Restaurant

Name: Shapur
Area: Aldwych
Address: 149 Strand
London WC2R 1JA
Phone: 020 7836 3730
Website: shapurlondon.co.uk

Visits to this restaurant ...

1. 24 Nov 2022


Certainly not short of drinks.



Visit Report

Visit Number: 253 (visit 1 of 1 for this restaurant)
Date of visit: 24 Nov 2022
Cost per head: £42.00 (2 beers)

Serv Amb Beer Start Nan Rice Main Veg VFM Score Comments
Overall 7.6 4.8 5.4 7.2 7.5 6.8 7.4 7.3 6.2 6.72
Brian 5 3 6 7 7 7 8 7 7 6.5 See Brian's comments
Neil 10 7 3 8 9 9 7 7 7.7 See Neil's comments
Tim 7 5 5 7 8 6 7 8 6 6.6 See Tim's comments
Mark 8 6 6 7 5 6 6 6.3 See Mark's comments
Jon 8 3 7 7 7 7 7 5 6.5 See Jon's comments

All Comments

Brian - Not impressed by either the pub or the restaurant tbh; although the beer and the food were good, both had other issues. I won't recount the pub's issues, as this isn't PUBmarks. The lights in the curry house were overbearing, flashing and potentially fit-inducing, and I was sat directly in front of some of them, which was quite unpleasant. Also unimpressed that a couple of phantom prawn dishes appeared on our bill, which fortunately was spotted and therefore not paid for. Lamb samosa starters were ok, and I chose the crab main, as despite it being badged as "fairly hot" (it wasn't), I'd never seen crab on a curry menu before; it was really good.

Neil - Excellent service, we had our mains finished by the time that we have seen the starters turn up in some other restaurants. Onion bhaji starter and chicken biryani main were excellent, the biryani being on the hot side which is unusual but very welcome. Price wasn't too bad for the West End; though we held back a bit on the sides and bread which certainly helped as the restaurant is not the cheapest. Only real complaint was that there was only one choice of beer, bottled cobra, otherwise a great curry house.

Tim - In the end, a small turnout of 5 for our trip to this new venue; well, more like 4½, as Jon was more interested in watching the football than our scintillating conversation. I marked the beer down for having no choice other than Cobra. No lime pickle with the poppadoms either. As the prices looked quite high (e.g. £7 for veg dishes), I opted for the meat Thali, though it probably didn't make a huge difference overall. It consisted of tandoori chicken, sheek kebab, chicken tikka, chicken tikka masala, lamb rogan, pilau rice, naan and gulab jamun - not the most adventurous food options, but a nice selection, and improved IMO by asking to upgrade the plain naan to a cheese one. The included rice portion was pretty small, so I supplemented it with some of Brian's plain rice, and there were no vegs included, so tried the sharing sag aloo and chana dishes, both of which I enjoyed. All of the Thali items were fine - I had no complaints, but in hindsight I would probably have preferred something more unusual.

Mark - After fun with the trains for the 3rd month running we ended up with only 5 of the 8 intended members and I didn't even manage a pre-meal beer. Pleasant welcome to a fairly empty venue that did not get much more crowded. Wobbly table and Xmas lights not adding to the ambience but the service was quick and meals well presented. Chicken tikka to start was plentiful which was just as well considering main of Lamb Sag was high on the spinach weighting (see, I do eat veg Brian!) and rice portion not that big. Due to the layout we were all able to join the conversation and it was a enjoyable evening out but the meal was nothing special but all acceptable.

Jon - A turnout of just 5 made for a high service mark as they were prompt and polite and we were out of the restaurant before 9.30pm.  However, with only a couple of other tables occupied, it was a bit quiet, and with the unnecessarily early and gaudy Christmas lights, it didn't make for a good ambiance.  The food was decent without being anywhere near special – my Lamb a la Nilgiri main, a house speciality, was interesting but not sure it was so in a good way.  A fun evening as usual!


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