Kutum Bari — Restaurant in Birmingham

We walked here from our hotel near the NEC whilst working on a trade show. It's about 40 minutes walk away and it was well worth the adventure.

We got there fairly early and on a Tuesday the restaurant was about half full. Service was good and attentive and the usual Indian beers are on offer on draught.

The night we were there there was an offer that basically gave you a free starter. I had samosa chaat my colleague had a kebab, both were excellent. For mains I had chilli and garlic chicken and my colleague had a mixed jalfrezi. The chilli and garlic chicken had a thick sauce with a good level of spicing and heat. For my taste the garlic chilli rice could have had more chilli in it but for most people it would be great.

This all seemed enough, but at the end of the meal the obligatory hot towels came, then some palate refreshing orange segments and a small curl of ice cream some sweets and a thick sweet milky drink to finish.

We chatted to the owner quite a bit who was friendly and engaging and told us about his youth in his homeland.

All in all a great evening with a great host, delicious food and excellent value. Well...

I went to this place with my mom as we had been planning to go here for a long time since it had been recommended to us a lot. The windows aren’t able to open so it was very very stuffy in there. I ordered a vegetable samosa and a vegetable curry and both were pretty eh. Especially the curry, it was very very greasy and drowning in oil. I’ve had way nicer food from my local indian takeaway. I noticed all of the staff giving me weird looks and staring at me and speaking to other staff while doing so. Thought this was just them checking on me to see if i like the food at first until one of the staff members (manager i think) came up to me and asked if i was vegetarian. I said yes and he proceeded to lecture me on how i should be eating meat because “god gave us animals to eat” and forcing his beliefs and religion on me. Telling me that what i am doing is wrong. I was completely in shock and i didn’t say much back because i’m not too good with confrontation. Extremely disappointed on how non inclusive they are and how utterly judgemental and belief inflicting. Completely put me off my food and i am never going back again as the curry was...

The decor here is of an acceptable standard. But we experienced 3 negative/bad points. Firstly when my wife was bought her tawa in the cast iron skillet the waiter said chicken and mushroom balti, now surely if you work in this trade you should know the difference between a balti dish and a skillet. Secondly (after the waiter went away and came back with the tawa in a skillet) he did correct himself,but we noticed it the food wasn't at all sizzling as it should. So my wife raised this point ,to the reply that "some restaurant's do have it sizzling but we don't in here" only to see a gentleman on the next table get bought out a skillet...and yes folks it was sizzling away as it should. Thirdly. We ordered a bottle of wine from the menu, we went for one of the cheaper ones which still was about £15 If I remember correctly,it tasted like vinegar,a few days later when doing our weekly shop we saw exactly the same bottle in a well know supermarket and it was retailing at £4.25. Disgraceful profit mark up for what tasted...