Dildar Restaurant

Dildar Restaurant
111 Wilmslow Road
Rusholme
Manchester
M14 5AN
Tel: 0161-248 8880

The Dildar is another one of the myriad of restaurants on the Wilmslow Rd, in Manchester’s Rusholme district. Anybody in the North West will know that this area is famous for its concentration of ethnic restaurants and shops. Recently Rusholme was also the subject for a TV documentary on the great British institution of the curry. To put things into perspective it is similar to London’s Brick Lane and Handsworth’s Soho Road in Birmingham.

As restaurants in the area go, the Dildar is small to medium sized and has a single frontage onto the street. We decided to try the Dildar after carefully considering where we had already eaten before, as we wanted to try a different restaurant for comparison.

While we chose from the menu we ate the popadoms and chutney’s that were brought to the table. We ordered some drinks and contemplated what to have. The drinks arrived, except the jug of water that my wife wanted – but never mind.

For starters we ordered onion bhajis, a mixed starter of sheek kebab, lamb chop, lamb & chicken tikka and sheek kebabs for our two kids.

For main courses we ordered karahi lamb, chicken rogan josh, two portions of pillau rice, two nan breads and a plate of chips to occupy the kids. We decided there would be enough for the children and us if we shared two curries, two rice and two breads.

The starters came and my wife was immediately disappointed with the onion bhajis. They were small insipid looking things with a rather feeble little side salad. As for taste, which I can confirm, they were decidedly ordinary and more than a little excessive with the floury batter.

On the other hand my mixed starter was reasonable for the money. For £3 I got 1 lamb chop, 1 piece of sheek kebab, 1 piece of lamb and 1 piece of chicken tikka. I have had larger portions but they have usually cost more. This was also served with a rather insipid little side salad. The lamb chop was very good; it had plenty of excellent tender meat on it. The lamb tikka was tough and the chicken tikka was dry. The kebab was fine.

The sheek kebabs we ordered for the children were also fine and they weren’t a bit bothered with the side salad.

We ordered some more drinks, and asked again for a jug of water. This time it arrived.

The main courses arrived after a respectable wait. My karahi lamb was served in the iron karahi and looked quite tasty except for an excessive amount of oil. Similarly the chicken rogan josh was covered in an equally excessive amount of oil. This may not bother everybody, because some people don’t mind and will quite happily mop it up with a bread. However, we both prefer to keep additional oil off our plates and consequently have to take care when removing the contents of the serving dish, to leave excess oil behind.

The rice was acceptable but the nan breads were very good. They weren’t the largest nan breads in the world, perhaps amongst the smallest actually, but they were perfectly cooked, hot and brushed with some melted ghee (what did I say earlier about oily food? Never mind this is the exception that proves the rule!). They weren't thick and fluffy but were thin and crisp with a slightly bready crust.

The dessert menu was one of the glossy type with the bought in fancy ice creams. Why can’t somewhere that calls itself a restaurant make its own desserts?

Overall – Ok but not the best in Rusholme by a long stretch of the imagination. Service was poor, some of the food was below standard and some good.