| | Spice Garden - November 2006
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The summary review is shown below.
Summary
The start of our 6th year of curry club meetings!
So our first club outing to Olney and the Spice Garden,
certainly a little more of a hike and thanks to Graeme and Reg for giving a lift
to the majority of the members.
We met at the Two Brewers pub which was ok although another
pub right on the square looked a bit roomier and more appealing. Anyway,
it served its purpose and we moved onto the Spice Garden which is tucked off the
high street in a small commercial block which includes the Co-op.
Overall results were ok but not special. Overall score
was 18.0 which perhaps was marked down a bit due to the location (a long way
from MK!) and of course cost which we will come onto.
Members seemed to be polarised into one of two camps; are you
prepared to pay a bit extra to eat in Olney (assuming you live there) or do you
drive into MK and pay a bit less but with the inconvenience of driving.
Graeme has written a detailed review:
It’s a long time since I’ve written a personal review on
an MKCurry Club visit. I usually let the general scores do the talking,
unless I think there’s a message to get across to the general public or the
restaurant itself.
So, picture the scene. We’re in Olney; we’re all happy having a drink in the
local pub; it’s Andy’s birthday; and we’re going for a curry!
We had been to Olney before on one of our Curry Camps when we stayed at
Emberton. That day, we’d gone into town early to talk to restaurateurs about
ordering a take-away for 40 people. We looked at the Spice Garden, but if I
recall, there was no one there. We found a little take away called either
the Bengal or the Bengal Tiger and talked to the manager. “Can you do a take
away for 40 people in about 3 hours time?” After he picked himself up off
the floor and £300 pounds later (so, what’s that, £7.50 a head?) and a bunch
of free naans, veggie dishes, wine thrown in he probably prepared himself to
close up early and watch TV for the night. And, when the time came, we
collected the food, took it back to Emberton – and it was mighty good. We
left with a great impression of Olney curry.
So, it was with great expectations that many of us had returned, this time
to actually go to Spice Garden (we could have chosen the Four Pillars, which
seems to get more press, but the general consensus we could find was that
Spice Garden was better).
So, the restaurant is a bit off the track in a “unit” area that also
includes a Co-op. It was a nice modern décor inside with good lighting,
which was unobtrusive. It seemed reasonably busy all the time we were there,
so our hopes were high.
Having got seated and put the drinks order in, we had to get the waiters
attention to order popadums…not a good sign. Nor was it a good sign that we
had a least one more drink before they turned up! Nor was it a good sign
that most of the meals seemed to be £1 or £2 more on the menu than one would
normally expect to pay!
The starters came after a longer than most would have liked interval and
took a long time to get them all to the table…there was only 12 of us – it
really shouldn’t be that difficult. I think the general consensus for the
quality of the starters was “OK. Not great, but OK.” [NB – I apologise to
those at the other end of the table to me because I could not speak to them
as they were too far away and it was quite noisy (Scott?) and their starters
may have been excellent]. I had the onion bhajee – traditional bench mark
for a new restaurant. First of all, they were flat, not balls. OK, I can let
them off that. They were also not oily – which is good. They were a bit
floury and a little flavourless. So I suppose again, they were OK. Not
great, but OK.
Then a long interval between starters and main course and a long time again
to get the food on the table. Oh, and by the way, it’s obviously a
requirement in the Spice Garden that you should do the waiters job of moving
hot dishes around on hot plates so that they can put your meal down. The
staff were attentive during the wait – although a few more smiles would have
been nice. I had lamb dhansak. The meat was not as tender as many
restaurants we’ve been to – a lot of it seemed “dry”. The veggie dishes were
variable in quality and the keema naan was OK (yes, you guessed it, the meal
was OK, not great, but OK).
Then, before we got the bill we were offered free drinks on the house. This
is something that I notice happens in restaurants when the bill is going to
be bigger than expectations. I wish that we’d get a 10% discount for a party
of twelve rather than free drinks, as the extra drinks don’t make a bill
more palatable!
Value for money is, for me, the most important objective we have as the
MKCurry Club to get across to the general public. Does the price you pay for
your meal match up to the quality of the food you had. In my opinion, the
Spice Garden didn’t.
So, a message for the people of Olney? If you want a good and reasonably
priced curry, get a take away from the Bengal. If you want a sit down meal,
drive 10 minutes down the road to Newport Pagnell and go to the Indian
Cottage or Mysore. For those in Milton Keynes, don’t make the journey,
there’s no reason to stray past the plethora of decent restaurants in and
around the city. For those in neither town, but looking to go to a good
Indian restaurant, go to the Spice Garden by all means, but fill your wallet
first and settle down for a long night for OK, not great, but OK food.
| Item |
Score |
| Location |
 |
| Ambience |
 |
| Food |
|
| Service |
|
| Value
for Money |
|
| Cleanliness |
|
| TOTAL |
18.0 |
Other Comments
Here are a
selection of comments from the score sheets from the evening:
- Restaurant off the beaten track
- Nicely decorated
- Flat onion bhajee - OK but not the best
- Waiters attentive , but long between courses
- Very expensive
- Good to see something different on the menu
- Very good dips and poppadoms
- Nice food, long time coming
- Tasty Himalaya lamb dish with peppers
- Other lamb dishes less tasty
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