The idea of The Leicester Curry Club is that we take it in turns to host every month and the venue is unknown to the rest of the party until we arrive there. This month there was a twist to the theme as it turned out that none of us knew where we were going until we arrived there due to a lack of research by yours truly. When we arrived at my selected ‘treat’ for the evening it transpired that not only was the premises not licensed, but the establishment didn’t permit ‘bring your own,’ which resulted in a quick about turn and a search for an alternative venue!

After several false starts we finally arrived at The Tadka on Catherine street around an hour later than I had booked the original restaurant and needless to say we were all feeling rather hungry and ready for our meal by then.

First impressions were good, the waiter was friendly and helpful, the dining area was large and spacious with a further table being moved without being asked for to make extra room for our dishes when they arrived.

One of our party wanted a chicken Tawa dish, which was not on their menu, but they quickly agreed to make one for him to the strength that he wanted, we also ordered a large portion of lamb chop sizzler in the chef’s special sauce, a large vegetable sizzler, a dry fish sizzler, mushroom rice, a cheese and chilli naan and a garlic and chilli naan. We enjoyed papadoms and pickles while we waited for the main courses.

The papadoms were fresh and the pickle tray was replenished when we ran out of anything, the waiter was very attentive keeping us supplied with drinks and anything else that we wanted when we asked for it.

The mains arrived, they were freshly cooked and served onto warm plates, which is always a good start, but we found that the lamb chops despite being very tender and tasty were small with very little meat on any of them, the vegetable sizzler was large, but a little bland and the fish was coated in what was thought to be a thin layer of batter, which wasn’t mentioned on the menu and was not entirely to the taste of our recipient. The naans were a little on the thin side making them border on being ‘toast’ in places rather than doughy and bread-like.

While some of these are minor criticisms they did add up to making the overall score for the meals as being only average when compared to the many other restaurants that we have visited. Unfortunately, the individual scores were then further depreciated after visits to the toilets which were found to be dirty, as they obviously hadn’t been cleaned for several days and falling well below acceptable hygiene standards.