Kosher Indian restaurant
If you've read any (or all!) of my previous reviews you'll know that we eat out at a lot of vegetarian Indian restaurants. There are a couple of reasons for this predominantly that we keep kosher so we don't eat meat out unless we go to a kosher restaurant. Secondly, indian vegetarian restaurants don't cater for the English palate (I find indian restaurants that cater. for Brits the food is bland and uninspiring!) so the food is truly authentic - made by indian people for indian people to enjoy. I'd add that going to any other type of restaurant invariably gives us a choice of fish and chips, salmon or some nouveau cuisine goats cheese or quinoa concoction and, whilst they're probably very nice, you can have these sort of meals any day of the week at any restaurant and in your own home so they're not really 'special'!
However, as it was a 'big' birthday for my husband yesterday we decided to push the boat out and go to a kosher indian restaurant for a change.
So the first plus for us is that we can choose whatever we want from the a la carte menu, no seeking out the little V signs! To start with, Beit HaMadras is a clever play on words since Beit Hamedrash is a jewish study hall.
There are two set menus a £19.99 one and a £29.99 one. Since we'd agreed we didn't want to spend more than about £60 in total, we opted for the more expensive set menu.
For the £29.99 menu you get starters:- 2 Chicken Tikka, 2 Lamb Tikka, 4 Sheek Kebab & 4 Tandoori Wings.
Mains are:- Tandoori Chicken / Sheek Kebab or any curry or biryani from the main menu.
You can also pick a side dish to share, pilau rice or plain naan.
Desserts are from a choice on the menu complemented with a choice of herbal tea, mint tea or coffee.
My husband asked if his dishes could be mild - they ended making them ALL mild (note to self tell the waiter that I LIKE SPICY FOOD!).
The starters were promptly served and were really nice even if they weren't as spicy as I'd have liked. The main dishes took a while to arrive at our table but, by that time, the restaurant was full up so the waiting staff were quite busy. I would point out that my husband asked for raita but the young waiter didn't understand and brought us a roti instead. At the time we couldn't understand why we had two different breads brought to us, looking at the bill now I realise he probably didn't even know what raita was!
I asked for a glass of wine as the bottles were truly expensive, the glass of wine alone was £5.99. However, I was served a small bottle of wine and that, surprisingly, actually poured two good-sized glasses, so I felt that wasn't such bad value.
I would definitely go to eat there again although it's not a venue I would care to visit on a regular basis purely down to the cost. However, I would point out that our portions were huge - so much so that I brought home a doggy bag - and also that kosher meat is more expensive so menus at kosher restaurants appear to be expensive but this is in line with the cost of kosher meat. I would certainly recommend the restaurant and I'd certainly like to go back and try some spicy dishes from their menu! read more