118 Drummond Street, London. NW1 2HN

We’d decided some months ago to head down Drummond Street behind Euston and check out the range of curry houses down there.

The day before, I had a wander down with a friend and went into a fair few asking about vegan options. About half gave me blank stares, a couple said no, and three said fine. Of the three, we chose Drummond Villa as the first target.

You can see inside and all that malarkey here

The six of us walked down from Camden, got seated as it was mostly empty. Not a huge place but does have more seats downstairs next to the kitchen. Not a great selection of beers (Cobra / Kingfisher etc), but it is licensed, and not cheap (over a fiver per bottle).

The staff seemed really nervous and eager to get us in and out during the meal. Clearing dishes and such whilst others still eating and chatting. Perhaps they thought we were bringing the tone down.

Popadoms and raita to start was passable, lime pickle could do with more heat.

Onion Bhajees for starters were ok. Flat and relatively well spiced.

Mains was a vegetable madras, vegetable vindaloo, vegetable curry, chicken madras, chicken tikka masala and prawn something; a couple of naans and 3 rice.  Good sized portions. The bill came to about £120, and they include the service automatically.

My madras was OK – hot enough but not too overpowering. Same was said of the other dishes, a large helping of prawns, good amount of chicken etc. The big disappointment was the vindaloo. Although the sauce was good, it came with only a meagre slice of carrot and half a potato cut in half (so 2x quarters)… not really a “vegetable” anything, whereas the vegetable madras had loads of veggies in it.

Ratings were:

Me: 7, Gary: 7, Charlie McHarper: 8, Gonk: 7, Ratu: 7.5 down to 7, Jack: 7

Total: 43/60, averaging 7/10

OK, but not great.

(9th April 2015)