Restaurant Review: Moti Mahal, London (3rd Visit)

Toptable had an offer giving 50% off the £30 set menu at Moti Mahal so I booked it for dinner with a friend last night.

My friend arrived first and was waiting in the little seating area next to the bar. We took the bowl of spiced cashew nuts they bought over with our drinks across to the dinner table with us and made quick work of them!

On being seated we were served a complimentary amuse bouche. This was a miniature mug of pea and mint soup topped with a teeny-tiny naan bread topped itself with a little dollop of a fresh tomato chutney. The soup was delicious and warming. Lovely.

For our starter we both had Tandoor grilled salmon with honey and dill, smoked salmon and bell pepper mousse, summer berry chutney.

This came with a small pile of mixed watercress-like leaves, some green and some dark red. The grilled salmon was incredibly moist and packed with flavour. The mousse was a good contrast to that in terms of texture and taste. And who'd have thought of such a fresh and fruity chutney to go with something like salmon but it really worked.

For my main I had Country style chicken stir fry with cashewnut and curry leaf. I asked for them not to make it too hot as my main last time was slightly too hot for my tastes. This dish was perfect. I'm not sure where the "stir fry" comes into it, perhaps just the way they finish the dish before serving. It was a creamy, tomato-based curry, not disimilar in flavours to my mum's chicken curry. But the meat was incredibly tender and delicious as were the lovely cashews. Beautiful.

My friend had Kashmiri style lamb curry with turnips and fennel and again it was delicious. Very tender chunks of lamb in what I think was a yoghurt-based sauce. Very more-ish.

Served with these were two side-dishes. The first was Stir fried aubergine with sesame seed which was very nice. The second was a small dish of potato and cumin raita, also nice.

The Tandoor baked naan bread"was fantastically soft and light. I much prefer naan to rice and so does my friend so we were happy.

Dessert was an apricot tarte, vanilla ice cream which came with a salsa of extremely finely diced apple (think 1mm cubes) with a really strong appley flavour; perhaps there was an additional concentrated juice used to boost flavour.

We were the first to arrive/ be seated and service started well but, as previously, towards the end of our meal when every table was full, it proved really difficult to get service when we wanted it.

I'd add that wine by the glass was expensive for a very small measure.

But overall we enjoyed a lovely set meal which I'd describe as reasonable value at full price; excellent value on the discounted offer.