Yes, as the title suggests, East unfortunately met West this evening! Lottie and I decided to celebrate my first interview selection with a Curry. Lottie enquired “what if you don’t get the job?” to which I replied “we’ll be eating out a lot!” :D

I thought it would be a super opportunity to sample one of the many restaurants in our new Home Town and it’s always a must to find a decent curry  house isn’t it.  Thanks to Google we agreed on a visit to The Maharaja, close to the Kennet & Avon Canal.  Their website conjures romantic images of opulence, sophistication and royalty.  In reality it was a pretty shabby ‘front room of a house’ establishment that probably sees more ‘take-away’ customers than sit down patrons.  That prediction was based somewhat on fact as we sat there for an hour and a half eating our spoils of celebration.

Initial first impressions aside, let’s order food!

We shared some plain and spicy poppadoms together with the chutney tray.  I also partook in a starter course; Prawn Puree.  I hadn’t had that in years and love it so much.  We all but finished off the chutney tray so that was good value for money LOL :D

Our main courses were Korma for Lottie and a Cocktail Massala with additional birds-eye chilli’s for me accompanied with their Special Rice and a round of Peshwari Naan.

The food flavours were passable although completely lacking in artistic flair for the presentation.  A case of ‘plopped on a plate’.  The food presentation pretty much complimented the cheap décor, crockery and soft furnishings.  Our somewhat short stay was ruined by the Arctic temperatures and bristling breeze through the room.  There was no more than 6 small tables so you can visualise the size of the room.  It also housed a small bar in the corner.

Our puddings were collected from upstairs – how novel!  After taking our order he disappeared behind a wind-driven faded velvet curtain that had frankly seen better days.  We heard him plod up the stairs appearing our side of the curtain again with puddings in hand.  He passed our table, with our puddings, and Lottie broke out into a whimpering chuckle as she witnessed him defrosting our desserts under the hot tap behind the bar.  Nice!

As with most Indian restaurants, the pudding selection is a mass produced frozen ice menagerie.  Mine (a mango slush and coconut ice-cream) was pretty bland but Lottie’s Lemon sorbet, in a lemon (how original… yawn), was ever so refreshing and I wished I had ordered the same.  Hindsight can be so cruel!

So, 47 quid and a pregnantesque belly later I thought I’d tell you all about it.  I wont go there again and wouldn’t recommend it either; we’ve only been back home for 20 minutes and already there’s a rather nasty bristling breeze of my own brewing!  3/10 for the restaurant. 8/10 for the fart-factor!  Yes, a high score there and one that makes me cautious when opening my stove to give it a stoking tonight :D