One of a chain of similarly named restaurants originating and operating in the Manchester area. This is the latest addition to the group, opening about seven months ago.

It seats 145 in a split level, modern open restaurant. Easy wipe tiled floors, imitation wood grained Formica topped tables, large uncurtained windows on two sides gave it the hygienic but rather plain and basic appearance of modern fast food outlets. Modelled on McDonalds rather than a traditional Indian restaurant it was much more like a Burger Bar than a Bengal Brasserie. My wife - much more astute with her observations than I - described it as looking very much like a modern works canteen with waiters (and I agree as I have seen many works canteens just like it in appearance).

Saturday night was crowded, noisy and busy bordering on the chaotic, with a regular turnover of its generally young clientele and waiters rushing about giving a it frenetic atmosphere (although I went past on Sunday evening at about 10pm and was interested to note that it was quite different, with only about half a dozen customers). We had taken the precaution of booking (I was a bit surprised to find bookings were taken) and there was a corner table for two when we arrived, but I felt it was more by accident than design.

Four rather thin and unappetising pickles were placed on our table when we sat down, along with some limp sliced tomato (for which I noted we were charged 60p each for pickles despite not requesting them!). We ordered popadoms to start, which were fine, but the starters of Onion Bhajee (sic) and Aloo Kebab arrived almost immediately after the popadoms! The two flat reasonably sized Bhajias were a little stodgy but tasty (fairly standard stuff) but the Aloo Kebab (a slightly misleading name as they were two potato cakes which appeared to have been fried rather than cooked over charcoal) were good, with a tangy bite to them. The main dishes of Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi and Chicken Tikka Karahi were quite tasty and OK, although they owed much of their taste to the chicken tikka and had no clear individual spice flavour. We tasted the sauce of each without any meat and could not distinguish between the two - there was certainly no fresh coriander (or any other fresh flavour) in or on the Karahi as described in the menu, nor was it prepared ‘in front of our eyes’! The Mixed Vegetables were the most disappointing, being a plate of an insipid mushy substance with the consistency of porridge in which, apart from the odd small limp sliver of cauliflower floret, it was impossible to discern what vegetables it contained. Accompanying pillau rice and paratha also a bit below average with the former being rather lumpy and the latter very flat, crisp and flaky - more like pastry which had been baked rather than fried, and quite unable to be used to scoop up food as it broke into flaky pieces.

Portions were reasonable and prices slightly higher than average (especially vegetable side dishes, although the starters were about average price). Service from a variety of waiters very impersonal and a mixed bag - you take it as it comes. As already stated, our our starters arrived with such haste that we had only just started on the popadoms, yet we had wait after asking twice for the bill (which, when it arrived, included a compulsory 10% service charge and was accompanied by a rather tacky ‘Vimto’ lollipop and 3 cheap, brightly coloured but grubby looking, cracked sugar coated round sweets. OK for kids but I prefer the ‘After Eights’!) None of the waiters particularly friendly or smiling although the manager did smile and say thank you as we left.

Not the place for a quiet, intimate meal but it seems that this is the way many modern Indian restaurants are going, styling themselves to attract the more gregarious younger customers who like noise, bright lights, bustling liveliness and clinical cleanliness without much caring about the comfort or elegance of surroundings or quality/authenticity of the food providing they can drink expensive designer lager from bottles. As for me, I prefer a more relaxing evening meal but all in all it was an experience, although not one I shall repeat in Chester where there are more traditional Indian restaurants with hopefully better food available