Post 1: Thali Thali Night

The adventure begins!

Prashad Drighlington

Link to menu: https://www.prashad.co.uk/menus/

Star rating :

  • Service 5
  • Food 3
  • Price 4
  • Atmosphere 4
  • Overall 4/5

Prashad is a vegetarian curry house… though not just for vegetarians. They accepted two vegetable sceptics and gave us a real education in what curry with no meat might be like. Any innate fear of an extremist vegan ambush disappeared as entry greeted us with a full bar, healthy looking staff and a menu with complete with cheese, eggs and an array of non-meat goodies. To say the staff were warm and welcoming would be an understatement.

The unease at working up to a meat free curry was eased by the waiter who showed us to our table, offered us drinks and brought an amuse bouche! (note: many of the drinks on offer were also vegan) Having never had anything prior to a poppadom in a curry house before the excitement was palpable. Out came a spoon with what looked like a meatball. Had we been wrong? Could this be? Sadly not. The morsel clearly amused our bouches but we were left thinking: if a thing looks like it should contain meat, it really should contain meat. It was light, fluffy and crispy on the outside but all the same a little underwhelming. The novelty value was a winner, however, as was the excitement of being served food on a spoon: saving the effort of putting the food on a spoon yourself and simply picking it up and shovelling it in.


On with the ordering! Obligatory poppadoms and a thali each – one of which was very obligingly made gf at the last minute by the chef – for which one of us was very grateful. All part of the brilliant service on offer.

Poppadoms and Pickles:

J: Interesting here. Lovely, crisp, light poppadoms. All of the dips were clearly home made and an interesting spin on the usual. Interesting did not mean better. Raita was homemade and nice. Mango chutney was good too but I missed the normal dips. Especially when eating what appeared to be mushed apple. Maybe the vegans are attacking after all.

N: A difference to the usual pickle tray and not all of it entirely successful. I am a simple man of simple pleasures and thoroughly enjoy a good mango chutney, raita, tomato chutney and that onion stuff. This was not that. After trying the apple dip (which appeared more like baby food), I moved swiftly back to the two staples of mango and raita. Some work to be done here and disappointing overall.

Starter

N: As it was a Thali, it covered all 3 courses. I will focus on what was suggested as starters for this section.

Two types of Daal were served, one which resembled a flavoured soup and one which was much thicker. Both were delightful including rich flavours and delicate spicing. The ‘soupy’ one was difficult to eat with supplied cutlery (no spoon) and the roti were quickly used up for this purpose. Overall tasty, well-cooked and presented but little consideration to consumption.

J: My starters were served in the middle of the grand dish that was our entire meal. To a straight up tandoori chicken man they looked odd. And very brown. They were nice though, soft, delicate and just enough to not be filling. The waiter did offer a description of what they were but this was lost in the swirling of the music and the growling of my stomach as I surveyed the feast to come.

Mains

N: a range of non-meat curry dishes were supplied with the paneer and chickpea curries the best of the bunch. These both had exactly the right amount of ‘kick’ as they were supplied with more freshly-made raita and perfectly cooked rice. The paneer (almost) made up for the lack of meat in the meal and the meal was ended with a very full stomach. Is there room for dessert?

J: Mine was the same. A wide and varied range of vegetarian delights. Highlights were the chickpea dish and the paneer. The chef had prepared something which was like a wafer instead of the gluteny chapati on the standard dish which was light and lovely but not sufficient for scooping duties. My soup was white and thin, most probably because there was no wheaty thickener in it. I finished all of mine! It was substantial, filling and tasty but a little lacking in something… But perhaps years of meat in my curry left me feeling short changed here. It felt like a selection of side dishes with no main. Personal preference, I’m sure.

Dessert

N: a creamy, vanilla type milk dessert was served on the thali. James’ first question was ‘is it ice cream?’. As it hadn’t melted even slightly during the hour the tray was in front of us, this made it unlikely, however upon the first mouthful we still couldn’t be sure. It was tasty, creamy and cool but, unfortunately, the rest of the thali had been so well consumed there was little space for this. I did better than James at attempting to finish it though.

J: Another first! Dessert in a curry house? On reflection, this took more getting used to than no meat on a menu. Presented as though Mr Whippy had evacuated expertly into a dish, the creamy swirl sat at the side of my main all through the meal. Surely it would melt, move, wibble or tempt me at some stage but it did nothing. Just sat there. And by the time the plates were cleared it was still sitting, minus one small mouthful from me. It was too creamy, too rich and I was too full of vegetables to attempt any more.

The damage: