As an Englishman living abroad I was keen to get a footing on the Indian restaurants in & around Victoria for a weekend visit during January 2011, & so read all the relevant customer reviews I could find. Great Eastern Tandoori came up trumps on many websites, encouraging me to make the necessary half hour walk from my hotel to reacquaint myself with this marvellous, effervescent cuisine. Firstly, nobody mentioned that this is a cellar restaurant, with no natural light, lending itself prone to mildew corners & musty alcoves customary in all old basement rooms; but having abseiled down the 1/1 entrance staircase & past the glower of the waiting barman, we managed to throw a six & place our order. Our starters came promptly & were hot but needed lots of salt. After a half hour snooze by all concerned, our main course selection arrived & was also nice & hot but needed even more salt. Our garlic nan was like a Pringle – unsalted obviously, so pretty soon we demanded a new salt cellar & a compress for our pouring arm. The food looked great, but after swallowing, deposited a strong film of cheap grease across ones palate totally masking whatever flavours our constant re-seasoning had bullied into life. This was quite untrue of the lamb tikka however, which could not be swallowed…or cut…or drilled probably. Clearly this was mutton & not lamb & sadly had to be left. The gents’ loo obviously bore no interest to the owner, his cleaner or his plumber, but having once spent some time in Bombay – what can I say: It was certainly authentic!

I am totally in love with Great Eastern Tandoori. If it were a person I would marry it. But it isn’t, it’s just a restaurant. But not ‘just’ a restaurant – it’s the Great Eastern Tandoori and it rules!