Shaandaar Indian Restaurant

Shaandaar Indian Restaurant

Wed 7th March 2007

This is our fourth review of the Shaandaar. We were approached by the owner following a less than completely positive review in February 2007.

Phil and I decided that we would take them up on the offer, and see what they had to say about their performance.

I had arrived first and did not announce myself, other than saying I was waiting for a friend. Khan, the manager, was the perfect host and offered me a seat to wait and asked if I would like a drink.

When Phil arrived and we announced ourselves as "The Eatanddrink team", Khan was obviously unprepared for our visit - after all, we had been expecting to meet the owner, who couldn't make it for personal reasons. Once that small confusion was cleared up, Khan spent some time with us describing his long connection with the Shaandaar. It is obvious from his bearing and passion that he does take his position seriously. He rightly expressed sadness that on our unsatisfactory visits we hadn't given the restaurant a chance to correct any problem we had perceived. (We do say, in our review, that we didn't approach the management, and why, but his point remains valid).

We were offered a table, and we placed our order. We are quite sure that no special preparation had been made for our visit.

Suffice to say that on this occasion, we were more than satisfied with the quality of the food, and the service. In particular, my selection of Lamb Karahi was especially succulent and tasty.

You may think that the circumstances of this review could cloud our judgement, but we made it clear to Khan that we would "tell it as we saw it".

Khan was eager to demonstrate to us that he enjoyed his work and that most of all he enjoyed dealing with his customers. Of course, he would say that, wouldn't he?

But - he didn't need to persuade us. His customers did that for him. There were many diners this evening who were quite plainly not only regulars, but also friends of Khans - this sort of customer relations can't be faked, and we were suitably impressed.

The verdict? Our previous reviews reflected our experiences at the time, but we are satisfied that we were victims of uncharacteristic failures, and that, had we expressed our disappointment, something would have been done. In fact, one could say that we didn't heed our own advice - as expressed in our article here.

Sandro and Phil