whether they were busy enough to require a table reservation on a Saturday night, the answer was '6.30'  !!). While I am sure this lack of communication skills wouldn't affect the quality of the food, I like a little more from waiters than simply conveying the food from kitchen to table. Consequently I crossed this from my list.

The main factor in my decision was that I recall that on my last visit it was a toss up between the Rai and the Bombay Cottage, so despite the strong temptation to return to The Raj  (particularly as when I passed in the evening delicious smells were emanating from the inside) I decided in the end to try the Bombay Cottage. 

Malcolm Wilkins - August 2006