Poppadom…Or PoppaGone?

Review of Chaakoo Bombay Cafe, St Vincent Street, Glasgow.

Date of visit: 16th June 2022

....The original Bombay cafés otherwise known as Irani cafés, were opened by the Persian & Irani immigrants who came to India in the 19th century. Irani cafés were popular for Irani chai tea and a melting pot menu of classic Iranian grill dishes & classic Bombay dishes alike.

At Chaakoo we strive to keep this authentic feel and style of Indian cooking as similar as possible to the original Bombay Cafés, complete with the odd little flourish of added Chaakoo style....

The OCC is a well-respected Institution with multiple international franchises. The OCC takes pride in searching out the finest Indian restaurants and providing impartial reviews of Curry Houses all over the world. Members vote anonymously without being influenced by other members (we call this “no swaying”) on 5 categories, and an average score out of a maximum 10 is given to each restaurant we review. Restaurants must score an average of 7/10 or above to receive the OCC sticker of recommendation. All OCC members have been through a rigorous selection process to gain entry into the Club. In short, we all know our curries.

Do we enjoy appointing the club to judicially appoint the scores? I’ll let you, the reader, be the judge of that!

Quality: 7

Value: 7.17

Atmosphere: 7.13

Service: 6.17

Customer Care: 7

With an overall average score of 6.89, Chaakoo Bombay Cafe, is NOT approved by The OCC, Scotland.

We arrived in anticipation, as it had been several weeks since our previous curry outing.

Early impressions were good, the restaurant was lively and busy for a Thursday evening, however the general feeling was that there was a lack of the traditional / authentic feel to the place.

This feeling continued when the menus arrived and it became clear this was more of a "modern twist" tapas style venue for Indian food.

Because of this, we were unsure on the portion size and how much to order, but the waiter helpfully guided us with recommended quantities for the table.

We did however subsequently have to order an additional dish to boost the numbers and properly fill the hungry tummies.

Also one side order did not arrive at all, despite it still appearing on the bill.

The food itself? Well, it was just OK.

The lamb chop starters were average, but the pakora and chicken tikka were nice.

Mains chosen included Lamb Madras, Rogan Josh, Garlic Chilli Chicken and Tikka Masala, with of course all the usual accompaniments...... well, ALMOST all, but more on that shortly!

Most of it was decent enough, nothing particularly bad, but there were no real standouts. It was all fairly forgettable and unremarkable.

There was one remarkable thing however:

Despite scouring the menu front and back, and enquiring with the waiter, not a single poppadom could be found.

"We don't serve poppadoms here" PARDON??

Well, I’m afraid that helped set the tone for what followed, and the scores reflect the overall disappointment that festered from there on in.

Would we, Could we approve a restaurant that refuses to serve up the mighty crispy poppadom?.....

Of course not.

MYPBC