Saturday, July 19, 2008

Spice Club, Tunbridge Wells


37 Mount Ephraim,
Tunbridge Wells TN4 8AA Map

The Spice Club in Tunbridge Wells is part of the chain of restaurants that include Alishan in Tonbridge and the Spice Club in Sevenoaks. They all offer a more contemporary kind of Indian restaurant experience, with well presented food and tidy, nicely decorated interiors.

The menu is quite varied, with most of the old favourites, with some new dishes. The main course menus don't mention any vegetarian dishes except for a vegetable biryani, but I'm sure that they could rustle something up, as the menu says that "if you would like a dish that is not on our menu, please ask our staff..."

The vegetable side dishes can be ordered in a main course size if you so wish, and some of those sound quite interesting, such as spinach dumplings in tomato and fenugreek sauce and stuffed baby aubergines in a spicy peanut sauce.

After some poppadoms, I had spiced potatoes and garlic mushroom. This consisted of several nicely spiced potato balls and thinly sliced mushrooms and salad. It was very tasty and well presented.

Next I had the vegetable biryani (pictured above) and a side of the aforementioned aubergines in peanut sauce. The biryani was quite tasty - there was plenty of it too - and the aubergines were beautifully tender and the peanut sauce was nice, but could've been a tad more spicy for me. None the less, overall it was all pretty good.
For dessert, I had a halva with various crushed nuts and, again, it was presented very nicely and tasted good.

The service was very friendly and prompt, and the whole experience was very enjoyable. As it's quite close to us, I can see it becoming a regular choice when we fancy a curry.

No comments: