Ambala Ilford — Restaurant in London

A bit of history I grew up in Southall in the 60s/70s and spent a fair proportion of my time in our Indian neighbours' houses being fed delicious food, including sweets. Ambala is a shop specialising in sweets from all over India and their range is fairly extensive. Please forgive my ignorance but I cannot remember the names of them all but there are lots of brightly coloured sweets with exotic ingredients. There are some which resemble fruit and nut bars, some sticky cake balls steeped in syrup, some resembling coconut ice, I was like a small boy let loose in Woolies pick and mix. My Brazilian girlfriend and I emerged with a box packed with a wide variety of sticky, sweet treats and each one was delightful. This is not an indulgence for every day but, I am told, a little bit of what you fancy does you good.

Highly...

This shop is a perfect example of zero management and it shows in the staff attitude. The queue was out the door and it still took around 20 minutes to be served, even though there were four staff behind the counter. Every time they served one customer, they disappeared to the back room for two or three minutes like they’d just finished climbing a mountain. The staff looked completely uninterested and annoyed. Asking for specific items or choosing what you actually want clearly irritates them. The facial expressions alone make you feel like you’re causing them a problem just by ordering. This was my last visit to Ambala Ilford. The sweets might be good, but the service is genuinely awful. There are plenty of other sweet shops in Ilford that are polite, welcoming, and actually want...

Lovely Samosas and decent sweets. (Posted over 2 years ago)

Edit: I'm downgrading the rating as the food still is good, but the attitude of the staff was pretty rude.

I requested a samosa chaat to be packed separately, but the way in which the staff responded my query was as if I asked them for something free of cost. I suppose if they offered to charge me extra nicely, I really wouldn't have minded.

It started off with a NO.

Then they said, "You need to pay more. I'll charge you separately for the chaat and each samosa"

The response took me by surprise! I ended up buying the samosa chaat anyway as I travelled 2 hours to pick them up. But I don't think I'm ever going to return here. I don't need my food with a side...