The Standard — Restaurant in Oxford

Absolutely average I'm afraid. My husband grew up and worked in Oxford for many years and suggested the Standard based on previous good experience. I cannot fault the service, it was friendly, quick and attentive. The cutlery and plates were sparkly clean however the walls need a good wipe down (we sat at a table for 2 near the bar). White splatters were all over the wall by the table. The chicken shashlik was average. The peppers and onion were crisp at the edges but otherwise raw. The chicken marinade was bland but the chicken was nicely cooked. Lots of unnecessary salad on the plate.

The tamarind and black pepper chicken had 6 lumps of chicken which again, was bland ie not tikka and the sauce was largely coconut flavoured. I didnt detect any tamarind, just plenty of pepper. The pilau was nice and the peshwari was lovely and fluffy with crisp base and edges but didn't spot any sultanas. As for my chicken balti, I selected it because it was described as having a tangy with tamarind sauce. I found 6 chicken slices with the majority of curry being peppers and onions.

My husband says this used to be one of the best curry houses in Oxford but they appear to have taken their eye off the ball which is a shame. Plenty of competition on the Cowley Road which means we would choose to...

Food was really tasty! We really loved the varied curry that the restaurant served. Tikka chicken Briyani was one of our most favorite dish. The rice was very fragrant and flavoured with the spice, making it very flavourful. The curry that accompanied it complements the food perfectly.

We also ordered the Madras King Prawn Curry with a Garlic and Coriander Naan. It is decently spicy, and the curry was even tastier than the curry for Briyani. We really loved the food. Very high quality!

We were quite disappointed at how slow the service was even though there were only 2 customers in the restaurant that day. Front of house was busy attending to reservations and calls, and took very long to take our orders. The other customer had to wait quite a while for the FOH to be free to have his main course served. Other staff could have helped with the workload. Nevertheless, he was very apologetic and...

Only got to have a drink and poppadoms. I got there late to our party of 6. Immediately told we were being too loud. I spoke to the owner separately and was told in not so many words- we don't want people like you here. Granted its a small place but we were not being overly loud. Not any louder than anybody else. Owner suggested we were "talking aggresively". We spoke about football, because the table next to us told us they owned shares in Swansea City FC. Would never visit again, went to Jamals a few doors along and no issues at all. Plus lovely food. ( it was actually less noisy in Jamals and we were not told we were being loud). When I informed the owner that we would just leave, I've never seen a man say ok that's fine so quickly. I am not sure he even put our order through. Other waiting staff were fine with us.

Still cost us £80 for drinks and...