The Coriander : Bourne End..could do better

We were quite excited about going to the new Coriander freshly opened in Bourne End... especially as booking online via the Curries Online service was a first for us... ominous text messages backing up the service tell you that "you do not need to confirm this booking with the restaurant?!"

We met at The Firefly pub  nearby, which has had a bit of a lick of paint recently and is the better for it and enjoyed a rather good Marlow Breweries pint of IPA and then off into the cold night for a short wander to The Coriander.

With the Viceroy just 4 doors away (and a popular restaurant with the curry club - one of two we have returned to three times) so we all felt a little unfaithful popping into The Coriander...but we shouldn't have been as the Coriander got a very average vote from the members...6.85 which places this curry house in the bottom half of our league table.

It has to be said the ambiance and decor are good, the place does have a vide and they have a good location but the food was a real let down for the members with a few complaints of well presented but bland flavouring... and if you aren't a king prawn appreciator your choice gets pretty limited.  The service was sadly very slow, with a very long wait for us between course but the staff were helpful and didn't miss anything from the order so a tick there.

The problem was they allowed 8 guys in late on when they were clearly very busy and they seemingly only had 2 waiters on duty for 20 tables... a tough one for them ...which showed in the service.  All in all this led to a pretty slow evening.

The food... well in fairness mine personal dishes were absolutely fine but the vast consensus of members on the night was that the food was just bland and pretty ordinary. With local competition from the Last Viceroy so close that should impact them...but the place was busy.

Popular dishes were the Jhal Puri and many had the Noorjahani dishes which were very varied in flavouring... king prawn good, chicken bland.  But the sundries were good, nice bhajis and lentils, but that doesn't make up for the mains being pretty lower rent dishes.

Will we be going back ... probably only after we have tried a few others.  The Coriander Group has several outlets and one pretty near by in Amersham...we will try that and see if that (being a little longer established) is better...watch this space.