Urban Turban
our comments
Situated on the corner of Westbourne Grove and Chepstow Road, Vineet Bhatia’s recently opened Urban Turban, has quickly become a popular place to eat. The full restaurant is yet to open, so we ate in the grill, which is on the entrance floor, a sizable space with an impressive central bar as its main feature. This chic room is comfortable with well-spaced tables.
The menu recommends two of the tapas style selections per person as a starter, followed by one of the mains choices, but it is flexible and you could choose from either list or take the option of cooking your own meats and fish at the table on hot volcanic rock, using a range of dipping sauces to dress them.
We followed the menu recommendation, choosing chicken lollipops, nuggets of chicken, just attached to the bone and deep fried in a spicy batter; lamb kebab, rolls of spicy minced lamb, with some heat; gunpowder prawns, grilled with a tasty coating and scattered with scallion and finally crispy tilapia, a meaty fish, deep fried in another spicy batter. All good and with interesting flavours: spicy with some heat, but not fierce - a nice tasty selection to kick off the meal.
For mains we had the lamb rogan josh, chunky pieces of tender lamb cooked in a rich sauce that had a good deep flavour, the prawn masala had a number of prawns in a beautifully rich tangy, spicy sauce, we were also attracted to the chicken makhni consistingof tender pieces of chicken in a creamy, sweet tasting tomato sauce - better suited for those whose palates prefer a less challenging taste. We accompanied these with cumin basmati rice that in itself had a lovely fragrant flavour, and a very light but tasty chilli and garlic nan bread.
Although rather full we couldn’t resist the dessert list – a divinely decadent slice of chocosilk, a rich chocolate fondant, which was accompanied by a scoop of ginger ice cream; and the apple rice kheer, a creation of cooked apple inside a light set mousse, with a pastry bottom, both excellent.
Urban Turban has a good wine list with house wines starting at £16 a bottle (£3.50 a glass) the house red was smooth and very drinkable, although we didn’t try the house white as we neither of us like Chardonnay. Service was slick, efficient and attentive. Urban Turban is great place to eat, good atmosphere and interesting flavours, it’s a little out from the heart of London, but certainly worth a visit.
akandpa - March 2008
your comments review this restaurant and win a bottle of champagne
Dinner there on 3rd July, 8pm. Surprisingly the place was not full, and was almost not even busy. We were 6. The service was disorganised, there was no consistency, and seemed slightly amateur. Not particularly charming nor offensive, just blah.
The starters were quite poor; stale, not heated through properly, barely above supermarket quality, and on the whole ridiculously expensive. The main courses were better, more generous in size, quite flavourful, but not distinguished. The prawns let the main courses down, the lamb was better. There isn't a great deal of choice. There wasn't any sense of occasion. It won't survive and isn't a good place to spend your money.
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Nick
Overall rating 
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Friday, July 04, 2008
Frankly I don't understand these bad reviews. I've been to Urban Turban last saturday for the second time this month and had a blast. We booked a table that was ready on time. The food was delicious and service friendly.
I was fond of Chutney Mary in Chelsea but I live in Notting Hill. Chutney Mary is a but upper scale but this one is more relaxed and the food is simply stunning.
I'll be going back very often.
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Karim
Overall rating 
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 7
Monday, April 28, 2008
I’m always a bit stressed out by sub-continental food in London, not because of it’s exotic nature but because it is on the whole expensive and poorly made. Most restaurants rely on local Londoners who have never eaten outside of the capital and tourists who will never come back regardless of the food and service they are put in front of them.
So with some trepidation I agreed to go for dinner at the new place in town, Urban Turban, but hey I might be wrong, Growing up in Sparkhill Birmingham does not necessarily make me an expert in Indian cuisine (it does by the way, I’m just being humble).
We are sat directly by the door and the waiters station, which is a bit of a downer but they where completely full, but having booked a week previously you would of thought may be a warmer spot would have been available, but we’ll let that go.
The wine arrived after the starters and was asked for 3 times. The starters were nice not great and ranged from good value prawn skewers to micro-samosas which effectively cost £2 each, they where too small to even taste if they where any good.
In the mean time the water hand not turned up and after 4 different waiters where asked. But the mains, they turned up seconds after the starters, Mcdonnalds have slower service, but then again when the mains consist essentially of slow cooked stew spooned into small bowls it’s pretty easy to serve up.
And still more people arrived, I’m afraid to say most looked like they had more money than sense, a woman on the next table has often been in the evening standard, I believe her father was once talented. She of course got great service from the head waitress, but still the chaos around us continued and I began to deeply resent the money this was costing me.
In the end I refused to pay service, I wanted to complain, I wanted to explain that it was not directly any of the smiling waiters fault, there was no organisation and there where to many people. The dollar signs in the eyes of the management where blinding them from the fact that they did not care about there customers. If you are going to charge £12 for a small curry that honestly wasn’t much better than the type tinned by Marks and Spensers (A bargain at £2.30), then you should bally well get everything else right, they got everything else wrong and the food was not going to save them.
I didn’t get to explain, the Head waitress/manageress simple looked down her nose and asked if I needed my coat. Needed my coat? I didn’t know they took your coat! No-One offered!
