Cheap Eats: East India, Surbiton

When Neil and I first moved to the sunny suburbs of Surbiton we were immediately impressed by the array of decent restaurants. The one thing that we were missing was a curry house. Now, that's not to say that there aren't many curry houses - there are several. The problem was that were used to finer things when we lived in Clapham. Namely, the best curry in the world - from The Holy Cow in Balham. We tried out a few local-ish Indian takeaways and we found a few that were decent enough, but none of them met our expectations.

Now you may be wondering where this is going and I will throw it out there now that East India on Brighton road is no Holy Cow. Not even close. However, we didn't give it a chance at first, due to our quest to find the new perfect curry. Then along came Maya, also on Brighton road. A clean, more expensive fine Indian food restaurant. Bingo, we have our 'posh' India restaurant.

Now - why not try the really cheap looking one? I say it looks cheap, this is mostly because of the large poster in the window exclaiming that your curry will be half price if you pay in cash. ("Dodgy" often being the first response from first time visitors). Neil, in fact, wouldn't even let me take my camera in incase they thought I was the taxman (do taxpersons carry camera's around with them?).

The decor is faded and it's rather dark inside. The staff are attentive and busy, the restaurant is usually fairly packed on a saturday night. The booze is also cheap, they haven't pumped up the price just because the food is ludicrously cheap.

I've tried a variety of curries from East India and I would say a general rule is the spicier the curry the better. That said, none of them are 'that' spicy (and they occasionally have charged an extra 50p for asking for extra spice!). On my most recent visit I chose a prawn dansak with bombay aloo, peshwari naan and veg samosa.

I was never really much of a dansak girl. I would say if I was a standard curry I was always more of a jalfraezi, or sometimes a madras. Of recent, however, the dansak has become my favourite (the times they are a-changing).

It was nice, not the best curry you'll ever have but for £10 ahead with beers included... Pretty good value.

I don't know if I'd really call this a review, more of a nod for East India. I would always choose Maya above East India for a Surbiton curry, but if you're looking for a very cheap night out - then there's nothing wrong with this little place.

There are so many reviews on the internet, sometimes I just want to know that the cheap place down the road isn't shit.