{London] NY Times article on Indian restaurants

[Kelly]

Mark Bittman singled out these four restaurants in an article on "no-fuss" "Indian" restaurants in London:

Cafe Spice Namaste
Sitaaray
New Tayyabs
Chor Bizarre

http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/...

Tayyabs gets lots of Chowhound love, but I don't recall -- and the search function confirms -- seeing anything about the others. Any thoughts/recent visits?

The colleague who brought me to Dishoom a few weeks ago loves Chor Bizarre, so we might end up there next week.

[limster]

Went to Cafe Spice Namaste a few years ago, was good not great: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/616953

Ate well at New Tayyabs recently; standout was the excellent shami kebab.

Have only been to Chor Bizarre for their rendition of their afternoon tea with some savoury items and it was ok: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/613242

I would recommend:
Truly Indian for Punjabi on Borough High Street (steps from Borough Market
)Ragam for dosa (Bloombury)
Indian YMCA (also Bloomsbury)
Elephant Cafe for Pakistani (Brixton Village)

And obviously the various places in East Ham that various chowhounds, especially Jfores, have been picking out.

[JFores]

What is "no fuss" about Cafe Spice Namaste or Chor Bizarre? The prices are insane at both.

I can't really speak for the food at CSN, Chor or Sitaaray, but I don't see what his opinion of Tayyabs is based on. Possibly the best lamb chops anywhere? Fantastic dal? Both are pretty much the same quality as what you'd get at your average high street Kebabish or general Pakistani grill place (which are a dime a dozen outside of Central London.) The only reason anyone talks about Tayyabs is because of how central it is and because their seekh kebabs are good.

[Harters]

I'd never heard of Bittman till a couple of weeks ago but I understand he's been spending some time in the UK (which presumably means just London :-0 ). He did an episode of Radio 4's Food Programme about "campaigning chefs". Interesting to hear a foreigner's take on things.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017c8gr

[howler]

i think vir has been reading me

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Lifesty...

[Harters]

Interesting article, H.

I'm particularly drawn to its premise that, within a cuisine, there's a place for traditional cooking and there's a place for good innovative cooking.

[howler]

i have always maintained that innovation from evolution is wonderful. but the blatant attempt to frenchify is just cynical.

on a separate note, you will note that vir makes several points that i have been rating on for years about - even some phrases. so i'm not entirely joking when i say he's been reading chowhound.

[Harters]

Fully accept your point about trying to Frenchify. It seems so peculiar for Indian restaurants to do this in Britain at a time when British restaurants have just about managed to shrug off the need to do so.