Indian Ocean — Restaurant in Mid Suffolk

Wow! We found this gem of a place purely by accident when searching on Google for an Indian style restaurant in this part of rural Suffolk. We parked in the crowded street nearby and walked in to this place which does not look like anything special for the outside. But, on entering this place we realized that we had found somewhere special.

The two gentlemen who greeted us were fantastic. They remained friendly, polite and patient throughout our visit. Having settled in to a corner seat by the window our culinary journey started. We began by ordering a round of drinks including the excellent Cobra draft beer, served nicely chilled, and a plate of popadums with pickles. A great start.

Three of us then ordered onion bhajis as a starter. Our waiter kindly suggested that as these are so big, it would be better to order two servings for the three of us. Great advice. We couldn't finish them as they were so big.

For our main courses, we ordered the mild chicken tikka masala and I fancied something hotter, like a vindaloo. On advice, however, I tried a chicken Sylheti-Jalfry which was excellent. Very hot and spicy but with pepper, onion, fresh herbs and a touch of Sylheti chili pickle. Phew!

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our special find in this place. And to think that this gem of a place was hidden in such a quiet, sleep rural...

We got delivery from here a few weeks ago as the reviews seemed really good. The food arrived on time, hot and special requests were adhered too. Unfortunately that's where the good points end. The food itself was disappointing. The vindaloo was mild and bland, as was my dopiaza. They tasted pretty much the same, lacked any real depth of flavour and I think they forgot to add in any chili to the vindaloo it was that mild. You needed sunglasses to look at the tikka masala as it was such an radioactive shade of red. The portion sizes of the sides were also rather random. 6 chicken pakoras, but only 2 vegetable pakoras. 4 of the largest onion bhajis I've even seen, but 2 small vegetable samosas which were much spicer than the vindaloo! The tarka daal was actually quite pleasant. But I was expecting the sag paneer to have cubes of cheese, instead it was more of an emulsified cheese slime. I was looking forward to this being my new indian but we definitely...

Booked around a week in advance on their website for Valentine’s Day. Had email confirmation around 3 times since I booked, to confirm that the booking had been accepted, only for them to call me around 45 mins before I was due to be at the restaurant to say that they accepted the booking by mistake and that they have no tables now.

Useless service really.. they should have either declined the booking straight away when I initially tried to book, or, if they can’t keep up with website bookings, take that service off their website.

Either way, I would not recommend and am unlikely to attempt to book or use their take away...