Month: June 2021

Takeaway review: Rosa’s Thai Café

On By ediblereadingIn Reviews2 Comments

Rosa’s Thai is no longer on Deliveroo Editions, although a permanent site is apparently coming to Reading on the ground floor of Jackson’s Corner. If you want Thai takeaway, try ThaiGrr! or Thai Table instead.

This might be hard to believe, but I’ve been writing this blog for coming up to eight years, and in that time many different people have joined me on duty, sitting the other side of the table from me as we’ve experienced both triumph and disaster. For the first three years of the blog, my regular dining companion was my ex-wife, but for the last four years I’ve had all sorts of plus ones as I’ve explored restaurants in Reading and beyond. 

Whether it’s my waspish mother (“Good view of the wheelie bins”), my friend Reggie (“Don’t tell them I drink Amstel, they’ll think I’m a right chump”), ex-Reading Buses CEO Martijn Gilbert eating a naan the size of his head or my delightful friend Jerry trying Japanese food for the first time in his sixties, they all add something to the experience – for me, anyway, if not for the reader. All in all, over twenty people have come out with me to review restaurants since this blog began. And there may well be more to come: I already have a poor unfortunate who has volunteered to accompany me when I get round to reviewing Wendy’s.

Nowadays, my most regular dining companion is of course my other half Zoë, especially this year when I’ve mostly reviewed takeaways. It’s safe to say that she’s build up rather a cult following over the last six months, to the extent where I get Tweets about it. “Hope there are some good Zoë quotes this week”, one reader has said to me – more than once – and recently my friend Graeme told me that he mainly reads the reviews for Zoë’s comments. “They belong on motivational dinner plates” he said. 

He has a fair point. Her greatest hits include referring to something as “artisan shit”, describing Pho’s legendary chicken fried rice as “hot as balls”, calling a hearty meal a “proper gut bash” (can’t you just see that round the edge of a piece of Emma Bridgewater?) and staging a revolt during our only attempt at a restaurant DIY kit (“Sixty pounds and they ask you to roll your own fucking dough”). That’s before we get on to her summing up Rizouq’s beautiful samosas as “fried, fresh as fuck and full of meat”, or savaging O Português’ grilled chicken as “a mirage… just a carcass covered in tasty skin”. 

I’m lucky to live with someone so endlessly quotable – I’ve long suspected I’m the true plus one in this partnership – although I should add that she writes beautifully on her own blog. Anyway, I’m sorry to have to tell you that this week’s meal is a solo effort. “I need some time off” she told me. “I’m never going to lose any weight eating a takeaway every week like this.” I tried my best to dissuade her – think of the readers I’ll haemorrhage, I told her – but when Zoë’s mind is made up it’s decidedly hard to change. “My jeans are saying pack it in” she added later. 

So, this week it’s a solo takeaway from Rosa’s Thai Café, the smallish London chain of Thai restaurants. It started as a privately owned Thai restaurant in Spitalfields before expanding to other London locations. Then – and this is a familiar story by now – it was the subject of a private equity-backed management buyout which installed an ex-director of Wahaca as chief executive and the former chief executive of Yo! Sushi as chairman. Good times! At the time, a managing partner at “investments specialists” Connection Capital said “Rosa’s Thai Café’s differentiated and well thought-through business model puts it in an excellent position to exploit growth opportunities, even with today’s macro-market headwinds”, and if that’s not a sentence that makes you peckish I don’t know what is.

Anyway, the rest follows a well-trodden path: Rosa’s Thai expanded to Leeds, to Liverpool, to Manchester and Birmingham. The only other Thai chain I can think of is Giggling Squid, and Rosa’s Thai is clearly trying to leapfrog them for national primacy. In their search for new growth opportunities (err, sites) they have turned to Deliveroo Editions, which means Reading is one of the only other places that gets to try out their food. So off I went to Deliveroo to see if the soul of that little restaurant in Spitalfields in 2008 was still alive in the menu today.

To their credit, the menu on Deliveroo is relatively compact, and largely the same as the one they offer in their restaurants, with the exception of a few starters. The mains are divided into noodle dishes on the one hand, and curries and what they call “wok stars” (lord, no) on the other. The prices are the same as those in the restaurants, which must mean there’s some loss leading going on given the cut Deliveroo invariably takes. Starters cluster around the seven pound mark and mains between nine and twelve, although you pay extra for rice. “Pick one each and try serving them at the centre of the table” says Rosa’s Thai’s Deliveroo page of the starters, seemingly under the impression that they’ve invented communal dining.

