Masala Zone review by Miss Fussy
I went here with a friend after reading that the prices of the meals were reasonable (about £15 per head), but in my opinion i think its overpriced for overated food.
As an indian myself I had high expectation of this 'anglo indian' cuisine so i was looking forward to the taste of the food.
we both ordered a thali, which is a tray with a small amount of different curries, this way you get to taste a bit of everything, and that meants that we could have both meat curry and chicken curry (you have a choice for two) and my friend had the prawn curry on her thali. We also ordered some rice aswell, and the thali comes with roti and popadom and some chutney, some potato niramish and some vegetable niramish, so you had a good selection of dishes to taste, and it works out to be more economical too.
The food arrived and I was quite angry at the quality and the quantity. The curries were all gravy and not much meat, the meat curry had only four 2 cm cubed pieces of meat and the rest was just gravy, which i thought was a really mean thing for them to do, and i did complain to the manager. I pointed out to him that in a restaurant i would expect to get more pieces of reasonably sized pieces of meat, and he replied that this is what they serve and that it was standard quantity. Frankly, if i served any guest four small pieces of meat and a lot of gravy, i would very soon get a bad reputation for being stingy.
The vegetalble niramish was awful, i dont know what type of spices they used, but it tasted wrong, and it was bitter and metallic. I fished out the pieces of meat and i ate the potato niramish, but the rest of the food wasnt edible so i left it.
I had to complain about the quantity of rice that they served, it was meant for two, but certainly not enough for me or my carribean friend.
The food was spicy, meaning that it had spices and flavour, but not hot and ofcourse you could have the food adjusted if you don't like hot chillies.
The only thing that i loved and i ordered more of (and they too were expensive, considering i make lots at home and i know how much ata flour costs!) were the roti, but i love roti, and these reminded me of my family, they were soft and hot and small, just the way they make them back home, which didnt surprise me as they were probably made by an indian.
In conclusion, i wouldn't come here again, but im indian and i definitely think you get better value for money, and generous quantities of good, tasty, and properly spiced food, in places such as Brick Lane or Green Street, or Ilford East London way.
Its a stunning place, decor looks beautiful with statues and flowers in water arrangements, and they do also have other types of cuisine that you can try if you want such as thai, chinese, rice only dishes or noodle dishes, but i suspect that you could also get better at a dedicated chinese or thai restaurants.
It's certainly a nice place to go if you want to take a date or friends or if you want to take non asians to experience a beautiful eastern atmosphere with reliable european standards behind the scenes. It is certainly a very sociable place, we went on a friday so it was packed and noisy yet the people were friendly and we ended up chatting to the people on the next table.
I realise that as an indian my view is baised, but i just prefer authenticity and fairness and i didnt feel that i fully got either here.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Overall rating 
Food 4 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 2
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