The restaurant
A restaurant is six businesses in one room: the menu, the oven, the half of the cooking with no meat in it, Sunday, the bag on the counter and the room at the back. Each has a page with what it costs and how it works, and none of them has a price we would not say to your face.
01
Eight starters, seven from the tandoor, six chef's specials, eight curries, three biryanis, seven vegetable and dal dishes, the rice and breads, and three puddings. Every dish carries its heat from zero to four chillies and whether it is vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free, and the menu page on this website filters by both. Mains from £10.50, the Sunday thali £16.50.
Starters from £5.
02
A clay tandoor, charcoal-fired, lit at four every afternoon and at eleven for lunch. Chicken tikka from thigh marinated for a day, lamb chops, five king prawns, paneer tikka, a half chicken, and a mixed grill for £18.50; naan and roti slapped on the wall to order. Seven dishes, all gluten-free, two to three chillies.
Chicken tikka £14.
03
Thirteen of the forty-eight dishes are vegan and twenty-five vegetarian, flagged on every line and filterable on the menu page: chana masala, tarka dal, aloo gobi, bhindi masala, a coconut vegetable korma, an aubergine and tamarind curry, vegetable biryani, pani puri, onion bhaji and more. A vegan thali on Sundays, and a vegan tasting menu for tables of six or more with a day's notice.
Vegetable and dal dishes £8.
04
From half past twelve to four every Sunday: a thali of six small dishes (two curries, a dal, a vegetable, a chaat and the day's special), rice, two puris, raita, pickle and a sweet on a steel platter, £16.50 an adult and £8 for under-twelves. A meat thali and a vegan thali, the dishes changed every week and published by Thursday. No booking for two; book for six or more.
The thali £16.
05
Ring or order on the takeaway page and we quote the collection time from the clock: twenty-five minutes from now, rounded to the next five, within kitchen hours. Ten per cent off the menu price for collection. Delivery by our own driver to CF24 for £2.50, to CF23, CF14 and CF10 for £3.50, and to CF11 and CF5 for £4.50, free over a published amount in each zone, with a £15 minimum. We are not on the apps.
Collection: the menu price less ten per cent, ready in twenty-five minutes.
06
The back room seats twelve to twenty at one long table behind the carved teak screen, with its own door to the kitchen and no room hire. A set menu of four courses at £35 a head, chosen with you a week ahead from the whole menu with the heat and the diets sorted in advance; drinks from the list or a bar tab. Tuesday to Saturday evenings and Sunday lunch; a £100 deposit comes off the bill.
The set menu £35 a head for four courses, chosen a week ahead; a vegan or vegetarian version at the same price; children's plates £12.
How the kitchen works
Whole spices from a wholesaler in Birmingham, roasted and ground every Tuesday morning in a mill that is older than the restaurant. The garam masala is Kiran\'s grandmother\'s proportions and it is the smell of the room at eleven.
Three base gravies (onion, tomato, and the cashew one for the kormas) made each morning and finished to order in the pan with the spices for that dish. It is why a jalfrezi here tastes different from a madras, and why we can make either a notch hotter.
Lit at four with lumpwood charcoal and brought to four hundred degrees by five. Gas is easier and we do not use it. The bread goes on the wall and the meat on skewers; the tandoor chef does nothing else on a Saturday night.
Lamb from a butcher in Caerphilly who knows we want shoulder and shank, hake and cod from the Swansea market on Wednesdays and Fridays, chicken thigh from a farm in Monmouthshire, paneer from a dairy in Birmingham. Rice is aged basmati; it costs more and cooks better.
Book a table for dinner, the Sunday thali for six or more, or the back room for twenty on one form, with a reply within the hour while the kitchen is open. For a takeaway, the takeaway page quotes the collection time from the clock and takes ten per cent off.
