Let's not cook.: Stanwix Tandoori/Indian/Carlisle

After not visiting this restaurant for a long time, it was suggested we should give it a go.

Situated on Stanwix Bank, above the shops, you need to walk up a flight of stairs, so no good if you cannot manage steps.

You cannot park outside, but there is a car park opposite - you have to take the risk and cross 4 lanes of traffic though, not hugely recommended. Otherwise you can sometimes park around the back on the residential streets.

We went on a Monday evening, at around 8.45pm. We were the only ones in except for some friends of the waiter in the bar area, and no one else came to dine whilst we were there.

The usual Indian fayre on the menu, no special Veggie dishes apart from the usual side dishes, but all curries available with 'mixed veg'.

Ordered the house wine, which was nearly see-through raspberry pink, rather than a nice deep red wine.

We started with a poppodum each with dips.

For starters I had Vegetable Pakora.

The portion sizes were quite large, nice tasting Pakoras served with fresh salad and Mint Sauce.

Hubby had Chicken Pakora, again a large portion and tasted nicely seasoned with a crisp batter.

For a main I decided to go for Vegetable Biryani, served with Vegetable Curry. I asked for no onions & the waiter went to the trouble of checking I wasn't allergic to onions as although there would be no chunks they were used to make the base of the sauce. Great service.

Unfortunately the rice in the Biryani was cold, although the veg curry was piping hot. I sent the rice back and they re-heated it for me, but really there isn's an excuse for cold food when we were the only people in the restaurant !!

The rice tasted nice, but the curry sauce was very very bland, it tasted like my home-made vegetable soup before being seasoned. What a shame. It was so bland that I didn't even bother asking for the left-overs (which there was quite a bit of) to take home. I should have gone for a curry dish perhaps.

Hubby had Chicken Tikka platter, came on a sizzling dish with just chicken, which was unusual - usually there are onions on the platter too, but this was just chicken. He said it was nice though.