DESI - Old India Cafe — Restaurant in Portsmouth

At front I want everyone to know that I have never write any bad review for any restaurant. We booked table for 6:30pm for two, to celebrate mine and husband 15th anniversary. We arrived on time and was nicely greeted by the staff. Together with food I ordered a glass of white wine and server gave me empty glass. After few minutes I said that I ordered a glass OF WINE and was told they don’t have it and I had to bring my own. My husband had to go to shop to buy it for me, she didn’t say anything about while taking order. We was waiting for food around 40 minutes ( we ordered 4 dishes for 2 people), but a snack (papadoms) came before. So we arrived 6:30, around 50 minutes to take order/food to the table (7:20ish). Food doesn’t have much to do with with Indian cuisine. Dishes was sweet, spicy or salty. No masala’s at all, no Indian spices. Raita and chutney came in such a small ramekins, like tablespoon of each. They don’t serve any naan or roti, instead garlic flat bread, ready bought just reheated. But we wasn’t bothered to this point, we wanted to enjoy it day, the moment. We didn’t want small things to make our day bad. Then at 7:45, 25 mins after all food arrived a server came to our table and asked us to leave because they have booking for this table at 8pm 😳 I was totally shocked I asked her twice to repeat. We wasn’t even halfway eating! I was so angry, disappointed and embarrassed. Me and my husband going to restaurant at least once in two weeks since we are together from 15 years and in all that time I was never asked to leave, 20 minutes after receiving food, especially that we have booked the table. I was so shocked I just got up, put my jumper on and left, leaving all uneaten food behind. I was just speechless. I don’t if it was just our luck, but I have no idea how this place have 1600 good reviews? I was waitress in many restaurants in past 10 years and I have never seen anything...

Last Friday we visited Desi Cafe on Elm Grove, Southsea. This place has been on my radar for a while so I was looking forward to trying their Indian food.

I want to start off by saying that the quality of the food in this restaurant is unrivaled to any Indian that I've eaten at recently and I would highly recommend visiting. The menu is modern, fresh and varied and the portion sizes are very generous.

The decor is absolutely beautiful and the staff were warm and welcoming. We were seated quickly and chose our drinks, Desi Cafe does not serve alcohol so we opted for a Pina Cola mocktail & a 0% Peroni.

We started off with some poppadoms & a chutney tray of Bombay Ketchup, Pineapple Chutney & Tzatziki. These made a refreshing change to your standard Indian chutneys and I'd choose them again over your bog standard ones as they were fresh & delicious, the perfect way to start your meal.

We had a small plate of Sev Puri which was recommended to us by the staff, I've never had anything like this before in an Indian restaurant, we were told to eat them whole (I struggled a bit with this as they were quite large!) I'm not 100% sure what the filling was but they tasted incredible, you can't visit Desi Cafe without trying these!

For mains we had... ⭐️ Konkani Chicken ⭐️ Karachi Karahi ⭐️ Yakhni Pulao Rice ⭐️ Bombay Bread ⭐️ Gunpowder Potatoes

The curries were absolutely beautiful, the best I've had in a long time. The Konkani Chicken had a subtle heat to it and the Karachi Karahi had quite a kick. The meat in the Karahi was lamb which just melted in your mouth. The sauce with both curries was rich & thick, perfect for mopping up with the Bombay Bread. The rice was absolutely packed full of flavour and the Gunpowder Potatoes were cooked perfectly.

Thank you SO MUCH Desi Cafe for a wonderful meal, I will 100%...

This is a decent restaurant that could be amazing. I booked this for my wife's birthday yesterday and when we walked in the decor and ambiance was fantastic. A very old style india cafe with really murials and photos adorn the walls.

When we looked at the menu they had some very nice mix of dishes but missing many staples such as paneer makhani, tikka, manchrian, malai kofta, chilli paneer, chana masala. Then there was no tandoori roti or naans and then no option to change the dhal in the vegetable biriyani. It was slightly underwhelming however we still proceeded to order our vegetarian starters and mains together.

The paneer and pineapple starter was nice but small portions although the chaat was nice. The dhaal makhani was good but the cream cheese in it did not complement it well. The paneer and tikki dish was nice but quite spicy and again the combination didn't make sense. The saag aloo and saag paneer were both more like palak paneer which although tasted fine, the saag was just left looking a bit raw and not like true desi (pure) indian saag. Then the bombay bread which was nice just did not feel like a naan or roti.

We have been to many indian restaurants across the UK, widely in many European countries, of course in India and fortunately we eat great home indian cooking ourselves. It is clear that Desi is trying new modern takes on indian food however all the best restaurants keep things simple and perfect the flavour.

Desi (as the restaurant has on its walls) means pure and for this restaurant to really come up against the best needs for its food and not just the decor to reflect its name - to provide pure indian authentic cuisine.

Best of...