The venue for our December visit was recommended to me by a number of work colleagues whom live in the village of Houghton-on-the Hill, 6 miles East of Leicester. The Rose and Crown Pub has a large car park and is situated on the main A47 Uppingham Road, next to the petrol station. The restaurant is ran separately to the pub, so please bear in mind that you pay for the food and drinks separately.

We walked into the pub and made our way to the bar, and although it was a Tuesday night, it was busy with drinkers and take-away customers. There are the usual pub drinks available (including non-alcoholic beer) and a few large screen TV’s showing Sky Sports for those sports fans amongst us.

We were greeted by the bar manager, Kyran, and after ordering drinks, we sat down in the bar area for a chat and to peruse the menu. The restaurant manager, Tej, then introduced himself and welcomed us to what he believed would be a very enjoyable evening. He told us what they did, what they are doing, and their vision for the future. He also informed us that they had recently employed a chef from a restaurant in Leicester where we had previously visited in 2012 which had scored highly.

We then made our way to the restaurant which is the conservatory on the side of the pub, it was nicely decorated with seating for around 30-40 diners. We chose a table towards the rear so that the sports fans amongst us, could take the odd glance at the football scores (without being too rude to our fellow members).

We ordered the statutory ten poppadoms and two pickle trays… which were served promptly and as expected, were warm, crisp, and tasty. It was at this time our Mains order was taken and we were all looking forward to a great night.

Unfortunately, our Mains didn’t arrive for around 45 minutes, which we think was mainly due to a large number of take-away orders in the bar and that the dishes were being cooked from fresh. A slight criticism would be to delay laying the dinner plates on the table until the Mains were ready.

The menu is Indo-Chinese, and they seemed happy to prepare something ‘off piste’ as long as they had the ingredients. Five different mains were ordered, those being Chicken Chana Saag, Chicken Tawa, Lamb Tawa, Lamb Madras and a Lamb Chop Curry.

The accompaniments we chose were a Vegetable, a Mushroom, and a Plain Rice, along with two Bullet Naans (with cheese) and a Plain Naan (without Ghee or Butter)… the extra Coriander that one member always requests also arrived without a prompt.

We were also brought a complimentary side dish of onions and green chillies which was a little different, but a nice touch… ‘thank-you and very much appreciated.’

During our meal we were visited by the owner, Sanj, whom welcomed us to his restaurant and hoped that we were enjoying ourselves and were being well looked after.

We were the only diners in the restaurant that night, and at times, we did feel that some of the staff were abit chattier than the norm, and were maybe giving us a little too much attention… please note, this is more of an observation than a criticism, as they are obviously very enthusiastic and genuinely care about their customers.

Due to the delay in waiting for the Mains, and time creeping on, we requested the bill, which unfortunately was verbal due to till problems. The food came to £80 for the five of us, which was good value for the quality of the food, and the drinks were £57… we paid Tej and Kyran separately and then left.

Everybody enjoyed their meal, all dishes were well presented, fresh and flavoursome, and the comments overall were very positive… comments on the night were, “meal was very good”, “enjoyed it but Tawa average”, “good food, good service”.

A couple of messages that I received the following morning from our members were;

‘9 for me… excellent food, great price and didn’t want to reduce my score for them trying to give good service.’

‘It’s 8 for me, I really enjoyed the food’.

We have been to many restaurants away from the city centre, over the past 11 years, whom rely heavily on local trade and do not always offer great service and good quality food. The Crown have set a standard and although they did not win our annual award, if ever you find yourselves on the East side of Leicestershire, please give them a visit.

Bearing in mind, this was our 116^th different venue that we have visited, proves how diverse Leicestershire is for a great Curry. May we offer Sanj and his staff our best wishes for the future and hope that this restaurant keeps up the good work and is around for many years to come.

The score out of 40 based on the venue/surroundings/food/service/cost was 33… which tied for 2^nd place this year.

Please note our reviews are personally subjective and isn’t necessarily what others may think or experience when they visit.