Restaurant

Name: Lahore Kebab House
Area: Whitechapel
Address: 2-10 Umberston Street
London E1 1PY
Phone: 020 7481 9737
Website: www.lahore-kebabhouse.com

Visits to this restaurant ...

1. 30 Dec 2010|2. 29 Sep 2011|3. 27 Sep 2012


100-up! John (left) is presented with an engraved glass to commemorate his 100th appearance.

Visit Report

Visit Number: 138 (visit 2 of 3 for this restaurant)
Date of visit: 29 Sep 2011
Cost per head: £22.00 (2 beers)

Serv Amb Beer Start Nan Rice Main Veg VFM Score Comments
Overall 6.8 5.3 8.6 6.2 6.2 7.1 5.5 8.1 6.87
Jeff 6 3 6 9 5 5 5 5 5.5 See Jeff's comments
John 8 7 9 7 8 9 6 9 8.1 See John's comments
Jon 6 5 8 6 7 9 3 8 6.8 See Jon's comments
Brian 9 8 9 9 8 9 6 9 8.5 See Brian's comments
Alex 8 6 9 7 7 7 9 7.6 See Alex's comments
Richard 7 8 10 1 6 6 5 9 6.6 See Richard's comments
Dominic 4 2 7 5 5 5 8 5.2 See Dominic's comments
Mark 8 4 9 4 7 7 3 8 6.5 See Mark's comments
Dave 7 9 10 9 7 8 8 10 8.5 See Dave's comments
Robin 6 3 8 5 4 8 6 8 6.3 See Robin's comments
Neil 6 1 10 8 5 5 6 7 6.1 See Neil's comments
Graeme 8 8 8 4 6 7 6 8 6.9 See Graeme's comments
Paul A. (Guest) 6 7 9 7 5 7 7 8 7.1 See Paul A.'s comments
Tim 6 3 9 4 7 8 4 8 6.5 See Tim's comments

All Comments

Jeff - A strange outing all round. We started very early. On the hottest September day since records began we sat inside the tiny Pride of Spitalfields in solidarity with Jon's bad ankle or whatever it is. The pub was featureless but the ale was good - and it was interesting to learn a little more about quantum physics thanks to Alex.  Then we trekked out East to the overrated Lahore Kebab House. The room was massive, the atmosphere was strictly stag do / beer festival, and the food was ok in a mass-produced way, although the nan breads were excellent.  I don't know what main I ate because all the ordering was done for me. Glad I've been, but I don't think I'd rush to go back. Congratulations to Rats on his 100th currymarks.

John - A good way to celebrate my century! Lahore may not be to everyone's taste but I really like this place and it makes a change from some of the more traditional places that we usually visit. You don't get the bells and whistles but the food is generally very good. Last night was no exception. The food highlight here is the mixed grill starter especially the lamb chops. The Lamb and spinach main was also excellent.

Jon - You can't complain about the quality of the main courses at the Lahore but, on last night's evidence, it's not quite what I look for in a visit to a curry house.  Being upstairs, the feel of the place was more like a canteen than a restaurant.  The mixed starter and selection of main courses were all very good - cannot fault it - but once again the veg dishes and nan bread were disappointing.  I'd go back to the Lahore, but it's the sort of place for a quick meal, not for a dining experience.  I enjoyed it, and it was great to get a full turnout for the club, but I wouldn't be sorry to see it drop out of the top six.

Brian - Wow!  This was like going back in time, and to a far better time as well.  Drinks in a proper pub (Pride of Spitalfields), followed by an old-style BYO curry.  The layout was very different to usual - a vast open plan hall, filled with many rows of long tables, and a veritable army of waiters on hand.  The place soon filled up, and I think we did the right thing both in booking and arriving early.  The service was excellent, sometimes unbelievably quick, and very friendly.  The quality of the meat was superb, both for the starter and the main, and the only downside for me was that there were very few vegetables around (other than spinach!), but that was probably due to us ordering insufficient.  Garlic nan was not really a nan, but the taste and consistency were excellent.  After a high-scoring start to his innings, Rats's run-rate has dropped off of late, so it was good to see him finally hit the century mark.

Alex - Particularly tasty starters. Canteen-ish and incredibly noisy. Mains were less impressive.

Richard - Funny place, The Lahore. Mostly great, poor at times. Atmosphere and service were good, despite being a mega-restaurant, and being BYO is a nice feature. The mixed starter was melt-in-the-mouth wonderful: lamb chops tender and marinated, delicious bhaji, great tikka and sheek kebab. The main courses and sides were at times greasy and merely average, although the sag ghost was good. The nan was one of the worst I have had, dripping in oil, hard and lacking flavour, and the keema nan was awful. John made up for the poor choice in Brick Lane last month, and selected a superb shared selection of dishes.

