Tamarind Restaurant, Queen Street, London

"hello, can we get a reservation for two at 830pm please?"...voice on the other side.."please hold on sir, we will just check and get back to you" we waited for some 1-2 minutes..the voice came back " sir, we dont have a seat available at 830..but we got one available at 930"....this made us even more curious and wonder what they got in the restaurant. so we said "ok, we will take it".

This is an Indian restaurant called Tamarind in Queen street in Mayfair, London. Seems quite normal from outside. But you just cant get a seat without a reservation. The day before we made that call for reservation, we just walked in and they did not have a seat for 2 at 920pm on a tuesday. We were like totally surprised. Man, what is going on. This really turned on our curiousity or should we say, we fell for their marketing tactic of hard to get. Anyways, we made up our mind to go to this restaurant the next night. So, we starved ourselves the whole wednesday evening and went to the restaurant sharp 930pm. We were received by eager faces and guided to a seat in the corner of the room. It was a pretty looking restaurant filled with localites buzzing in conversations. I was really surprised to find that I could not locate a single Indian other than us in the room. We were anxious to see the menu (or prices?) to forecast how much the damage going to be to our corporate credit card.

In the meanwhile, they got us a bowl of broken papads with chutneys. It tasted pretty nice. We placed our orders. I asked for one aloo tikki, rice and dal. My colleague ordered for some nan and subji. Thats it. The basic bare minumum we ordered. First the aloo tikki came. We were really shocked to see they gave us 3 tiny pieces. But it was all nicely decorated and presented. After a long wait, the other dishes came as well. Phew, the quantity was not anything to brag about. well what about the quality. we did ask each other. well, it was ok, nothing great for the hype and prices they are driving. During our experience, we did see lot of empty seats in the room. We wondered, if it was really a fake marketing tactic of "hard to get" the other night. But it did work on us. But the question is, will we go there again?

So after the meal, we ordered for some desserts. And then, quitely asked for the bill. Damage was 76 pounds. Hmm, but overall, it was a good restaurant, but when you bring the hype into the equation, it makes it a classy restaurant with ok food, excellent presentation, pleasant ambience, friendly hosts....well, this might after all be a restaurant I would not mind bringing my non indian friends to showcase Indian experience. But, would i bring my Indian friends...well for the prices and quality, they would just hate me for bring them to such a restaurant.