Karachi Restaurant — Restaurant in Bradford

I rarely feel compelled to leave a bad review, as I really do have better things to do with my time. But here I am…

This was the worst curry I have ever had.

Pros: The popodoms were pretty nice, so if you just go out for popodoms - you’ll be fine (subject to my point below about sauces).

The curry itself wasn’t horrendous, and we didn’t have any gristle, like others reviewers, which can only be a positive.

Cons: The mango chutney and mint sauce were absolutely awful. I literally watched them decant mint sauce from a giant Coleman’s mint sauce container in the kitchen, so zero effort was made with this aspect other than putting it into a bowl. I expect the mango chutney was also another mass produced brand from its lack of flavour and texture.

The naan bread and chapati were horrendous. I of course don’t know whether this is correct, but they tasted like they were shop bought/mass produced and they were suspiciously perfectly shaped. The naan was so dry and tasteless it was what I imagine eating carpet is like - but not just any carpet, I’m talking about a really low quality carpet with a flat pillage, as the naan was so flat and dense. The chapati was just horrific and I wouldn’t give it to my dog.

We got an eye roll when we asked for cutlery.

We didn’t dare to ask for a glass with our can of Diet Coke that was plonked in front of us, after the eye roll.

The curries were served in cold bowls. I wonder if they know this is substandard as I watched a food review on YouTube on the way home which was recent, and funnily enough, the curry was served to the food blogger in a sizzling hot proper curry dish.

The pieces of meat in the curry were tiny, and it really felt like they’d cut the meat up so small to make it look like there was more than there was - I’ve never had such borrower sized pieces of meat in a curry before.

The decor and atmosphere were bad. I honestly can get over this if the food is good, but it’s not.

Summary: This place clearly has been good in a previous life, and we only visited following a verbal recommendation, but it’s clearly allowed standards to slip in recent years and is clinging onto its previously good reputation. I expect that they are cutting corners in recent times due to perhaps the financial climate, but it really never is the way. As Rick Stein previously gave the place a good review many years ago, I wonder what he would think...

Very poor. We went on Sunday 12th August 2018 at about 8.00pm and the place was empty, bad sign. As others have said it's very basic inside bordering on being unacceptable. We didn't care about that too much though we were there for the food. For starters we ordered chicken tikka and onion bhajis. The chicken was a half chicken with very little flavour. it was literally a lump of chicken. The bhajis were soggy and pretty poor. Even their mint dip was poor and served on a saucer for some reason. To the curries. We ordered a vegetable and a chicken khari and a mince and pea. The two khari dishes were served in balti dishes and looked quite nice. The mince in a strange bowl. They gave us these hideous dishes to eat out of. None of which matched just looked awful. How much would it cost to just go a buy some cheap white dishes from Ikea? The mince dish was just terrible. No flavour at all and didn't resemble a curry. The other two curries were slightly better but again weren't good. Even the chips had black bits mixed in with them, a clear indication that the oil wasn't...

We were in the area for a long weekend break. This restaurant was recommended to us as it was the oldest restaurant in Bradford. We went on a Saturday evening and immediately got a seat as it was not busy. We were quickly seen to and ordered kebab sandwich (a steal at £1.50) battered mushrooms, chicken spinach Karahi, meat ball peas and pilau rice, we skipped naan as it was already supplied with chappatis. It doesn’t serve booze so we had mango lassi which was nice. Other reviews mention food coming out of order, well if you go to Wagamamas you get that there too, it didn’t affect us as we do not stand on ceremony. The food was tasty, with some heat but not too much to take away the taste. It may have been surfing the coat tails of a Rick Stein recommendation a bit too much but I guess in a crowded market you go for any advantage you can get. It may be in need of a touch up on the decor and some fresher menus but that added to its heap & cheerful charm, you won’t get shiny metal bowls, hot towels or flock wallpaper here. Overall, cheap and nice food, with some dishes I hadn’t...