Ayo Gurkhali

Things move fast in the apparently sleepy sleeper town of Wilmslow. The curry house we visited for Simon's "not" stag do back in July - Garlic Spice - had closed down when we gathered again for the monthly curry last month. Clearly their Summer Special was TOO good a deal!

But lo! Now it has re-opened under another name, and with a fetching purple neon frontage. It's "Ayo Gurkhali" now. Which, when I Googled it to see if anyone else had written a review, I discovered is the Gurkha's war cry of "The Gurkhas are coming!" (or "the Gurkhas are here!" depending on which source you trust).

Well they're certainly here alright. Here being Wilmslow, and Nepalese cuisine being what they're all about. Dressed very smartly in what I took to be Gurkha outfits and attentive without being servile or pushy, the waiters introduced the various Nepalese dishes and made helpful suggestions when called for, but otherwise left us alone to "enjoy" the strange music while we pondered our menu choices.

After a short while drooling over the delights of the chef's specials (they do a range of more traditional curries - madras, jalfrezi, etc - but fully half the menu is devoted to "proper" Nepalese dishes, which we all chose in the end. Well... there's not much point going to a Nepalese restaurant and having a chicken vindaloo, is there?) we discovered that the new restaurant also had a meal deal on. Slightly more expensive at £11.95 than the Garlic Spice's Summer Special - which hopefully will mean they make enough profit to stay in business - the deal included poppadums, starter, main, rice or naan, coffee or tea. Another bargain! Although once I'd waded my way through all that, I found myself wishing I'd paid only a few pence less and missed out the starter. Once again I was full to the point of pain. Will I ever learn?

It was worth it though. The food - uniformly excellent - arrived in REAL PORCELAIN serving dishes! Which came as a very pleasant surprise to someone who's used to having his curry served in the rather more traditional battered tin bowl sat atop a tea-light-fired heater. No heaters here - the porcelain kept the meals hot enough - and each meal had a different, intriguingly-shaped dish! Nice heavy modern cutlery too - not something that looks like it was stolen from Boots' canteen. All these little touches add up to a much classier and more refined experience than "yer usual curry house" and guaranteed we would be back to explore the extensive menu in greater depth next time.

I chose Gurkhali Cham Cham for my main course and I can't begin to tell you how good it was, except that it contains most of my favourite herbs and spices and came with some of the fluffiest boiled rice I've ever tasted. Brilliant. I'm already thinking about what I'll have on my next visit.