Unfortunately our August visit was delayed until the end of the month due to member’s holidays etc but may I say it was well worth the wait. We are very fortunate in Leicestershire to have so many restaurants available but as you can appreciate some of those that get recommended to us have already received the ‘Leicester Curry Club treatment’. Prince of Punjab was actually found via a Tripadvisor search (other travel/restaurant platforms are available).

Their website states ‘We are a family run pub serving traditional home cooked Punjabi food. We have a variety of beers and spirits available. All our meat is locally sourced and is non halal. So if you love hot and spicy food or very mild we can cater to your taste. We are open 7 days a week from 12pm – 11pm’.

This is our second visit to the area in 2019 and is in an ideal position on Cavendish Road within a mile of Leicester’s Football, Rugby, Cricket and Athletics Stadiums. There is parking on the road outside and they seem to have an agreement with the carpet shop next door to use their car park when they are closed.

We managed to park outside and would say that our first impressions were ‘Hmm, not your usual curry restaurant but keep an open mind as usual’. We walked in and there were quite a few, what we would call ‘locals’ at the bar and playing pool. We were not greeted at this stage so made our way to the bar and ordered drinks and made ourselves known to the lady behind the bar. A gentleman then turned up and helped serve the drinks and said that we could sit anywhere we wanted. We chose a round table at the back of the room that was near to the window but underneath the large TV screen that was showing the T20… which as a cricket lover allowed me the odd glance up to check the score (without being too rude to my fellow members).

Although it seemed as though we were sat in the bar area amongst the ‘locals’, other than a couple of youngsters that were running around and climbing on chairs, we found that the place ‘worked’ and had a good mix of local drinkers and diners which is refreshing to experience as I’m sure most of our readers will appreciate, it is so too easy to find an average local curry house.

Once sat at the table we were offered menus and ordered the statutory poppadoms and pickle trays… please be aware that when you order one portion of poppadoms for £1 you actually get 3… although slightly oily when they arrived they were warm, crisp and tasty.

It was at this time, Anj introduced herself to us and what a breath of fresh air she is… she perched down at the edge of the table and told us about who they are, what they do, and what they would like to achieve. The place has been open for a couple of years and is run by mum, dad and daughter and they truly care about their customers. They cook everything from fresh just like they would at home… she also explained that because of this there would be a little wait for our food.

It isn’t a vast menu but they seemed happy to prepare something ‘off piste’ as long as they had the ingredients. Four different mains were ordered, those being Chicken Chana Saag, Chicken Jalfrezi, Chicken Karahi and a Lamb Chop Curry.  All dishes were well presented, fresh and extremely flavoursome. One slight criticism is that there was quite alot of oil at the bottom of the dish which was suggested that, as they use a very slow cooking method, it was the juices from the meat?

The accompaniments we chose were Jeera Rice and Mushroom Pillau Rice which were both very nice indeed and as well as a Plain Naan, Keema Naan and Garlic/Coriander Naan, the extra Coriander that one member always requests arrived without a prompt.

During our wait we were offered a complimentary Fish Pakora dish which was beautifully cooked and tasted superb. Anj did point out that this is their ‘signature’ dish so as we had not ordered it, she wanted us try it… ‘thank-you and very much appreciated’.

As the two ladies were busy cooking in the kitchen, we did have to visit the bar ourselves a couple of times for drinks but to be honest this again made it a little different to the norm.

As you will know by now we do not partake in desserts so requested the bill which was presented to us without fuss, no mints or chocolates, just a smile and a thank-you from the father. The total cost was £82.90 for the four of us which was exceptional value for the quality of the food and bearing in mind £36.90 of this was drinks… all major credit and debit cards accepted.

A couple of comments that we would like to make, although didn’t affect our enjoyment, there wasn’t any non-alcoholic beer available and the toilets/decor is a little dated but am sure that this is in the families plans for the future.

The three family members were extremely polite and friendly and that along with their home cooked food makes this somewhere that everybody should try. We wouldn’t say that this is the best restaurant that we have ever visited but we would certainly put their food up there as one of the best.

‘This is probably the closest experience that we have had to eating in somebody’s home’.

I have including a couple of messages that I received this morning from two of our members;

Can I up my score to 8.5 after looking at my last few scores, spices were great and very tasty, service was slow but she did explain that there would be a wait as they cook from scratch, enjoyed the fact that she sat and talked us through each order instead of ‘you ready’.

 Hard one, if it wins would I tell someone that’s the best curry place in Leicester? I guess I’d say it’s the best for food. Mines 8

Prince of Punjab is also unusually known around the world as it offers a 5 curry 5 naan and large mixed grill challenge! Take a look at YouTube and see if you’re up for it?? https://youtu.be/My35GIbWNfQ