Food Type: Gujarati Vegetarian cuisine
Food: 8½/10
Veg Options: 10/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Value: 8½/10
This recently-opened restaurant is the sister of its smaller Meera Express chains, with the company known predominantly for its wedding catering business. Situated in Queensbury Circle Parade, it features Gujarati vegetarian cuisine served in a setting designed to invoke memories of village life in rural India with furnishings to match. Indeed, the staff are all dressed to match this ethos, with the females dressed in traditional sarees etc.
The restaurant itself it relatively small and already a victim of its own popularity. Arriving relatively early on a Friday evening, the place was packed within 15 minutes - unfortunately this restaurant does not take bookings. However there is a relatively quick turnaround time, in true NW London fashion... The atmosphere was good with there being a mixture of large and small parties - however it has to be mentioned that if you live in the local area this is the type of place where you will easily run into people you know (whether this is a good or bad thing depends on yourself!)
On to the food.... We ordered several starters - the chilli paneer, the chilli garlic mogo and the harabara kebabs. These are all very popular dishes, and indeed I am of the opinion that you can gauge the quality of an Indian restaurants food by the quality of the chilli paneer - but that's just me! All the dishes were very well made - my favourites being the chilli garlic mogo and the harabara kebabs. They were very more-ish and at the higher ends of the tasty scale for these dishes... I was very impressed but the relatively small portion sizes meant that I was left wanting more. That's not to say that the chilli paneer was not good but I felt it was lacking the chilli aspect of the dish - in general I found the food at Meera Village to be catered to milder tastes - maybe this is no bad thing though.
After this we ordered the thalis. These thalis were huge, no joke. Seven types of saakh (curry), four types of bread to eat it with, numerous choices of pickles, rice, bhajias, dhokras and carrot hulwa and sweets to top it off. I have to say in my opinion that none of the saakh's were anything exceptional (although the daal was very nice) but the range and quality of breads was impressive - in particular the bhatura were light and fluffy and the thepla were very tasty. The service was impeccable, with staff constantly checking whether you needed anything more (I did not realise this at the time but it's a bit of a "eat-as-much-as-you-want" deal) and making numerous rounds to ensure your thali was always full. The desert (carrot hulwa) deserves a very special mention - if I wasn't so stuffed I would've had several helpings of this.
Drinks - the mango lassi is excellent, and the salty lassi served with the thalis was also refreshing. In contrast the chicoo sarbat was extremely disappointing and sent back. The place willingly serves tap water for the table (I recommend this as the more spicy food merits copious amounts of water)
In terms of value for money, our meal came to £52 between four people (including drinks and service charge of 12.5%) which is not bad at all for the quality of our meal which was spicy and tasty.
In summary, I would say that the quality of the individual dishes (the likes of chilli garlic mogo etc) is a mark above the quality of their thalis but overall we were very satisfied. I will definitely be coming back to this restaurant - but note to anyone reading this - this is mostly due to the quality of the individual dishes.
Meera Village, Queensbury Circle Parade HA7
0208 951 4167
Homepage: n/a
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I would like to say that I went with a lagre party for a diwali 2011 new years day dinner. We got there at 9.20pm and were late being seen to by the waiters who said that the set thail was still avaviable so we order drinks and then were told by another waiter that the thali was finish we had to order frm the main menu!! we mentioned that we have cone from south london and had been there well over 10 mins, the staff seened intrested at all,We so we ordered and the service given was very poor . Not sure i would go or recommned this place
ReplyDeleteWe went as a family of 10people booking only in the afternoon, we were told clearly on the phone to get the best experience be at the restaurant for 7pm as they close at 9.30pm. As we walked in it was as very well presented dinning room with the expression of traditional India, tables, chairs, cutlery, dressed waiters and decor all themed. The food was very good, paneer sizzler was excellent, the band were also very good. Staff were affirmative and food came out very efficiently. Total number of dishes ordered was 14. Value for money and nice family theme. I would recommend to vegetarians, would go again
ReplyDeleteI went with my family of 10. The decorations were very pretty but everything else wasn't. First of all they gave my family two tables but one was higher than the other. Then we ordered the drinks and we ordered a mocktail, which was on the menu, and they said they didn't have it. The starters were quite good. Then we ordered the main course and they gave us half our food and then 20 minutes later they gave us the rest so the first half was cold. We also ordered parathas which we couldn't break let alone eat and also we ordered rotlas and they gave us jagerry with it with was rock hard. Oh and they didn't give us forks either. We also asked the waiter to clear our table and he didn't do it until we told him 20 minutes later. I wouldn't go again and I wouldn't recommend Meera's Village Queensbury to anyone else.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the worst restaurants I've ever been to. One of the waitresses had an attitude and the service was terrible. I would never go again.
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