Ad's eats: Brilliant Restaurant, Southall, Middlesex

Food: Indian
Contact details:
72-76 Western Road, Southall, Middlesex UB2 5DZ
www.brilliantrestaurant.com

We visited The Brilliant in Southall, Middlesex, today. As I grew up in nearby Hayes, I was miffied that during my time there, my parents had never taken me here, as it had a good rep even back in the early 80s - it is actually a Southall institution, having been in the same area since the early 70s. As Southall is one of the demographically "Indian" suburbs in Britain, let alone London, calling your restaurant The Brilliant in this environment is almost a taunt: "come, criticise me, tell me I'm not brilliant, tell me I'm rubbish". In its favour, it has won plenty of awards. But the only award that matters to us (insofar we came from distant suburban East London to be here) is what we think of it. Will we return? Will we recommend it to our friends? Was it in fact, brilliant?

Let's find out.

Firstly, the guide dog situation. It is really, really difficult to eat Indian or Chinse while being accompanied by a guiding beast. There is a point, after you've had maybe the third or forth row about whether the dog is allowed in, when you just assume that you will go into an eating establishment, all guns blazing. Though I refuse to take nonsense from anyone about this (to refuse a guide dog is breaking the law and ignorance is no defence in my opinion). Not a problem in The Brilliant, perhaps aided by the fact that one of the staff was obviously a dog lover and wanted to pet Nicki the Labrador while she was being good beneath the table. They get a huge brownie point for the no-fuss welcome. What a relief.

The decor here is cool but in a friendly, inviting way, with dark wooden floorboards, spotlights and a clean, no-fuss style that doesn't intimidate but still has enough sophistication, suggesting this interior design has been thought through. No job lot tables here - everything is in dark brown and dark orange. All just-so. (9 out of 10).

Our service was friendly and the food arrived in a timely manner without any hanging around (a pet hate of mine is being left for ages after the main course before your dessert order is taken). Service then was brisk and polite. (9 out of 10).

We ordered poppadoms as a pre-starter. I tend to find that a good, crisp, not-too-greasy poppadom indicates how the rest of the meal will turn out I was right on this occasion, as we'll see. By the way, we ordered spicy poppadoms and blow me down, they were peppery. Fortunately, we both love pepper and there are plenty of chutneys to dump them in to assist sweetening them up and bringing down the heat level a bit.

Our starters were tilapia fish pakora (9 out of 10). The high mark is given for the light batter made of gram flour, which didn't in any way kill off the delicate flavour of the fish. I had meat samosas, filled with finely minced lamb. I give these 7 out of 10 - better than average and good quality meat.

For the main course, we had a lamb curry which Lynn described as basic but tasty and awarded it 6 out of 10. I had the lamb masala which on the menu, was described as coming with a thick sauce flavoured with ginger, tomato and garlic. It left nothing to be desired: this was a dish delivered exactly what was promised. I can barely think of anything to fault it on and will give it a full 10 out of 10 because it really was that good. Bravo. If my stomach had been any larger I would have gone for second helpings.

Desert was a better than average pistachio kulfi which I'll give 7 marks for. It was served on an unusual long plate which didn't do anything for the flavour, but did add a little interest presentation-wise.

So overall, was the Brilliant, brilliant. I think so. It is one of those establishments where you think every award was justified and gained from hard work and attention to detail, as well as old fashioned customer service, rather than from "I'll scratch your back if you give me a plaudit" mentality. There are few Indian restaurants this good in my view and I would go there far more often if only had the fortune to live closer.

Finally, if you are interested in finding what what good places there are to eat at, places that also have good accessiblity (eg, guide dog friendly, helpful staff when it comes to menu reading, etc) then may I recommend the Access-Eat blog written by Graham Page. It can be found at:

http://access-eat.blogspot.com/

it mainly concentrates on restaurants and pubs in east and central London with occasional soirees to the home counties too.

Heston's pie: suck on this

When I think of Heston, being an ex-Westie, I think of the service station on the M4 not a million miles away from my childhood home of Hayes, Middx. That, and perhaps, the book "Crash" by JG Ballard, set in and around this area, though a somewhat fictitiously located Northolt and Shepperton are also mentioned in this novel. Anyhow, I digress...

Heston, for the purposes of this blog entry, is a reference to Heston Blumenthal, owner of the Fat Duck in Bray, near Maidenhead, where they apparently use Bunsen burners, chloroform and nitrous oxide as part of cooking methodology. Waitrose hired him to create some of their not so cheap pies. And so he has. These are housed in wee boxes, right next door in the chill cabinet to the normal Ginsters pasties, porkie pies and other cooked pastry-with-meat delights.

I like pies. People who know me know this. And I know what I like in pie. A pie must have good, slightly crispy but not burnt pastry, with copious butter mixed in. And the filling should be loaded high, with lots of what it says on the packet contained within. If it says steak, one chunk of ratty crap is not good enough. No, there should be whole cow buried therein. Pie Minister pies have certainly got what it takes, though you may need an extension on the mortgage to purchase one.

And so be the case equally with Heston's creation. The filling - in this case chicken, bacon and leek - was plentiful, with loads of cream and a good dash of tarragon for flavour. All in all, a happy sort of pie. The sort of pie to come and see you, make me smile. But there is a dark side.

Remember, I mentioned that this this pie was in the chiller cabinet? Well, what I think when I buy a pie from such a location is that the pie is cooked. Well, it wasn't. I ate the pie on the tube after spending far too long travelling and becoming rather hungry. This evening's tubes were rubbish and my hunger was increasing. So I popped open the pie box and found....

....raw frigging pastry. Raw pastry. Yes, it was raw. And it was glutinous, sticky and - yes, I say it again without shame - raw. The filling wasn't. That's the weird thing. Naturally, by this point, my hunger was that of a rabid wildebeest deprived of zebra for maybe three or four months. It had to be eaten. It was, and I quited liked the filling.

But Heston, old son, old pal, old bean. Puh-LEEEZE tell us on the box that the thing needs slinging in the oven for 30 minutes (a fact I discovered by my second bite) before committing it to mouth.

I can't grade this pie out of ten simply because I've never eaten such a weird one. I'll give it a go though:

Filling: 8
Pastry: 1

If you can beat this pie eating experience, please let me know by popping a comment on this post.

The blog is back!

Back on the blogger at last, having been a WordPress kinda guy (with the travel blog). Hope to see you soon.