Chawol

An unexpected really nice restaurant in the middle of Clerkenwell.
We arrived quite late after heavy drinking, but the waiters greeted us with a very warm welcome.
We ordered within minutes, and, oh mama, the butter chicken and chicken korma were deliciously spiced, while the poultry itself retained its tenderness. Of course, it still does not better the best butter chicken I’ve had in life (but that’s another Unilocal story ;)
What really suprised me was the chicken Karai, which offers a delicious blend of hot spices, equally mathed by the crispiness of fried onions.
The rice and naans were awesome, both in quantity and quality (the peshwari naan was not too greasy, as it sometimes is…).
And to top it up, the price was very reasonable for the quality and quantity we had.
Lucky my wife, who works 3 minutes away !

This is a great staple for Indian in this part of town. I usually get takeaway here, and make my order when I walk in. They have a table set aside with some newspapers and you can have some papadums and a beer while you wait — and you rarely have to wait long — maybe 20 minutes.
The quality of the food is just right, everything is on the menu that I would expect and tastes great.
For dining in, it can sometimes feel a bit desolate, but I think that’s generally because I am eating earlier than the local crowd likes to do their curries.

Slightly concerned about the proximity of this restaurant to my office… I lack self control when it comes to food and by lunch time on most days I feel I could stuff my face with curry.
Cracking buffet lunch deal with plenty of choice — salads, various battered starters, rice, meat dishes, veggie dishes, potatoes, daal, naan breads and a selection of pickles and chutneys. This isn’t the most mind-​blowing curry you’ll ever eat but then what do you expect from a buffet? The food is quick, tasty and you can go back for more — happy days.
The staff are friendly and attentive and they keep the buffet fully stocked. My fellow diners and I discussed the two types of buffet grazers — the ones who only put a small amount on their plate so they can go back for seconds… and thirds… and the ones who pile their plate sky high so they don’t have to queue again. Sadly I’m the latter which makes me not only a bit of a piggy but a lazy one at that. Might have to reconsider my tactics in favour of the brief exercise of having to get up for more food…

On bad days I have been known to sit in here and eat my body weight in curry. There have been a few…
Good value, greasy, curry, boy food. Mmmmm.

Generally speaking, I don’t like Indian food. Generalisation perhaps but I like what I like. So there! ;oP In my experience it’s greasy, over seasoned and a bit heavy on the tum, so when I was invited to go for an Indian eat as much as you can lunch buffet, I wasn’t too impressed but… I trusted the judgement of my lunchmates so went along with it. I would like to add at this stage that I have enjoyed a few great Indian eateries, but like I said they are few, rare and far between.
Chawol, offers a range of curries, rices, batter coated vegetable and chicken things, naans and poppadoms. Oh and fresh lettuce salad, sliced cucumber and beef tomatoes. The spread wasn’t huge but enough variety to keep you from being bored. The food was good but I think it helped that the staff were lovely; friendly, helpful, just adorable. I even asked for some fresh chili and the waiter brought me out a small plate of them.
I went up for seconds and thirds (yea yea we all know I’m a piggy), and enjoyed it thoroughly. I even think a diehard curry fans would enjoy the offerings and for the money it was more than reasonable. Great lunch offer and the fact that the restaurant had a good flow of both sit in and takeaway customers, spoke for itself.

We came across that restaurant, because a number of other Indian restaurants in the area seem to have been closed for good.
By the way, it’s a restaurants and no way a take away!
The place looks OK — quite modern — without being special. (My wife found also the toilet OK.)
The service was not that good. A young waiter tried to be friendly but was clumsy and a bit shy. Another one was rather dominant, which could be easily ignored.
The food was really very good!
The poppadums were good and fresh and the sauces/​chutneys above average.
The Onion Bhaji was also better than usual, fresh and juicy with two additional nice sauces attractively arranged on the plate.
My Bhuna Prawn dish was again really good and aromatic, the Bhindi Bhaji was good as well. My wife was not entirely happy with her fish dish, though I liked it.
Soft drinks, one starter, two main dishes, one side dish, two portions of rice and two pappads came to 41.30 Pounds which I consider good.

Nice enough looking place (loos a bit scabby though). Waiter was unable to identify dishes brought to the table, and each dish was shouted manically at you KHORMA! KHORMA! KHORMA! as it arrived at the table. We paid £30 a head and when a combination of notes and cards was used to pay £180, the waiter kept stabbing the words TWENTY PENCE! into the airturns out we had paid 20p short. I wouldn’t go back. Not a great experience for that sort of money.