Nothing new at Cafe East

This review was published in July 2001.

Café East proudly announces itself as a purveyor of 'Contemporary Indian Cuisine'. Striking cobalt blue and neon design suggest a radical take on the curry house.

But this is mutton dressed as lamb: despite scouring the laminated menu, we couldn't find anything to differentiate it from any other flock palace. (Unless you count the hilarious food descriptions: one dish contained succulent bullies pieces of chicken; chicken makhani - which I ordered - was eulogised as barbecued chicken tossed in butter with cultured Gillett. Our waiter admitted that, despite his years in the business, he'd never encountered a cultured Gillett.)

Main courses are trundled out on a Heath Robinson-ish contraption with gas burner and wafted over it before being served; pointless doesn't even come into it. I bet the staff just love that innovation. But, if you ignore the nonsense, the food's very good in a basic kind of way. Chot poti, chickpeas Bangladeshi-style, were tender, alive with spices and fresh coriander; fish amritsari was a bit like a curried version of something from Cap'n Birds Eye. Korai Gosth Khybery (sic) was excellent: good lamb in a deeply savoury mush of onions, peppers, tomatoes and zingy spices.

My makhani was a soupy, lily-livered korma-alike: quite pleasantly anodyne. Breads and rice were serviceable. My credit card bill (for an eminently reasonable £42) read not Café East, but Simla Restaurant; simla to hundreds of others, I guess that would be.

Cafe East
2-4 Station Crescent, Blackheath, SE3