Restaurant

Name: Dil Chad
Area: Spitalfields
Address: 24 Widegate Street
London E1 7HP
Phone: 020 7247 9614
Website: www.dilchad.com

Visits to this restaurant ...

1. 27 Jul 2000|2. 30 May 2002|3. 28 Apr 2005|4. 28 Feb 2019


These M&S suits are available in Large, Extra Large and "Griff" sizes.

Visit Report

Visit Number: 61 (visit 3 of 4 for this restaurant)
Date of visit: 28 Apr 2005
Cost per head: £26.00 (2 beers)

Serv Amb Beer Start Nan Rice Main Veg VFM Score Comments
Overall 6.7 6.8 7.8 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.2 7.0 5.8 6.48
Dave 5 8 8 3 8 6 4 6 5 5.6 See Dave's comments
Robin 6 8 8 6 6 7 5 6 7 6.4 See Robin's comments
Graeme 8 6 7 6 5 3 7 6 6 6.1 See Graeme's comments
Mark 7 7 9 5 6 7 6 5 6.4 See Mark's comments
Jeff 4 3 7 3 5 5 7 4 4.7 See Jeff's comments
Tim 6 6 8 8 7 5 7 4 6.3 See Tim's comments
Alex 8 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 7.5 See Alex's comments
Jon 7 7 7 9 5 6 6 7 5 6.6 See Jon's comments
John 9 9 9 8 8 8 10 9 8 8.8 See John's comments

All Comments

Dave - I had high hopes from a return to the Dil Chad but was sadly disappointed. My mixed Kebab starter was barely edible and the chicken curry to follow was in a bland watery sauce. The ambience scored highly because there were a lot of people in there, however I did notice a drop in dress standards. Service was marked down for lukewarm "packaged" towels - bring back the original hot towels! In summary I think the Dil Chad has all the chances it deserves and will certainly not be on my list for a re-visit.

Robin - I had high hopes for our long-awaited return to the Dil Chad but sadly the food was disappointing. My king prawn puri was clearly prepared by somebody who spends a lot of time in Ikea and required assembly on the plate. Nice prawns, but not too many of them and the puri was a bit dry. The lamb jhal piaza was quite spicy but some of the chunks of lamb were rather chewy; not what you would expect from a top class curry house. At least draught Kingfisher was available, although as usual Griff eschewed this for something that must have been a bit stronger judging by his strange posturing and determination to be photographed wearing his suit. Must be the first suit he's ever owned that wasn't bought from Oxfam.

Graeme - Once again, I felt that the Dil Chunder did not live up to its potential. It's in a prime spot, caters for the well-heeled City types, has large smart(ish) premises but doesn't quite deliver. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my meal but it wasn't special. My Mixed Tandoori starter was tasty but the pieces were very small, so it was well over-priced at £5.50. My Chicken Korai main was good but not particularly exciting, a very large portion though. The rice was very poor (much of it was stuck together in big lumps and all 4 portions ordered came together on the same serving dish) and the nan was boring. The service was excellent, though. It was good to see draft Kingfisher available - draft Indian beer is quite rare these days. It was an excellent night for banter. However, the lowlight for me was having to apologise to Jeff for comments made in my previous curry report which accused him of providing the 'Griff-ism' of the evening - it turned out that Jeff's appararently 'dumb' question about F.O.B. was, in fact, valid. Whatever!

Mark - Having been out for a meal at lunch and with an 8am interview looming next day I was not as ready for a curry as normal. I made sure there was room by only having one Kingfisher this sacrifice probably saved at least a fiver off the bill for what was a good but fairly pricey meal (probably seemed more as I had to sub JPW) - its amazing that 800 yards can raise the price of a meal by several notches - location, location! Meat Samosas starter very spicy but not over generous size, main meal of Chicken Curry as expected in being satisfying but nothing exceptional. Mushroom Rice better than some but a touch oily. Good to see Griff dressed up for the occasion, shame about the ironing.

Jeff - Oh dear. A good start, the place was very busy, but we got a good table, nice draft Kingfisher, but it was downhill from there on. There was an occasional inexplicable use of a red typeface on the menu, a poor pickles choice and dry sheek kebab. Main course of Lamb Korai was quite dry and not particularly tasty but there was at least lots of lamb. Rice average. The vegetable side-dishes were the best part of the meal. I managed to resist Griff's naan this time. So altogether a below average meal. I did not like the chipped plates and brusque service. I felt they wanted to get customers in and out of the place to make room for the next lot. The MacDonalds of curry houses. Poor.

Tim - A pleasant enough place. The round-ended table was a feature, it meant that odd numbers of people could be seated without someone being stuck on the end. Mixed starter was good. Dil Chad Special main course with chicken, mince and hard-boiled egg was a bit poor though: the egg yolk had gone rather grey - it had obviously been over-cooked. Draught Kingfisher was fine. Proximity to the City made this more expensive than Brick Lane, and without a commensurate increase in quality the VFM mark has suffered.

Alex - [None]

Jon - The Dil Chad’s best feature is its location being so close to Liverpool Street, but that unfortunately means that it is overpriced. Having said that, the starter was excellent and the main course, an unusually (if forgettably) named lamb dish, was OK but certainly not the "fairly hot" that was advertised. The Keema Nan was extremely disappointing.

John - A welcome return visit back to the Chunder. My starter of King Prawn Puree was very tasty but a bit on the small side. The main course, chicken madras, was excellent - just hot enough and with plenty of sauce. Chickpeas were excellent. The only downside was that it attracts a large number of annoying suits. We probably had the most annoying one on our table. I won't name any names but he's got a square head, he's fat, he constantly talks rubbish and he buys his cloths at Asda - now who could that be?


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