OK, I know we took a risk having a curry in Wargrave but it has to be said parking & Wargrave just don't go together !
Where do these people park??
Anyway moving on ...! this curry house is a bit or an enigma...we have tried to go here since, err... Well since before it was called The Grand Turmeric actually. We tried (and failed) even to get a table when it was called The Curry Leaf and once, we did actually book a table and when we all rolled up, only to find it had closed for business the week before.
So actually getting in, albeit with different owners, and a new name still feels like an achievement. Even now booking does actually means waiting till they open around 6pm to even be able to book a table. They do have an answer phone but ignore the message they don't call you back!
The plan was to meet in the White Hart on the High Street (a proper pub not like the posher and frankly sterile St George & Dragon with precipitous car park The River Thames ominously beckoning your car in or is that just me?)) for a pint ...
Strangely the Hart was a bit quiet with a few 'ex-TV people' in and all loudly talking about 1970s TV programming (Thames TV? whatever happened to you?), but the monsoon outside was probably keeping people indoors, or just the lack of Wargrave parking! ...
Then stage 2 of The Plan for the night was to wander along to the impressively named Grand Turmeric. I am not totally sure but I think this place is owned by a bigger curry house chain.. But the website was a bit vague.. But the hint of a central booking service suggests it might be.
It is however a small place with limited parking and a upmarket feel ... Somehow very fitting for POSH Wargrave - I am sure the rowing club approves... It fits well in the target demographic as the marketing experts would say.
It is shall we same small and cosy inside, you definitely could feel you were sitting a little too close to other tables is you ask us. But as we were a noises crowd I felt bad for the locals out for a quite meal...you don't want a loud bunch of chaps in that night I guess.
But this curry house is a first for the FFCC - this is the first place we have ever had our order taken on an iPad - I suppose we will see more of that soon. It didn't seem to either
1) speed things up - took 45 minutes to get our starters, or
2) improve accuracy they messed up 3 orders out of 8....! C'Mon guys!!
The food is not standard it has lovely twists being sweeter in general and creamier than many curry houses and to be honest there isn't a massive choice, when it arrives it looks good though, portion size are shall we say.... respectable bit not large quantities ...
On little pointer - the menu is all rather confused...leaving you never really knowing if you need side dishes, or if you need additional rice etc and the waiter serving us offered no advice... Could be why Tom ended up with a Naan style bread and a mainly potato based main course... To his surprise!
The food does looks hand made and not churned from pots but in that lies the problem. Small restaurants like this suffers to cope when 8 guys turn up because they aren't geared up for large orders better aimed at couples so you always suffer if you are in bigger groups, and in our experience many restaurants don't change how they operate to cope with the clientele in that evening. Lesson to all curry houses out there we would say. The GT suffered here, they want to deliver everything at the same time so someone's starter clearly is sitting around for a long time while they carefully prepare the rest...Hmmm suggest you need more than one chef?
The people are friendly but almost too reserved they could 'sell' the food more as some is scrumptious but our scores reflected the problem with small restaurants and large groups scale just stumps them.
Scores on her night :
Ed - 6.5
Juan - 6
Nick - 7
Gavin - 5.5
Ian - 6
James - 6
Tom - 4
Pete - 7
With an overall 6 this puts TGT in the low twenties on our lists now. A good little restaurant really, but not enough attention to detail drop the iPad and get the orders right is our tip.
Good place for a couples night out though e would say.
For our regular readers we aren't getting together this month...November is always a little strange month because of that chap Guido Fawke messing around with Parliament all those years ago and you know we British love a good firework display....