Dominic - This was my first visit to the "famous" Lahore and all in all it was a disappointing experience. We arrived upstairs to what can only be described as a "Bingo Hall" of a room and all during the night the waiters congregated down the far end. The menu was somewhat shy on choice and we settled for a mixed meat starter (plus onion bhaji) which was plentiful and generally good although I found the Lamb Chops to be somewhat ordinary. The main of Fish Curry was fine without being extraordinary which summed up all the dishes I tried. The great thing is that it is cheap and it has to be said that it was still another very enjoyable evening with the Club ... despite having a "Welsh guest"!!. Thanks to Tim for an excellent choice of wine and congratulations to Wratts on achieving his 100th outing ... and also me for my 50th!

Mark - Great to see such a large turnout to celebrate John's 100th outing. Shame it had to then be held in a place that resembled a school dining room and was so noisy it was worse than an All Bar One. Having watched Diggers devour enough Lamb chops to give Shari Lewis nightmares we then moved onto the rest of the meat feast starter. I much prefer this to the main meal and would be happy to have stick there with some rice and bread without ordering anything else. The main dishes were fine but perhaps a bit too much sag (?) and bowls of sloppy veg that were not to my taste. An enjoyable evening that started early in the pub and finished early as well - must try those tactics again some time. Is Griff officially a Twit now?

Dave - Excellent meal at the Lahore and great to see a full #currymarks turnout for Rats 100th and Doms 50th outing.  The mixed kebab and onion bhajee starters were excellent and the chicken/lamb curries and veg dishes very good.  I did think the nan breads were a bit greasy but I really liked the nan-like breads that were also available (not sure what they are called – the Saffron Walden cab driver thought they were Roti? – anyway, my nan mark is based on these).  Unfortunately had to share my train on the way home with a carriage full of happy Tottenham fans.  Finished the evening with my first ever tweet to #currymarks  (I now have 4 followers!).

Robin - As busy as it was the service was a bit patchy, but the starters and mains (well, the few mains that Rats ordered that didn't contain spinach) were really good. Rice was disappointing (nothing remotely resembling special rice on offer) and the veg dishes were ok, but the keema nan was wierd; it had melted cheese on it and looked more like a pizza than a nan bread (they had even cut it into 6 pizza-like slices). VFM was of course pretty good because of the cheap price, but the ambiance was not great - as expected for this style of eatery really. Lesson to be learnt: order my own main course next time!

Neil - I think we're getting the hang of the Lahore: get there early, get some booze at the off-licence just outside, order the fantastic mixed starter for everyone and halve the size of the normal main course order. The only real issue is that the upstairs is bland, has limited toilets and is incredibly noisy even when only half full, so will avoid that next time. Liked the Keema Naan, very much like a small pizza! Special mention, yet again, for the meeting place 'The Pride of Spitalfields', super traditional boozer.

Graeme - We sat upstairs this time - it's a huge space with refrectory-style tables, everyone packed in tight and a lively atmosphere. Although the service and meal were a bit chaotic (with dishes arriving sporadically), this did not detract from the enjoyment of the evening but it did make it difficult to mark as the meal did not fit our usual 'structure'. I had the mixed meat starter which was let down a little by the lamb chop which was tough but the spicy sausage and the chicken (and lamb?) tikka were superb. I shared a fish curry with Dom (we're so healthy, it's unbelievable!) - the fish was well-cooked and tasty but the sauce was unexciting. We had to take our own beer which was not a particular hardship although it meant it wasn't chilled. To summarise ... very enjoyable, very good food and a very reasonable price.

Paul A. - The best part of a decade ago, an Indian mate of mine recommended that I eat at The Lahore Kebab House, so an invite to attend as a guest with the world-renowned CurryMarks Club was welcome. We started off drinking in an old favourite of mine, The Pride of Spitalfields. After several pints of excellent London Pride, a short walk took us to the restaurant which was large and extremely busy. The service was good without being overly-attentive. The fine company meant that I didn't notice any delay in bringing the food. Or perhaps the waiters were just quick. Formica tables lined up canteen-style and Tottenham v Shamrock on the TV (with a bad signal) created an atmosphere where the focus was very much on the food. The food itself was "very good" to "outstanding", with the exception of the rice which I found dull. The starters were especially fine and I can endorse the members' comments from a previous visit of CurryMarks in December 2010. The evening was topped off with an analysis of Swansea's chances of staying in the Premier League. "Slim" apparently, but I was speaking to a WBA fan who might have forgotten that we'd beaten them 3-0 a few weeks earlier ...

Tim - We were seated in the upstairs room of the restaurant, which rather resembled a school cafeteria - a large, plain, white room with long rows of tables, no tablecloths, no curtains and bright lighting - leading to a rather poor ambience. Popadoms were good, though we didn't try any spicy ones. We all had mixed starters, which consisted of a large quantity of lamb chops, as well as kebabs, and chicken and lamb tikka, all of which were excellent. There wasn't a huge selection of main courses on offer. We ended up ordering 6 or so dishes and sharing them. Some were better than others, but nothing was bad, and on average they were very good. The vegetables were a bit disappointing though, the sag aloo was 90% sag, and the chick peas seemed to be in gravy rather than sauce. The keema nan was unusual - it was crispy, tasted more of tomato than meat, and seemed to have a sweet glaze on it. Overall then, this seems to be a place to go to eat lots of meat and not much else. VFM was pretty good, though was helped somewhat by the BYOB policy.


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