The Cambridge Curry Community

Yes, the blog may only be a few weeks old but the original Cambridge Curry Crew group started four years ago today!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheCambridgeCurryCrew The first meet up was at the Kohinoor restaurant in Cambridge back in April 2010.  Strangely enough the Kohinoor is also the restaurant we plan on reviewing next for the blog by sheer coincidence.  It will be interesting to see how the place has changed, if at all, since we were last there!  Since our first meet up we have had 17 meet up's ranging from places all over Cambridge to Brick Lane in London, also Brighton and Bristol. Four more years! Kohinoor - Cambridge - 2010. April 30th. I was a terrible photographer :D                               Edmund, the bearded guest reviewer, and Sloosh, the creator!

After a disappointing visit to Tayyabs  the other night we decided to come back to Cambridge and have a more traditional meal at the Curry Queen as part of our next step in the tour of Mill Road. The Curry Queen for me has always delivered a consistent level of service for many years. I cannot ever recall having a bad meal here. But as we all know, restaurants go through good and bad times, so lets see if its managed to keep up the same level of consistency since the last time I was here.  From the outside the Curry Queen looks very basic and ordinary. No thrills here! No neon signs or bright colours...not even a fresh lick of paint. That being said, the Curry Queen has never really been about flashy gimmicks, its all about substance here. All that mattered to me was the decent hygiene rating on the front of the door! When we came in we were greeted by two casually dressed men who were incredibly warm and welcoming. They weren't dressed up like you'd norma...

After a night out in Brick Lane a few months back I ended up going back to Liverpool Street station to catch my train. I ended up talking to a lad who lived in the area who claimed to love Indian food and curry as much as I! Hard to imagine, right?  He suggested that I try going outside Brick Lane and go to a place in Whitechapel around the corner. The place he recommended was a place called Tayyabs .  He said that Brick Lane is often catering for the tourists so wasn't always the best quality. Naturally I disputed this as I have been to Brick Lane several times now and it has always been excellent. Either way, I took his word for it and decided to think about what he said. Once I got home I ended up doing a bit of home work on the place and found it to be notoriously popular with nearly everyone. It wasn't a traditional Indian either, but more of a Pakistani grill house. The Guardian reviewed it and claimed that it was one of the best places to eat in the city, whi...

The Cambridge Curry Crew are hitting Brick Lane tomorrow night - and boy are we excited!  We shall be partaking on the famous Tayyabs in Whitechapel. Famous for its Pakistani cuisine and phenomenal prices!  Our weekend does not end there though, oh no. We will be hitting the Kohinoor back in Cambridge the next day to get us one step closer to finishing off our Mill Road journey!  I don't think my digestive system will be thanking me on the Monday morning but business is business! So lots of reviews to look forward too and for me, lots of delicious cuisine to come!  Anyone in the London area tomorrow night, please feel free to join us! 

The Cambridge Curry Crew has been up for just about a week now and we have already hit a thousand page views (not including myself, naturally). A big thank you to the original Cambridge Curry Crew Facebook Group. Also thanks to Edmund and his beard reviews and also my Curry Queen 3, proof reader and grammar Nazi - Sonya Giles, for picking up trillions of mistakes and errors on my reviews.  We have had some interesting stats regarding our audience with a 1/3 of our views coming from the USA and even people from Russia, Australia and France.  Our most popular review so far is the Tour Of Ely which is tipping towards 200 views.  I couldnt have managed to reach this level of audience so quickly without the use of Twitter, which I have recently learned is a sensational tool for this type of networking. I have been networking and getting to know some great people in the Indian Food Industry through Twitter already, and though I always knew Indian cuisine was big ...

Had the pleasure of trying Kaz's in Sawston recently. I was expecting big things and they definitely delivered. It was Good Friday evening and we had reserved a table for the 4 of us. We were seated right away, and the waiter rose to tradition by placing our napkins on our laps before handing out the menus. The place is nicely laid out, and there were quite a few other customers coming and going whilst we ate. Kaz's only re-opened about 6 months ago and had been Redfort Gardens previously. I had never visited under the old management so can't really make a comparison, others have said it is now a lot better. The decor was lovely!   We placed drinks orders, which were reasonably priced and ordered a couple of poppadums each. They arrived really quickly and were fabulous, the best I've had. They provided onion salad, red coconut, lime pickle, yogurt and mango chutney. All the sides were perfectly done and of the right por...

Cafe Naz is the sister restaurant to the Brick Lane Cafe Naz in London. It is located on Castle Street and is one of the few modern style Indians which seem to be dominating the Indian restaurant scene these days.  Our very own taste of Brick Lane in Cambridge. Its hard to miss, being completely painted from head to toe in black. At night it is brilliantly lit up with blue neon lights which is quite a sight to behold. It has a large glass door on entry and black slate floors which really give it a premium feel inside and out. It is incredibly large, being two floors, and very spacious, so is easily able to hold numerous large parties at once. Its quite well known for occasionally experimenting with dishes as well as keeping with the traditional Indian cuisine. It has a buffet menu on 6 days a week with 15 items to choose from at a cost of  £6.95 . It may have a much smaller selection of food on the buffet compared to Moza or the A10 buffet in Stretham but its qual...

As you may or may not remember the other week I noticed a new Indian restaurant, which opened on Mill Rd. I was incredibly relieved as Mill Rd's Indian scene has been on the decline as of late, with three shutting down in the past year or so. Not only that, but numerous people have mentioned that the quality has been declining too. One of our more recent reviews of Golden Curry has even confirmed this. The restaurant in question today is Prana. Can it save Mill Rd from curry stagnation? Well tonight I found out! The first thing you notice about the restaurant is how easy it is to miss while walking down the street. The place looks so tiny. Don't let that deceive you though, as its deceptively large. It boasts being able to seat 50 people and this is mainly because it is much longer than it looks in the picture and also has a two floor basement, with the bottom basement having three separate rooms.  As you can see from this photo the restaurant goes quite f...

Located at the train station of Great Shelford, you'd never assume that a place so easily missed while getting off the train would actually end up being one of the top Indian restaurants around. Being slightly out of Cambridge, you might be slightly put off coming here if you live in the city, but being located right on top of the train station might make that a little easier for you. After recently moving to Ely myself, a roughly 35 minute drive, being on a train link is great for me if I ever get the curry itch for Zara! Currently sitting in the Cambridge Curry Crew's no1 spot (On its online poll)  - Zara adds class, delicacy and value to its customers. We were waiting outside the door before it opened like a couple of curry junkies needing their latest fix. The staff at Zara were kind enough to open its doors slightly early to us and they led us straight to our table. We wasted absolutely no time ordering our poppadoms...straight to business for us! We were p...

I have recently moved to the beautiful city of Ely. I love it here and it has only taken me a few days to clock all the Indians the city has to offer. It was just as well I moved really, as I was starting to run out of new places in Cambridge to try, so I have been having some great fun getting acquainted with some new establishments!  Here is a quick take of my experiences so far. Full reviews coming soon. Basmati Indian Cuisine: Take away x2 I have just tried the Basmati Indian Cuisine in Ely. A pretty mild chicken tikka vindaloo but it tastes sublime, they get the flavours and texture just right. They do a fantastic tandoori special too. The saag aloo was perfect and we even got free delivery and 20% off through Just Eat, so the value is unbeatable in the city. Delivery took exactly an hour. If you love flavour, value and a fast service then these are your guys. If you don't mind it being a little mild. I would recommend asking for it hot over the pho...