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Web Reviews & Comments*
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| Ah, the Diwana!
Like M Griffin says: "light, sharp and refreshing" It is beautiful food.
I took my mother (a woman from Poland) who last lived in Notting Hill in pre-Grant/Roberts days (1946, at Polish refugee prices)
From a lifetime of cabbage, potatoes and dill (all fine foods)
this was her first introduction to South Asian food and she loved it!
I'm a repeat Canadian customer, and the antics of the wait staff are an endless tableau of Kafka vs. Seinfeld. Remember the "Soup Nazi"?
Just go and immerse yourself in it, get a Raj from the grocer next door, and enjoy yourself. The prices (for London) are a bargain.
Mark Goertz, Vancouver |
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Mark Goertz (telus.net)
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24/09/2006 |
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| I've been going there for years - the best curry place I know for the food. Not luxurious comfort, though. |
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Mike(yahoo.co.uk)
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19/12/2003 |
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| Being a punjabi sikh, I should know what good indian food should taste like! And this place makes delicious, fresh, punjabi and gujarati dishes how they should be. Not swimming in a million and one spices, but with the correctly selected spices that should be used with that particular vegetable, daal, or chaal (rice)dish. I never eat at any indian places outside of Southall except for this place. I'm sure there are other gems like this place, but they're few and far between. Extremely good value for money. The waiters are no where near as good as what you'd get in a top english/french restaurant, but hey - they never are! Highly recommended. If you're only interested in your typical "Let's put all the regional cooking of a 1 billion sized sub continent" into one dish, then stick to your typical (and disgusting) curry house in the west end. If you want to try what real indian food should taste like, this is the place. |
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Kalwant (yahoo.co.uk)
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06/08/2003 |
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| I have eaten there a few times, kost recently a fortnight ago. I agree that the waiters could be more helpful but I am used to that - I travel a lot for work, and a woman eating on her own is never regarded as a priority customer in a restaurant. The thalis are good, the portions for the starters are huge. The specials can be a bit stodgy, especially the spinach and potato dish of the day. But for value and taste, it has to be an entry in any curry guide. |
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Kathleen Roberts (btinternet.com)
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16/04/2003 |
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| i think the food was very nice |
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paul mulliagan (hotmail.com)
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10/04/2003 |
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| This is the worst restaurant experience ever I have had in my life. Even in the streets of South Asia (home for this cuisine), one can expect better service than in Diwana.
Let me tell you briefly what happened.
On 1st Feb 2003 (Friday), three of my friends decided to go to this restaurant. It was suggested by one of us so we decided to check the place out.
We reached there about 7.30 - 8.00 in the evening. The waiters offered us the menu and we ordered 4 things from the menu. The waiter quickly asked us for the main course or he said he could not take an order for us (it transpired that, even though this is called a Bhel Poori house, ordering exactly the same amounts to starters!). Anyway, so we ordered 4 dishes from the main course too.
That's when the evening started to go wrong.
The waiter said they did not have two of the things we asked for in the main course. We didn't really want to have the main course in the first place, but now what we ordered was also not available in the kitchen for the evening. We had a quick chat among ourselves and decided it was perhaps best that we stick to Bhel Poori (what we had originally come all the way to have) and order only one main course so that we can all share and move on to another restaurant on the same street.
Now the waiter was listening to our conversation, and when we finally ordered 4 things from the starters and 1 main course, he simple refused to take our order and told us to leave.
We did not understand this, so we asked him what was the problem? Why was he not interested in serving to a willing customer? His answer –" you only want to have starters in this restaurant and rest of the main course somewhere else!"
(Note this, more than half the restaurant was empty and our ordered bill for four people was about 30 pounds)
Anyway we got up to leave and I said to him "This is really a stupid thing to do! How can throw away willing customers?"
As I was walking out, I saw the manager and repeated my comment. I said, "You really have some stupid waiters in here, they are throwing away willing customers.".
That was it.
It turned out that I had committed the greatest offence of my life and what happened next is only fit to be called 'bizarre' and 'comic'.
Well, the manager was even worse than his waiters. He cornered me in his own restaurant and demanded an apology for calling his waiters stupid. (Note that he was more interested in my moral conduct than his waiter's customer service). When I refused to apologize, (I still cant understand why I needed to!), he pulled me outside the restaurant by collars and started to abuse and get violent. By this time my friends (all woman) started to scream and ask him and his troupe of waiters (yes, there were about 3-4 of them outside, one with a plastic crate in his hand ready to hit me and being pulled back by another waiter) to stop this nonsense or we call the cops. After about 5 minutes outside the restaurant, when I realized this was getting worse, I eventually did pull my phone out and call the police. As soon as I started calling the police they all quickly left us alone and moved back into their restaurant.
In the meantime, some other guests having noticed this incident also walked out of the restaurant in disgust.
If after reading this review you still want to eat out at Diwana Bhel Poori House, just a simple word of caution – Don't call criticize anything, just take what you get and leave.
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Bhupinder (gmx.net)
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28/03/2003 |
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| Great food ! Great prices ! Love this place. |
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Jay (hotmail.com)
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24/02/2003 |
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| been going to this restaurant for over 20 years and have never been dissapointed either whether the family or after a train journey. Completely consistent. Best samosas in Britain! |
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Greg (mcneillfamily.com)
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01/01/2003 |
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| I agree with Mike. I hadn't been there for 15 years, so it was good to go there recently and find that it was still well worth a detour. |
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Paul Hubert (uniservity.net)
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18/04/2000 |
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| No vindaloos, jalfrezis, kormas or any of the usual boring tandoori staples -- this is a South Indian vegetarian experience. The flavours are light, sharp and refreshing. The starters are all cold with a nice balance of crisp textures and sweet and sour sauces. The main courses usually consist of Dosas (crispy rice pancakes) with spiced potatoes, coconut chutney and sambhar (thin, spicy sauce). Prices are rock-bottom -- below £5 for a main course, and the bring-your-own booze policy makes for a really cheap night out. They also do an eat-as-much-as-you-want buffet feast every lunchtime. Service is efficient and unobtrusive, decor simple -- lots of pine. Significantly, there are usually quite a few Indian people eating there. Can't be bad. |
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Mike Griffin (rough.screaming.net)
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11/04/2000 |
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