There are decent vegan options, which you’d expect with Thai food, and most of them revolve around tofu although they do manage to slip in some “This Isn’t Chicken”, last seen on the Pho menu. I still don’t understand the name, because by definition you could use it to describe anything which isn’t chicken: Quorn, beef, Michael Gove, an air mattress, the list is endless. It’s a nice touch, though, that you can also order pumpkin crackers instead of prawn crackers.

Anyway, I ordered a main with jasmine rice and a couple of starters – partly for research and partly so Zoë could try some of the dishes to liven up her boring ready meal – and everything came to thirty-two pounds, not including rider tip. If that sounds expensive, bear in mind that I ordered two starters.

As so often with Deliveroo, things were very speedy indeed: I placed my order at ten past seven and less than fifteen minutes later it was on its way, with the rider taking a mere five minutes to get to my door. I’d say that’s right on the border between “quick” and “too quick”: I imagine as restaurants have reopened, the demand on takeaway services has declined. Everything came in a paper bag liberally stuck down with Deliveroo Editions stickers, and a handwritten note saying “Keep Calm And Curry On”, also asking me to leave a review on the app.

Now, with many takeaways I’ve ordered recently, including both the Thai meals I’ve had this year, the restaurant had not only popped a lid on but wrapped the whole thing in clingfilm first. If I thought that was an unnecessary belt and braces approach, the delivery from Rosa’s Thai proved me wrong: the bottom of the bag, and all the napkins, were liberally soaked with red curry sauce. Fortunately, there was still a lot of it in the cardboard container but as it turned out it was a telling sign – although Rosa’s Thai were delivery only, one of the things I took away from my meal was that they hadn’t quite given enough thought to how takeaways work.

The best example of that was the first starter I ordered, the pork skewers. These were probably the best thing I ate, as it happens. The pork was nicely tender with just one suspiciously bouncy bit, and that tenderness suggested there had been some marination, even if the supposed honey and soy hadn’t made it into the skewers. The tamarind dipping sauce they came with was worth the price of admission alone. I would have liked to see some evidence of char, of caramelisation on the pork, but more to the point the way they’d served this for takeaway was plain silly.

I accept that it’s never going to be quite as delicious as a takeaway dish as it would be taken straight off the grill and send to your table, but they could have given it a fighting chance by not serving it in a plastic coffin buried underneath a pile of chilled shredded cabbage and carrot like some gastronomic hostage situation. Even so, I liked it – as did Zoë who hoovered up one of the skewers. “This is good” she said. “But you know I love the porks.” (See? She just couldn’t stay away.)

Less successful were the sweetcorn patties. Normally I would have made a beeline for the chicken satay, but I checked myself because I always seem to order it and my reviews don’t always contain enough of interest for vegetarians, let alone the rest of you. So I veered off the beaten path, but I’m not sure it was worth it. The fritters were heavy and stodgy, not light and crispy, with a disconcerting habit of shedding stray kernels, like droppings, on the plate. Apparently the batter has red curry paste and kaffir lime in it, but they didn’t really make their presence felt. Worse was the sweet chilli sauce, which had so much sweetness and so little chilli that it felt like jam, and the whole thing was almost more like a dessert.

“This is when I could do with you weighing in, saying something like this is a fucking corn festival and a half.”

“I wouldn’t say that” said Zoë, trying her first forkful of a corn fritter. “It’s okay, actually. I feel like I’m getting some lemongrass.”

For my main course I’d gone for Rosa’s Thai’s chicken penang curry, one of two different red curries they do. It was nice, and if “nice” sounds like I’m damning it with faint praise it’s probably because I am. Everything was well cooked and well put together. The sauce had some heat, although it felt slightly lacking in depth. And it made a surprising amount of difference that the bamboo shoots were finely shredded – so different from the big planks of it you often get in Thai curries. But the overall feeling was one of inoffensive pleasantness. I don’t know why I expected a little more from Rosa’s Thai but I did, and when I didn’t get it I wondered who this restaurant really appealed to – diners or private equity firms.

So far from a terrible meal, all things considered, but here’s the problem: I just can’t think of the question to which “Rosa’s Thai” is the answer. If you want Thai food in Reading I would urge you to support Thai Table, which has been around for ages and, without fanfare, churns out reliably solid, lovely food. And if you want to try something exciting and new, I highly recommend ThaiGrr!, which really impressed me when I ordered from it recently. Crucially, both restaurants have properly thought about how to make delivery work, they have a better and more interesting range of starters and they’re just all-round more appealing.

By comparison Rosa’s Thai, although by no means bad, falls a little short. And this isn’t about taking against Deliveroo, or Deliveroo Editions: VIP Very Italian Pizza is doing exactly the same kind of market research as Rosa’s Thai. It just so happens that they offer something a little better, more interesting and more distinctive: Rosa’s Thai, on the other hand, just isn’t the growth opportunity I was looking for. I’m taking a week off next week, so you won’t get a review until two Fridays’ time. I plan to spend the next week or so persuading Zoë to join me on my next on duty visit. Wish me luck.

Rosa’s Thai

https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/reading/reading-editions/rosas-thai-editions-rea
Order via: Deliveroo only

Advertisement

Pub review: The Fisherman’s Cottage

On By ediblereadingIn ReviewsLeave a comment

When I looked at my to do list to decide where to review this week, I had a shopping list of requirements. Somewhere relatively new or unknown, for starters. A venue with good outside space – because the weather is clement all of a sudden and I know that many people, like me, still feel more comfortable eating and drinking outside. Finally, I wanted to pick a place with an interesting story – either somewhere I reviewed a long time ago that has survived the pandemic, or somewhere that opened since the pandemic began.

I scanned the list several times, fruitlessly, and then I realised it had been staring me in the face all along: it was time to go back to the Fisherman’s Cottage. It ticks all those boxes. Down by the river, with tables out front and an attractive beer garden (complete with faux beach hut booths) out back, it is one of Reading’s best pubs in terms of outside space, much of which catches the sun. And it manages to be both new and unknown, kind of: it came under new ownership last year when it was taken over by Turkish chef and restaurateur Cigdem Muren Atkins.

To say she’s had a baptism of fire would be an understatement. The Fisherman’s Cottage reopened just in time to be hit by our second lockdown in November. They had a couple of weeks of trading in December before we went into Tier 3, or Tier 4, or whatever they called it back then, and then we had a third national lockdown which only began to lift in April. During that time, the Fisherman’s Cottage did its best to adapt and survive: there was a click and collect menu, and every weekend if you walked along the river you saw tables outside groaning with cakes and cookies, for sale to passers-by.

Their neighbour the Jolly Angler grabbed more headlines with its attempt to turn its back garden into a poolside beach bar, but the Fisherman’s Cottage kept plugging away all the same. And now we’re in a weird situation: the pub has been under its present management for over six months, but has only been able to operate as a pub for the past two. I know of a few people who have gone there for a drink, but nobody who has eaten there – so on a beautifully sunny evening, accompanied by my partner in crime Zoë, I strolled down the river to give it a whirl.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all afternoon” said Zoë. “But I’m a bit apprehensive too.”

“I know what you mean. You really want it to be good, don’t you?”

“Exactly. Nobody wants to be talking about a shit meal at a time like this.”

There are few sights more gladdening than a bustling pub, especially on a sunny day, and I was pleased to see that the Fisherman’s Cottage was busy when we got there, with most of the tables out front occupied. Although I didn’t eat inside I can confirm that it’s still an attractive space, with a conservatory, plenty of light and, of course, that garden out back. We decided to eat out front though, mainly because it just felt more like being part of things, people-watching the friends walking past and the cyclists pulling up for a pint.

Speaking of pints, I should talk briefly about the beer, because I know this will disappoint many of the Fisherman’s Cottage’s former clientele. Under its previous management, the same owners as the Greyfriar, it was more of a craft beer destination. That’s not the case now, so you have a choice of the usual suspects – Camden Hells, Estrella, Corona and so on. I can see from Untappd that they do still do some local stuff, with recent check-ins of beers from Disruption Is Brewing and Wild Weather, but the selection is definitely narrower: hopefully the pub might develop this over time.

The menu felt like an attempt to cover a lot of bases, and it was impossible to tell by looking whether it would be good: sometimes you just know, one way or the other, but this was relatively inscrutable. The starters felt like the weakest section, with some dishes that were more sides than starters (fries, potato wedges and so on) and others, like mozzarella sticks, that felt like something you could pick up from any supermarket. Everything was affordable, though, with the priciest starter costing eight pounds.

The mains were divided into sections and felt a little busy, although many were variations on a theme – salads, pasta (the menu didn’t say which kind of pasta, just pasta) and pizza. There were a few curries, most of them Thai, three burgers and half a dozen other mains which ran the gamut from Morocco to Australia and onwards to the Caribbean. It was refreshing to see a pub that didn’t offer fish and chips, but even so the menu felt unfocused – you always worry that with so much on offer, a kitchen won’t do it all well. Pricing was variable, with dishes ranging from around nine pounds to sixteen for the priciest mains (steak or lamb chops, in this case). 

We ordered three starters and a couple of main courses, along with a couple of pints, and our bill came to fifty-four pounds, not including tip. Normally I put that bit at the end of a review, largely because I get my bill at the end of a meal, but on this occasion they brought the bill out straight after I’d ordered. At first I found that strange, but in hindsight it’s how it generally works in pubs – you wouldn’t bat an eyelid paying up front somewhere like Bluegrass BBQ, so it’s probably just the cognitive dissonance between eating in a pub and having table service.

I had the best of the starters, I think. I wanted something closer to Muren Atkins’ Turkish roots, so I’d gone for the courgette fritters. These were probably the best thing I ate all evening – light, crispy, beautifully fresh and reminiscent of many happy holiday meals. The yoghurt and mint dip they came with had a strangely clumpy texture, but there was no arguing with the taste. This felt like good value at five pounds fifty – “I’d order this next time” said Zoë, and I probably would too.

I rarely order calamari in restaurants – it doesn’t usually bowl me over – but Zoë often does, so she decided to go for it. Calamari is a tricky one, because unless it’s very fresh it always has a little bounce. That was the case here, too, but even having said that it was still a pretty good example and better than most I’ve had in Reading. The coating was nicely crunchy and, crucially, stuck to the calamari, and it’s hard to beat sweet chilli sauce as a dip for this, unless you make an excellent aioli or tartar sauce.

“This is decent” said Zoë, “and miles better than anything you’d get from a Prezzo or a Zizzi”. I enjoyed the couple she let me have, although I still think the courgette fritters were a better bet.

We also ordered a cheesy garlic bread, because there isn’t much to dislike about the epicentre of the bread/garlic/cheese Venn diagram. This was a bought-in ciabatta or panino halved and toasted with cheese and some garlic. It cost five pounds, and felt slightly sharply priced at that, mainly because it was lacking in firepower from the garlic.

“It’s a bit generic” said Zoë. “This is all your fault” she added, “because you’ve gotten me used to all the artisan shit. I would have lapped this up before I met you.”

“Are you complaining?” 

I asked the question because I knew the answer: when Zoë and I got together she was a korma eater with an aversion to tomatoes, but years later she can wax lyrical about fresh heritage tomatoes with burrata, khachapuri, or Clay’s ghee roast chicken with the best of them.

“Not at all.” She had a suspicious look on her face, but that might have been because she’d just caught sight of the ketchup bottle on the table. “But it’s frustrating – it wouldn’t take much to really ramp this dish up.” I tended to agree, although mainly I’d have added industrial quantities of garlic.

As the evening progressed a beautiful crimson sunset materialised on the far side of Blake’s Lock, and you could almost believe that things were normal again, that there were no such things as variants and amber lists, anti-vaxxers and virus deniers, people refusing to wear a mask or get a test. Instead there was just a pub table, my favourite person on the other side of it, a crisp pint of Estrella in front of me, empty plates with more on the way. Nothing but goodness, in fact: what a wonderful world it can still be, if you let it.

My reverie was interrupted by our main courses arriving a little more briskly than I’d have liked. But again, it didn’t feel like a significant issue: I imagine many pubs and restaurants are still finding their rhythm when it comes to serving diners. I had chosen the only main course to specifically reference Turkey, the meatballs, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The meatballs themselves were nicely coarse and well-seasoned, not suspiciously homogeneous and smooth. They were served with slices of fried aubergine. It’s a vegetable I often struggle to like but the Fisherman’s Cottage had cooked it nicely, with a good texture, some crispiness and none of the mulchiness aubergine can sometimes have.

Aubergine is pretty inescapable in Turkish cuisine. One Turkish aubergine dish is called imam bayildi which translates as “the imam fainted” – apparently from pleasure, according to a folk tale. I couldn’t quite match that, but I was definitely pleasantly surprised. The whole thing was rounded off by a beautiful, sweet, thick tomato sauce, a pile of white rice and a little foliage. It was a satisfying, unpretentious plate of food and felt like decent value at eleven pounds fifty.

