Saffron Street — Restaurant in London

Well what can i say, ive been to this place twice so far. The first time we went last year, we had a thali which i thought was small given the amount of food and price.

This year we opted for some traditional rice and curry and went in for a proper meal.

For starters me and my wife loved how their Bao buns were steamed to perfection. They were really soft with pulled lamb. Two small pieces cost us £12. I had a few bites and concured it had a good texture to it.

We also had a Lasooni Murgh Tikka for starters. These were chicken thigh tandoori pieces for £9. They weren't great tasting as i expected them to be but was ok.

We then ordered a Butter Chicken along with a Lamb Rogan Josh with plain rice and a naan. Both curries tasted a little bland but after adding some much needed salt the flavours came bursting through. The curries had plenty of chicken and meat to go round it was enough for both of us.

On the topic of salt snd pepper, a woman from reception with glasses came over to ask how our food was. I asked for salt and pepper, she moved onto the next table. I thought eventually it will arrive. She came back with a bottle of drink for the other table completely forgetting my salt and pepper which i had asked for earlier on. So i had to get up from my seat. I said to my wife at that point i will not be paying any service charge if there is any.

As i got up to the desk a gentleman approached me and said he will get it for me and that i should go back and sit down. He brought me the condiments pretty fast which is how service should be.

We enjoyed our curry with plain white rice (which we had to ask for as it was not on the menu) and a naan bread. Again their naan bread was as soft as their Bao buns which me and my wife thoroughly enjoyed.

My favourite was the mango lassi, it wasnt cheap and had enough mango pulp init to satisfy my mango craving. An indian curry is not complete if it is not accompanied with a mango lassi hand in hand.

Overall food was good, nothing was bad. The Bao buns, Butter chicken, naan and mango lassi were our favourites. However the entire bill came to £62 something. For what we had i don't think it was worth the money. I would have loved some chops as starters also but i was not going to pay £15 for 4 measly chops.

Upon receiving the bill i noticed there was no service charge which was good given the price of the items and me having to get up from my seat for condiments.

No establishment is perfect and we know that. There is always room for improvement. Its 3 stars from me on this ocassion, if the prices were better this could have easily been a 4/5 star review. Plain rice and Pilau rice were also the same price when plain rice should have been cheaper.

Again who am i to complain about price? In all fairness the restaurant was packed out. Waiting times can be upto 20 mins depending on the number of people in your group.

Will i visit again? Not anytime soon but will definitely re consider it if im...

We came here as a group of 11. We ordered a variety of starters to mains to dessert. We was bitterly disappointed with the seating of the booking, it was discombobulated from the start. If a restaurant knows you have booked table for 12, the seating should be either two tables placed close together or two tables of six placed together back to back. Very poor and the whole evening felt very disconnected with family members.

Starters I would say was very nice. Great way to start the meal with samosa chat and some pani puri. I would recommend going for dahi puri as it fills the semolina shell for you instead of pani puri which you have to do yourself (shells break very easily). Nachodoms were very tasty so a big plus for the starters.

For mains it was a bit 50 50. We ordered some wings and chicken lollipop. Both were decent and cooked well with a nice coating. Lamb chops, extremely disappointing. Felt like old chops cooked with no flavouring. The lamb lacked flavour of any sort and felt like a chop that was cooked and served without any further ingredients. We ordered a few curry dishes with chicken and lamb which had much more flavouring.

For sides I would say the best part of the whole meal was the masala chips. Very tasty indeed and helped give flavour to the very bland lamb chops. Prawns were also served which was soft and cooked well, another coating that approved of my tastebuds.

4 desserts were ordered which I would say was good. I personally went for the brownie sizzler. The waiter will pour some hot chocolate over your ice cream and brownie. Warning please let the chocolate cool down, you will burn your tongue if you don't give it a few minutes. Even after 2 or 3 minutes I burnt my tongue but I would say tasted very nice with the ice cream complementing it very well.

Side note, I would not order the lacha onion salad, its basically onion in a pot. The waiter forgot about this completely and to be honest we should have forgot about it too because it was just that bad. You'll have some served already with lamb chops.

We ordered strawberry mojito in a jug. Very standard and did not feel like a proper mojito. There was that tangy bubble feeling missing from it.

In terms of staff service very poor, genuinely think some training is required. Some staff was rude when explaining the table situation while failing to wear a mask correctly. Lack of attention to check at least once between meals if anything was needed or missing.

Pricing, menu has been attached and I have to say it is very well priced. You get a good portion of food at a reasonable price.

The restaurant itself was clean, well presented and aesthetically nice to be in. There is a car park situated past the library for those driving there.

Would I recommend this place, its a maybe for me. I do think the restaurant has some qualities to it but needs to fix...

I called the restaurant around 3pm to enquire if a reservation was necessary (Wednesday night)… response from the lady that answered the phone “it depends if we get busy”. It’s helpful to have someone on the phone that understands the restaurant (including busy periods) and is able to advise. Didn’t really get off to the best of starts and decided to leave it to chance and not make a reservation.

Arrived without a reservation (approximately 8.15pm) and the gentlemen at the door said there would be a 40 minute wait. No problem from me as the place was packed. This gentleman was both friendly and helpful. He got us seated within 10 minutes by moving some tables around and shuffling seats - a great guy to have greeting guests.

We were seated and after a short time a waiter came to take our order. The waiter was helpful and was able to advice which foods may be too spicy for children.

The chaats were on point. The palak chaat and samosa chaat both hit the spot. My friend who isn’t a fan of chaats in general really enjoyed them so they are clearly doing something right.

The masala chips were another item which they have really nailed. They tasted brilliant and were annoyingly more’ish. Ordered 3 portions and they were all finished. The one normal portion of fries were left half finished - they weren’t great.

For mains we ordered two different thaali’s (see pictures). Unfortunately these weren’t great. Each thaali had one item which was good like the lamb chops and chicken wings but the rest was very average. Another point to note was was that some food was way too spicy. I’m all for spicy food and can handle spice, but some items of food were just spiced up for the sake of spicing.

In addition to the above we ordered “Chicken 65” and “Lollipop Chicken”. Both were average at best and I wouldn’t order them again.

Ordered a selection of mocktails and everyone thought they were decent so thumbs up to them.

In terms of service, arriving and being seated was perfect. But after that things fell apart. I appreciate the restaurant was busy but no one really came to check if everything was fine or if we needed anything was the food had been served. On the contrary I had to flag down the waiter on a few occasions for refills on water or sauces for the kids. It’s small details like these that make a visit positive or negative.

On the whole the experience was up and down. I would visit again (but not in any rush) and when I do I will limit myself to the “Thele Mein...