Golden Bengal

GOLDEN BENGAL

Cuisine: Indian

Nearest tube: Willesden Green

Address: 21 Walm Lane, NW2 5SH

Tel: 0208 451 4466

And so continues my seemingly eternal quest to find a decent curry house.

Golden Bengal is very much a member of the ‘new school’ of curry houses – polished interior, snazzy menu complete with trendy fusion dishes, TV with the latest bhangra hits on Sky, and not a scrap of textured wallpaper in sight. The restaurant is topped off by a gaudy bar illuminated with a fluorescent purple glow.

The first thing that strikes me is how much our waiter looks like an Asian Eric Cantona. Fortunately, he didn’t kick us in the face. He did, however, provide an amusing running commentary of his actions, complete with misuse of the present continuous tense: “I’m bringing this plate now”, “I’m moving this glass over here”, “I’m taking this glass away to make more room – it is empty”. As an English teacher, you tend to notice these things.

The first test of any self-respecting curry house is the chutney accompaniment to the pappadoms, always a solid indicator of the quality you’re dealing with. Chopped onions – fine. Mango chutney out of a jar – awright. Green yoghurt that’s suffering from a pudding/condiment identity crisis – check. Orange coconut filling scooped out of the middle of a Bounty – hello!

The mixed starters are wholly uninspiring, your usual lazy fare of bland samosa, bland prawn curry, ubiquitous onion bhajee yet a rather tasty lamb kebab. We were waiting at least half an hour for our main course, and as one of only three couples in the whole place, this was borderline unforgiveable, especially as the sizzling dish at the table next to us smelled so damn good.

Eventually our food arrived. And it was pretty damn tasty. The lamb tikka manchori came in a thick, tasty, savoury sauce, despite the lamb itself coming in unpleasantly chewy hunks. The garlic chilli chicken balti did exactly what it said on the tin, in a rich tangy sauce that had generous chunks of both garlic and chilli. The vegetable haleem was rather anonymous, the peshwari naan fluffy and buttery. All in all, a fine meal.

Which makes it all the more tragic that it took so bloody long, otherwise I’d definitely be going back. It was reasonably priced - £20 a head including beer – so I’d consider returning if I had plenty of time to kill. As it is, I think I can probably do better. Next!

Service 2/5

Food 3/5

Value 3/5

Ambience 2/5

Total: 10/20

Why you should go there: Tasty food, decently priced.

Don’t leave without trying: ...not to die of hunger waiting for your food to arrive