"Hardly Indian"
A review of Poppadom Express by Arthur Ma - Wednesday 23rd of April 2008
Since the place literally had an entrance at the Royal National Hotel there was no way we could’ve missed it. The décor was well-lit and roomy but not very Indian, which could be a good or bad point depending on how you see it. We went for a Saturday lunch and we practically had the place to ourselves. There was a bar which we didn’t utilise but must be useful to drop into during evenings.
For a buffet, it was disappointingly limited. The fact that I can list all of the starters is a bad thing: spicy chicken wings, fried cod in batter, cheesy bites, some other form of fried bread, tortilla chips and poppadoms (of course!). There was a decent range of chutneys at salads: mango, chilli, mint, and one which was so disgustingly strong that surely only Indian can enjoy?
For the mains, there were 5 types of curries but two of which were vegetarian. The mild chicken tikka masala was dry and lacked variety in spices. The medium lamb rogan josh was an improvement. Finally there was a prawn curry which had a surprisingly lot of prawns but were disappointing overcooked so that they became tough. There was just one pot of basmati rice to go with everything.
You know it’s a bad thing when you start including the aesthetics of their fruit tray as a good point. I was quite impressed by the variety and colourfulness but really they could’ve spent more time adding to the food range. We had to return to the starters since we ran out of new thing to try so quickly.
The staff were all so welcoming and efficient that I didn’t mind paying a tip at all. At £9 (including service) for a lunchtime buffet including a drink, it was about average for a London meal. I’m glad I visited it once but I won’t do so again unless I was in the area and desperately hungry.
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