25.5/40
For our March visit I had originally planned to visit a restaurant on the western side of the county, but due to heavy snow fall during the day, a 6.30pm decision to abort the trip meant that I had to find a last minute alternative.
A steady drive along the A6 took us back to the University town of Loughborough and to a Nepalese, Indian & Tibetan restaurant on Churchgate close to All Saints Church. Although we had been to this venue previously in 2018, (Himalayan Inn), it was taken over by the Everest Lounge Group in 2021, whom have an award winning restaurant in Market Harborough.
Incidentally this restaurant was also formerly known as ‘Taste of India’ so there unfortunately appears to be a regular change of ownership… hopefully the new owners will establish themselves and be around for the next few years.
There is restricted parking on the street, otherwise the nearest car park is approximately ½ mile a way which is not ideal. Luckily, due to the snow, we found a parking space outside.
On arrival we were asked which table we would like, as unfortunately, there was only one other person dining (probably due the weather). The restaurant has a mixture of seating arrangements, tablecloths, and modern LED coloured lights both on the walls and the ceiling.
We ordered our drinks along with the statutory poppadoms and pickle tray which were on the table a few minutes later. Four of us opted for the draught Kingfisher and one had the ‘alcohol free’ Cobra in a bottle.
The menu is varied with a good selection of Nepalese, Indian and Tibetan meals, and we chose a Chicken Tawa, a Chicken Tibetan Special, a Chicken Shashlick, a Chicken Chana Saag and a Lamb Shashlick, with strengths of Jalfrezi and Madras.
The mains were well presented, although the overall opinion was that all the dishes were unfortunately below par… however the rice and naan breads (especially the Peshwari) that accompanied the meals were very enjoyable.
We would like to add that although the staff were polite, the service was lacking in all departments, and bearing in mind there was only one other diner, we had to wait a long time for both the food, and for drinks… customer service is so important so if you want to retain customers and gain recommendations, we recommend that the owners and staff try to improve on this.
The cost of the meal was just over £31 per person (excluding tip) and unfortunately the low scoring reflected not only the quality of the food, but also the fact that although we were pretty much the only diners in there, the staff appeared uninterested and lacked any kind of customer service.
Overall, the night was enjoyable and as always, our reviews are personally subjective and isn’t necessarily what others may think or experience when they visit.