When it comes to Indian restaurants, I’m usually extremely loyal.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve marked my birthday with a madras at Royal Balti House in Farnworth, and I’ve previously written about the insanely good value of their happy hour menu.
However, when I heard that I could get ‘all-I-can-eat’ for £29.99 at the newly opened Royal Nawaab in Stockport, my interest was well and truly piqued.
Buffet restaurants can be quite overwhelming so before heading down the M60, I checked out the menu online and made a list of all the dishes I wanted to try in the notes app of my phone.
Walking through the entrance of the grandiose (and quite frankly, demented) Stockport Pyramid in which Royal Nawaab is based, it’s hard not to be impressed by the opulence of the place.
The venue, which is probably best known as being a Co-Operative Bank office building for 23 years, had a £15 million refurbishment prior to the Nawaab opening its glass doors back in April. As well as marble floors and lush carpets, there are chandeliers, water fountains and palm trees all dotted around.
Despite being around 30 minutes late (owing to a gridlocked M60) Mrs Molloy and I were greeted very warmly and taken through to the restaurant. As we walked, our server briefly explained the layout of the buffet and the ordering process.
I went in fully intending to pace myself but I can never resist a couple of poppadoms and then I also loaded up on quite a few of the very carby starters, such as the onion pakora, lamb chapli kebab, fish masala and the lightly battered masala chips.
They were (predictably) very stodgy but I wasn’t particularly blown away by the flavours in any of them either.
But the star of the show for me is usually the curry itself and this is where I’d pre-planned most in my notes app. Unfortunately, quite a few of the menu items listed on the website weren’t on offer on the day we visited so this slimmed my list down considerably.
In the end I ended up trying the daal makhani and karahi lamb, as well as going for a couple of my favourites; chicken madras and butter chicken.
The karahi lamb – marinated in yoghurt and spices, cooked with fresh onions, green chillies, ginger, tomatoes, garlic and coriander and served on the bone – was probably the star of the show. The lamb melted off the bone and the flavour was deep and rich, with the spice giving it a warming quality, rather than just blowing my head off.
Butter chicken is usually a safe bet and I enjoyed the first few mouthfuls of this one immensely. However, as can be the case with that dish, it can become a bit sickly after a while.
I love daal. I actually cook a mean red lentil daal and it would probably be my main course on Come Dine With Me, so I see myself as something of a connoisseur. This daal makhani was fine but not a patch on Dishoom’s exceptional black daal or the daal that I can cook myself.
This also brings me to one of my biggest disappointments of my visit. The menu on Royal Nawaab’s website listed naan options such as keema, kulcha and peshawari (my personal favourite) but they only had plain naan on display and you had to ask if you wanted a garlic naan as they were cooking them to order. Although I appreciated having a fresh garlic naan to mop my daal up with, an Indian buffet where you can have a slice of pizza or some lasagne but not peshawari naan is a bizarre concept to me.
The chicken madras was also a bit of a let down, seemingly prioritising heat over flavour; Royal Balti House’s madras crown is safe for now.
Having left just enough room for dessert, I was quite excited to try some of the more exotic ones that I’ve never heard of before.
From my visits to Chaiiwala in Bolton, I’m already a fan of gulab jamun but the shahi tukra (pieces of fried bread soaked in sweetened milk and syrup and topped with nuts) and umm ali (traditional Egyptian bread pudding made with flaky pastry sheets, pistachios, almonds and raisins) also jumped off the menu page.
I did enjoy the flavour of both but couldn’t get past the texture of either dish. If we’re splitting hairs, I also didn’t like the fact that the dessert wasn’t self-serve.
Another minor criticism is that the toilets are an absolute trek away from the restaurant floor. It’s a huge building so this is somewhat understandable but let’s be honest for a second, if there’s one type of restaurant where you want the toilet to be close by in case of emergency, it’s probably an Indian.
However, one thing I was really impressed with during my visit was the efficiency of the waiting staff – every time I got back from ordering more food, our plates had been cleared. It does feel like a really slick operation and it must allow them to get tables in and out relatively quickly.
I am glad to have experienced it but sadly it didn’t quite live up to my (admittedly high) expectations and I doubt I’ll be making the trip to Stockport for a second visit anytime soon.