Mogul Restaurant Manningtree — Restaurant in Tendring

I want to start off by saying I do not like leaving a bad review but I can only be honest in what I find

This is my first Indian takeaway from Manningtree and my first time trying this restaurant I have recently moved from another part of Essex and we had serval Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants to choose from there

So tonight I ordered, Chicken balti Tarka dhal Plain Naan Keema naan

The restaurant is in a Beautiful building, and has a very recent 5/5 food hygiene rating - GREAT!

The service inside was okay Not great but not terrible But it was only a take away so that’s fine

Right the food: Tarka dhal is a beautiful dish, rich, creamy and ful of flavour and spice. Unfortunately this was none of those, It has quite obviously been frozen in the past as the lentils go very bitty and watery, And i am not exaggerating when i say there was NO flavour at all! Just bland watery sludge unfortunately No seasoning, no spice, and obviously previous frozen - very very disappointing

Chicken balti, smelt and looked good The sauce was very thick and had a very strong smell and also taste, in my opinion it has some kind of flavour enhancing additive added It doesn’t taste fresh, it’s very rich, very salty and very flavourful, but not in the way you expect a curry to be (fresh and spicy) When I say flavourful, I don’t mean in a delicious way, it taste like someone has added lots of beef broth to something for example Very rich and very salty Chicken is horrendously dry! Lots of chicken was in the dish which for the price is great !

Chicken very very dry ( I threw 80% of it away) and I would say previously cooked (reheated)

So no freshness in the dish, no spice, no great vibrant flavours, The best part of the dish was a single tinned tomato that was left whole

Naan breads: The meat inside of the keema Naan was pink and green (I am not exaggerating) It smelt a little off so I didn’t eat it and it was very very very salty ( the meat)

The bread was okay, had a nice crust on it, Some might say burnt but I like that as it adds flavour

The plain naan unfortunately totally stunk, It smelt like burning wood, ( maybe their tandoori is wood fired) I commend the restaurant if they do use a wood fired tandoor but unfortunately that particular bread stunk of smoke, not fire but smoke And I love bbq food ! But the chemically part of smoke is what this smelt of.

The breads were chewy and fairly flavourless

Not bad naans but a LONG way from being as good as what some restaurants make

Oh popadoms were okay, but no dips were supplied( I didn’t order any dips or popadoms ) So the free ones are a nice touch

But let’s be honest every Indian gives you free popadoms and dips

All in all …. Fairly cheap Not great service Beautiful restaurant Fairly poor quality food 3/10 I threw 70% of what I ordered out, And it’s a real shame because it cost £20 and money is hard earnt

All in all I would not come back to this restaurant

I advise the owners and chefs to travel to Halstead one night, and grab a takeaway from Spice Zone Bangladeshi take away, - I reviewed this restaurant before and the difference is night and day!

I think you will All be shocked at how far away you are from serving great food

It’s a real shame because the gentleman I spoke to earlier said you had been there 36 years

Thank you for your time and allowing me to try your food

All the best...

On the 14th February we ordered take out from The Mogul in Manningtree. Unfortunately we found an insect in My partners meal.

Firstly, I went about this trying to be as discreet as possible. I asked to speak to the manager quietly and privately away from customers as it was Valentine's Day night and it was not my intention to cause any distress or loss of business.

I was greeted with laughter and they claimed the bug (which clearly had legs) was a seed of some sort. I explained to them that this was not a seed and I would like to see a seed that looked like that. They brought out these seeds that were 3 times the size a different colour and looked nothing like it.

I refused to accept this as they were squishing it about in their hands trying to tell me it was not at which point I showed them a leg.

The manager asked me to bring back my food which was on the plates already and I refused. He then offered me a refund of one dish and I also refused as I still felt this was unacceptable.

I eventually got the refund and left, but not without explaining to them that I tried to do it in privacy as to avoid any embarrassment and they chose to raise their voices and laugh at me. I remained calm and didn't give any indication to customers that the argument we were in the middle of was debating what insect was in our food.

I'm disgusted and embarrassed for myself that I had to go through such an ordeal whilst being laughed off.

Please bare in mind I would not name and shame a business if they hadn't said it was a seed and laughed directly at me when I made them aware.

Customer service is in how you handle things when they go wrong, not when they are going well.

I didn't know if I should review this here but as Facebook is a social media platform that allows people to delete your views I'm adding it...

Went here After being recommended but have to say will not be going back. Tbh the prawn puree starter was really nice so had great hopes for our main but boy what a disappointment. I had a ckn dhansak which had far too much garlic and lemon; also huge chunks of ckn which I thought at first were potatoes and were just not nice. My sister had a ckn dopiaza that tasted like the salt pot had fallen in. It never got eaten, however the owner/manager did take it off the bill and apologise. My neice had a lamb bhuna which tasted of nothing at all and was definitely mutton not lamb and was extremely bland..my partner had a ckn tikka masala which was surprisingly good and definitely the best out of four. We also had some onion bhagges which were far too overlooked and too hard to eat. We had 2 parathas which was also overcooked and burnt. We had 3 mushroom rice which was OK but had to leave most of it because we had no curry to enjoy it with. Our bill was £108 which would be OK if the curry was decent. We drove 12 miles from clacton after it was recommended however I'm sorry to say we will not be returning. Manager did apologise and gave us our money back for the dopiaza but I'm sorry to say the overall quality and taste of the food has left us all with a bad taste...