Chilli Massala (Edgeley) Review

T 0161 477 1433
A 36 Castle Street, Edgeley, Stockport, SK3 9AD

The first curry of 2010 was held at the Chilli Massala restaurant in Edgeley (Stockport).

In July 2009 the restaurant was awarded the "Stockport Curry Chef" award by Stockport Council's Environmental Health and Trading Standards Department.

This small “British” Indian restaurant is located on Castle Street with several free parking spaces being available a short distance away.

The main draw to this restaurant was the award mentioned above and the added bonus that the restaurant is unlicensed for alcohol. A "bring your own booze" policy can often greatly reduce the financial outlay of your meal and should really give the restaurant more time to concentrate on the more important aspects of an indian meal – the food and service.

The small restaurant is quite modern and tastefully decorated with sunken neon spot lights on the ceiling that softly light the dining area.

We had not booked a table on this occasion and arrived unannounced. The restaurant was quite busy with a few other large groups dining. After a short wait we were taken to our table at the back of the restaurant. The surrounding space around the table was quite compact with not much space for 6 people to comfortably sit at their seats.

The evening started well when we spotted the mid week special. It was advertised at £7.95 for poppodums and dips, a choice of starter, main course, rice or naan, coffee and ice cream. It was clearly going to be a very cheap night.

Poppodums were served by our waiter whilst he waited to take our order. The pops were fresh and came accompanied with a good selection of dips including a nice spicy red chilli dip.

A mixture of starters were selected. The chicken chaat was one of the most popular choices. Its portion size was good and its small pieces of chicken being flavoursome without being too heavy. The wrapped chapatti was fresh and crisp. The chaat was also presented with a small side salad.

The other starters included sheek kebab and onionj bhajis. These were given the thumbs up by all and so far the Chilli Massala restaurant was looking like a fine choice.

There was a very long wait between our starters and main courses. This was a bit of a disappointment but provided us with the opportunity to discuss the finer details of the inaugural currycouncil award ceremony which is due to take place at the end of January. We also again resumed our usual conversations at to why Dayo was not in attendance at the monthly curry (this months excuse was that he was doing his Asda shop!).

The waiter brought out our main courses and the side dishes. The empty beer bottles were not removed by the waiter throughout the meal and things were becoming to get a bit cramped at the table. We pushed the bottles to the side and decided that the food quality and price were more important than the slow service.

A variety of different curries were sampled including the madras, jalrezi, balti and pathia. We all opted for the chicken tikka versions of the dishes which meant that an extra £1.50 per person would be added to the bill for the "tikka" option.

The main courses were a bit of a disappointment. The portion sizes were more than adequate but the curries themselves lacked the award winning touch and were quite ordinary.

The madras, although extra hot, was watery and had quite a runny texture. The sauce was good for mopping up the plate with a nice bit of naan bread but the madras sauce had no consistency and tended to swim around our plates.

The milder baltis faired a little better but overall the group were disappointed with the standard of their main dishes. The side dishes (rice and naan) were of a good standard and portion size.

The waiter informed us that they had ran out of ice cream and we had to settle for just the coffee to finish off the meal.

The Chilli Massala is a restaurant firmly for the mainstream with adequate food served at a low price. This restaurant surely cannot be beaten for price.

The bill for 6 people came in at a lowly £63 including a tip. If you each bring a couple of 330ml bottles of Cobra from your local supermarket, you can expect to walk out of the Chilli Massala with a little bit of change from just a tenner.

The service overall was slow with the waiter not once clearing the mass of empty beer bottles from our table. The food was OK for the price that we paid but we may have been a little disappointed if we had paid the full menu price for the main course.