We had a trip to Melton Mowbray for May’s pick of the month, and I chose to host at the second new Indian restaurant to open in the last few months, Purple Garlic. We visited the SOI in February and that was scored very well, so would serve as a good comparison. The owners also run Apurba, which is a long-time favourite in the Melton area.

Purple Garlic was well situated on Burton Street, with plenty of parking outside. The restaurant felt fresh with pleasant décor and was also very clean. The restaurant has seating for up to 70 people, with various layouts to suit all.

We were greeted at the door and ordered our drinks, although a little disappointing that there was not a huge choice of beers and a lack of none-alcoholic beers for the driver of the group. We sat down and eventually the waiter asked if we wanted any popadoms, we ordered the usual 10 with pickles which were very good. The restaurant was quiet when we arrived but by the time our meals had arrived it was half full which for a Tuesday night, was quite impressive. There was a large party in so it seemed a long wait to order food and drinks which was disappointing.

For the mains we ordered Chicken Naga Tawali madras, Chicken Naga Phaal, Chicken Chana Saag, Prawn curry and a Chicken Chazi, feedback was the Tawali was excellent, the prawns were slightly overcooked but still very good, the Naga Phaal hit the spot, the Chazi was perfect and the Chana chicken our member felt the chicken tasted unusual but managed to eat it all. The extensive choice of Naan breads and rice were great, we ordered a cheese & chili naan and a plain naan, then spinach rice, veg rice and a plain rice. A particular favourite was the Date & Ginger naan bread, which was a big hit as not many restaurants offer this infrequent flavour.

In summary, I would say the food was very flavoursome, the décor was great but the drink selection and lack of friendly staff held this new restaurant back slightly. With the food being such a high standard, it wouldn’t take much to up the game in terms of drink selections and friendliness for this to be a great venue, we will definitely go back in a few months to hopefully see an improvement. The bill was £108 for 5 people including drinks, which is pretty much the average for one of our nights out.