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Richard Cooper
Overall rating 
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1
Sunday, March 30, 2008
We went to Urban turban on Saturday the table was booked from 7pm to 8.45
which was ample time to have dinner.....The waiters were polite but we were asked three times if we wanted a second round of drinks.....abit too polite i think!
the staters came which were quite nice it was the bhel poori and the bateta poori again that was nice, no sooner had we finished the starter the mains came to the table i mean i waanted to have a breather to enjoy the reataraunt bearing in mind we had only been in there for half an hour by this time still had an hour and fifteen minutes before chucking out time! Anyway the saag paneer was ok i could say i have had better the tarka dhal was too runny and the aubergine was good what i didn't like at all was the chilli and garlic nan it was nan with chilli and garlic sauce spread on top ...you wouldn't even get that if you went to your local and the nans were too thick and the other thing is why can't they just have plain nans if anyone wanted which was not on the menu? So we had finished our mean in one hour.
i would reccommend this place once i dont think i would be going back, maybe for a drink the bar looked cool.
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Dipa Shah
Overall rating 
Food 5 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 5
Monday, March 17, 2008
We ventured to Urban Turban with high hopes after reading AA Gills shining review - we were however hugely disappointed by both the food and the service and shocked at how many punters the place had managed to pull in. Service incredibly slow and food, to be honest, was nothing special and hugely inferior to the handful of quality Indian restaurants in the vicinity. A tapas of some exotically named prawns consisted of 4 mangy looking specimens which looked as if they had been sitting around for a while. Scallops were tiny and both looked and tasted as if they had been recently defrosted from a Happy Shopper bumper pack. And just to top it all, when we asked for some spicy chutney we were told it had run out! When asked if everything was OK by the head waitress and expressing our dissatisfaction, the surprising reaction was a knowing look and the explanation of 'well, it depends what you order'. Not hugely encouraging coming from one of their own. As you can probably tell, we won't be back in a hurry.
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2 Unassuming Spicy Chutney Lovers
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Monday, March 03, 2008
I ate here a few weeks ago after it had first opened. The decor is lovely, with comfy seats and nicely spaced out tables.
The food overall was of a very high standard, and often served on unusual crockery - just like in Rasoi. Standout items were the cauliflower starter, the achari paneer and the olive naan bread - an idea that seemed weird in principle but worked well. The homemade ginger icecream is a must and will probably become as legendary as Vineet Bhatia's Rasoi favourite of chocolate samosas (sadly not on this menu).
The only bum note was the Bhalla Chaat - the sweet / sour balance veering too much towards the sweet for my taste.
Portion sizes are a bit on the small side and you do need to order 2 tapas + a main to fill you up. However similar quality cooking in places like Tamarind or Veeraswamy would set you back a lot more money.
The wine list has some decent mid-priced choices and the Lassis are fab - especially the lychee and rose.
I have to admit that the night we went the service was slow and occasionally muddled although I found all the staff to be polite, if a little harried. I suspect that they were busier than they expected and hope that this is just teething trouble and that the Owners will take heed and improve on this.
Overall a great addition to the area
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SS
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Monday, January 28, 2008
I'm not sure if they were just inexperienced, or simply stupid, but the waiters' performance could only be described as chaos.
Food was slow to leave the kitchen. I expect it was great when it was hot, but by the time it got to the table it was stone cold.
They tried without success to allocate our party's dishes to their rightful owners, but failed miserably. Eventually handing the (lukewarm) servings to the nearest person and telling us to sort it out ourselves. All the while blaming us for the confusion, saying we had ordered the wrong food. Nan bread was barely cooked - we sent food back to the kitchen 4 or 5 times in the end.
Drinks were even slower than the food. We resorted to ordering whenever a waiter came by just to be sure.
Despite expressing our aggravation to the waiting staff, we were met with aggression instead of apologies.
We then did our best to convey our disappointment to the manager, who was flippant and rude, and frankly, socially retarded. He chose to argue with us in front of everyone in the restaurant, rather than apologise.
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- View all reviews by this user
Overall rating 
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Friday, January 25, 2008
If you don’t mind slow, rude unapologetic service. Food that comes to the table luke warm or cold or even if you send it back to the kitchen, you get the very same dish returned to you but mircrowaved, then you’ll love this place.
Order your drinks in twos, since even if you order a second drink before you are half way through your first, you will still be kept waiting for the replacement.
If you want to complain to the manager, do not expect a gracious host who is disappointed that customers have had a bad experience. Expect a smirking, arrogant, unapologetic person who has no idea of the concept of damage limitation. He claims 20 years of experience in the service industry. I can only assume he is a very slow learner or just clueless.
Don’t be fooled by the good name or the promise of a pleasant evening that the nice décor implies. But if you do, be prepared to pay over the odds for a disappointing time. Personally, I prefer to rip up £50 notes and flush them down the loo.
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Very disappointed curry fan.
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Excellant Experience, please don't belive all that you read, the Critics get paid to right but you pay to feed youself. This place have excellant value for money, worth a evening visit in all sense.
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Trevor Conner
Overall rating 
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Thursday, January 24, 2008
