Akbars Restaurant Review

I've heard this place is really good so when my cousin and aunt and niece invited me along I wasn't going to say no!

We arrive and the place is pretty huge. Two big wooden doors welcome you to the stunning interior full of twinkling lights, elephant statues, Buddha heads etc. The Waiter leads us to our table which is in a huge room that seats at least 100 people.



Its a bit dark in here and I worry slightly about not being able to see my food. There are real rose petals on the table, it has a very romantic feel to the place.

I have a look at the menu and order the seafood balti at £9.95, my family go for chicken balti and another chicken dish which I cannot remember.

We have a few poppadoms to start and four dips, one of which is a fresh coriander with lime and green chillies which is delicious but very spicy. The tomato and onion, raita and mango chutney are average.

The food arrives and its tasty, I cannot really see what I am eating though but it has lots of lovely coriander and the spices compliment each other well.
I'm not overly impressed because Pakistani food is the food I was brought up on and I've had better but it wasn't bad.
Theres also a huge family sized naan which is delicious with a lovely onion seed flavour.



Most of the customers are rich fur coat wearing women in their twenties or middle aged couples, theres only one Asian family in the whole dining room and a fair few children. I spot a waiter carrying some sort of chicken nuggets and chips to one child and hear happy birthday being sang along with a recording of the same song being played at the same time..except the everyones singing out of sync.

For dessert I have a rassmali, its refreshing and soothing but not really outstanding.
To be fair I had very high expectations but found it to be over hyped.



I guess I've also been spoilt with my family's wonderful Pakistani food and it would have to be very very good to beat that so yeah if you've not been brought up eating such food then I'm sure you would enjoy it very much so.
However East & West still remains my favourite Indian/Pakistani restaurant by far and the food is just outstanding.

The bill for three curries, two boiled rice, poppadoms, family sized naan and three desserts comes to just about £40.