Passage to Indea Stepney

I ate at the Passage to India at 49 Mile End Road Stepney Green this evening.  In short, I would describe this as a typical fairly run of the mill white man's curry house.  It is fully licensed, carpeted and after your meal you get the obligatory hot towel and after dinner mint.

 

As starter I had a portion of Sheek kebab.  These were sizzling hot an reasonably well spiced.  Often, particularly in some of the cheaper eateries around Stepney these can taste not exactly in their prime of youth.  I am pleased to say that these, like the rest of the food here, were fresh.  They came cooked with a few onions and peppers.

For main I had a Lamb Tika Madras with Special ?Fried Rice.  This curry was fresh enough but it had a little too much tomato for my liking and while it was quite hot there was not as much real body and interesting mixed spice flavours as I would like.  The lamb was nice and tender and reasonably fresh though again it maybe could have been a little more tasty.

 

Over all I suspect there is quite a lot of packet sauce used here but it was all fresh.  Sometimes it tastes as though powdered curry mix used is old and the stuff is passed it's sell-by date or it has been kept in damp conditions.  The rice was actually quite nice.  It was lightly spiced but really flavoursome with plenty of peas and onions in it with just enough egg.

Lastly I had a brandy coffee which was a bit disappointing. the coffee was very sweet but it did not taste much of coffee.  Cheap instant coffee I would say is the order of the day here.

 

Over all the service was just about acceptable but there was little willingness to go through the menu in detail and the person who served me either didn't understand or couldn't be bothered to read any specials part of the menu there may have been.  This is all too typical so I knock off a point for this.  the total cost was £18.50 which in my opinion is average.

 

Over all, this is a reasonably tolerable place you could take someone to eat.  It's basic and may not suit a real curry lover but you won't come out of there feeling angry and resentful either.

 

Over all score: 5/10