Maryport Tandoori — Restaurant in England

Incredibly disappointing.

Please be aware it is cash only.

We were on holiday for a special occasion and looking for somewhere to eat out for a milestone birthday. We spotted this tandoori whilst out on our first day and noticed they were closed for a few days due to award nominations. Reviewing them online, fab reviews, award winning in the past. We never had a bad experience at an Indian restaurant so it seemed a sure bet for a good night. How wrong we were and we really paid for it too!!!

Our booking was a Wednesday evening at 7pm for 7 people. The restaurant is crammed in, our table was right behind the door where take away collectors congregated and little room to the window tables, making it difficult for servers to get past. A table of 6 were seated next to us but it was so close we may as well have been dining together.

Service for taking order and receiving drinks was quick but getting the food was incredibly slow, 40 minutes for starters. It was all very fraught and stressy amongst the staff. We asked for a jug of water for the table 3 times but didn't get it so in the end i ordered a £2.50 still water expecting it to be a large bottle but it was a small highland spring. It was poured into a glass with ice, which we didn't want, on stating this a fresh glass was fetched and the water poured from one to another.

The cobra beer was flat, the drink wasn't finished and bottle beer ordered instead.

As for the food. Popadoms were a bit soft, tasting a bit stale really. Everyone was happy with starters, I didn't have one as at point of ordering was not hungry (after such a wait i dipped in to my sons prawn puri which was nice). I had one of the specialty mains which was incredibly salty and most oily dish i ever had. The saag mains were very dry. Jalfrezi had red peppers, no chillis and was wetter than we have had before. Only one in the party enjoyed the meal. The after eights given with the bill had white marks on the chocolate so either out of date or had been in hot environment.

4 of the party were very ill the next day with food poisoning (sickness, diarrhoea and sweats). Not the end to the holiday we wanted.

If we were local, we definitely would not recommend or...

We really wanted to enjoy Maryport Tandoori, but ultimately came away disappointed. For context we often dine at Indian restaurants in and around Manchester so were expecting to see great things, especially given their recent award. As a break down of the food:

Poppadoms were warm and crisp, however the pickles and chutney were underwhelming and would have benefited by including a raita and sauce with the raw onion.

Chicken Tikka starter was cooked well and tasted good, but again there's no need to hide it under half a chopped onion, this does nothing for the presentation of the food.

Lamb madras was really nice and had great flavour and good amount of meat, this was the stand out dish.

Vegetable biryani. This was sadly a significant let down. The sauce was watery and forgettable, the biryani was bland, lacked any real effort and had potatoes that tasted as though the chef left the intended seasoning on them. This was a poor dish and at the price point unacceptable.

On a wider note the restaurant would also benefit from either having a children's menu (when asked we were told they don't) or being amicable to providing smaller portions (which wasn't offered). Necessitating the purchase of a full priced meal for a child in a money only restaurant is frustrating and questionable.

Overall was the meal bad, absolutely not, but neither was it great or perhaps more importantly particularly enjoyable. For just shy of £50 on the above (without drinks) the standard has to be consistent in all meals prepared. In absense of such we really...

We staying over a caravan park and were on the look out for some delicious food after a long 300+ miles of journey. Found this one pretty close to our place so without a second thought we rushed as it was already 9pm and most of the restaurants were closed or about to. We got a warm welcome, they even told Kitchen closes 9:45 but we would wait till you enjoy your meal which is so kind of them. We ordered some tandoori king prawns, tandoori chicken and hara bhara kebab. Tabdoori’s were so delicious but not too much happy with hara bhara kebab as to me it was like omelette(never seen this before). For the mains we did some kulcha naan, garlic naan, chef’s special shylet chicken and chicken mosala and bhindi masala,they were all soo good specially the shylet chicken given with boiled egg. I would definitely recommend to someone at Maryport or near maryport and do try there kulcha naan that was awesome and for four people it was just £96 which I say...