We love Indian cuisine and have been to 12 other restaurants. We still have plenty others to visit. I’ve always been a fan of Indian food, but it took a while to get Amen convinced as he doesn’t eat carbs and thought it was a carb overload cuisine. Finally, I managed to get him to go to Trishna and I haven’t been able to stop him finding more. He found out about Tandoor Chop House a while ago on our way to Barrafina Adelaide Street.
Tandoor has a stripped back décor with empty wooden walls, Amen described the restaurant feeling like an old pub turned restaurant. The kitchen is open with a glass to avoid the fiery smoke coming through to the restaurant. Our reservation was for 7pm on Friday and it was fully booked. The food is essentially a play on a British grill restaurant but using Indian spices as well as using a tandoor instead of a grill. The menu is simple, short and consists of a lot of meaty dishes with some fish and veggie options. Some plates are small and good for sharing while others are slightly larger.
What we ordered
We ordered the chickpea chat from snacks and the seekh kebab roll from small plates. From the tandoor I had the house tandoor chicken and Amen had the crispy lamb chops. Amen also ordered the Tandoori Quail which was a chop house special. For sides I added the tomato & smashed kachumber salad. From the naans, I had the butter naan and Amen had the beef keema naan special.
That sounds alot! Our waitress thought so too, and she stopped us half way through ordering, but we were adamant we could handle it.
Review of the food
Snacks & Small Plates
The Chickpea Chat for me was not all that special and I’ve definitely had better but Amen enjoyed it a lot more than I did. It had good flavour and was a good light snack to get us going.
The Seekh Kebab Roll was delicious. I loved it. It did remind me of an excellent kebab grill I used to go to. It came with a naan bread and green chutney on top. Amen loved it as well.
At this point we were happy with the food. The flavour was good in both but the seekh kebab was slightly spicier but not too spicy.
Tandoor
The house tandoor chicken is a half chicken (Leg and breast), one of the larger dishes they have. It was nice, but it was just grilled chicken and I couldn’t taste any Indian spices. I had to use the green herb & chili chutney it came with, especially when it came to the breast. The breast was not as dry as I thought it would be, but I still needed the chutney.
Amen had the lamb chops and he loved it. It was the best lamb chops he’s had, even better than Gymkhana. He thought it was delicious and spicy. He loves it spicy and it reminded him of Nigerian Suya spice.
Amen also had the Tandoori quail, he thought it was good but the texture of it took some getting used to. It was small as you’d expect from quail so there wasn’t that much meat on it. It was also the least spicy out of the three Tandoor’s.
Naans
We love, love, love fresh bread. The butter naan and the beef keema naan were delicious. Amen loved the keema naan and he made into a roll which made it even better.
Dessert?
There’s a selection of desserts, and we would have had the “Nutella” Naan but at this point we had way too much bread. We decided not to have it and save ourselves for popcorn at the cinema later.
Verdict
We definitely enjoyed our Tandoor Chop House experience. It’s different to other Indian restaurants as there are no curries. I love a curry and I didn’t like that there wasn’t any, but Amen loves grilled meats so we gave it ago. Amen loved the restaurant more than I did, but the food is good, and you would definitely be satisfied. I wouldn’t say it is entirely authentically Indian (although Amen disagrees), but there are hints of it and some dishes are more Indian spiced than others. The restaurant is ideal for casual dinners and dates, groups and work dinners.
Cuisine: Indian
Dress Code: Casual
Shiima’s Star Dish: The Seekh Kebab Roll
Amen’s Star Dish: The crispy lamb chops
Price: £30 each
Rating: 4 out of 5
Tandoor Chop House
8 ADELAIDE STREET
LONDON WC2N 4HZ
Call to book 020 3096 0359 or email ADELAIDESTREET@TANDOORCHOPHOUSE.COM
http://tandoorchophouse.com
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