Zoë had decided to brave the pizza section of the menu – a relatively new addition, according to the Fisherman’s Cottage’s Instagram feed – and had chosen one with chicken, caramelised onion and gorgonzola. She really enjoyed it, and made relatively short work of it, and the pieces I tried were pretty good – the chicken and sweet onion worked nicely together, though I thought it needed more of the gorgonzola to bring it all together.

I think she liked it more than I did, though – the base is rolled by hand and the whole thing is cooked in an oven on a pizza steel, but the dough was lacking any lift or bubbling which left the crust feeling a bit flat. In fairness, in that respect it was no different to the pizzas at sadly-departed Tuscany, down the Oxford Road, but the price of this pizza – fifteen pounds – felt on the steep side.

“I don’t think it’s that bad for pricing” said Zoë. “You’d pay that much for a Romana pizza at Pizza Express.”

“It’s more expensive than Papa Gee, though.”

“Anyway, I think it’s very good. I’d order it again.”

The weird thing about having paid your bill at the start is that there isn’t that moment to bring your meal to a close and add that full stop at the end. Service, incidentally, was friendly, efficient and masked, even though we were outside. I’m used to drinking outside in places with a little buzz – the Nag’s, of course, and my favourite right now, the Castle Tap. But it was a pleasant feeling to enjoy a meal surrounded by other people – sitting in the cold outside La’De Kitchen in Woodley on a chilly April evening or being the only people outside Crispy Dosa just doesn’t impart the same warm glow you get from being part of something bigger than you. As we all emerge from our own personal lockdowns, at varying speeds, I imagine there’s more of this to come.

While we waited for the wait staff to take our plates away we compared notes and, with a sense of relief, both decided that we’d enjoyed what we’d eaten. It does feel a little, to me anyway, that the Fisherman’s Cottage is playing it safe with a menu that tries to cover as many bases as possible. That’s understandable, especially at a time when every paying customer counts, but my favourite things on the menu were the Turkish dishes, and it did make me wish that there was more of that on offer. But then Muren Atkins has run restaurants in Turkey, England and the Caribbean, so maybe she’s more interested in offering something more international.

Even so, I’m really pleased that I can cautiously recommend the Fisherman’s Cottage next time you want to eat outside, or have a cold pint outside and eat something decent to accompany it. The food maybe isn’t the main attraction – a short walk onto the Kings Road will take you to the Lyndhurst, where the menu is at a different level – but it’s easily good enough to merit a visit, with some dishes that point to real potential. And it would be nice if the beer list leaned more towards the local, but that might come in time. But the pub is a lovely building, and it makes such a difference to see it being used and enjoyed, as opposed to last summer when it lay dormant at a time when it could have made the best of its riverside setting. I sense that Muren Atkins will look after it well, provided she gets some help from all of us. On this showing, she deserves it.

The Fisherman’s Cottage – 7.2
Kennet Side, Reading, RG1 3DW
07925 336269

https://www.thefishermanscottagereading.co.uk

Restaurant review: Crispy Dosa

On By ediblereadingIn Reviews1 Comment

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit inside?” said the waitress, smiling as she handed us the menu. Like all of the service at Crispy Dosa it was friendly, kind and welcoming: the restaurant was filling up with happy families, all Indian as far as I could see, and she probably didn’t understand why Zoë and I had chosen to sit at a table outside on plastic chairs, opposite the Penta Hotel or in the wind tunnel of Thorn Street.

In other circumstances, I might have acquiesced. The inside of Crispy Dosa, from my cursory glance, looked like a nice space. It had plenty of banquetted booths (I’m not sure whether they were leather or leatherette: leatheresque, perhaps?) each one with a little patch sewn into it saying “CRISPY DOSA ❤️ YOU”. And the restaurant was, for a week night, buzzing: I saw a regular flow of people in and out, customers leaving, some carrying bags to take home and, of course, a steady in and out of delivery drivers.

By contrast, Crispy Dosa’s outside space is slightly unfortunate. On one of the hottest days of the year so far none of the tables caught the sun, and they felt a little like a consequence of necessity: they are, after all, how Crispy Dosa managed to trade for the first few weeks they were open, while they waited for indoor hospitality to be allowed again.

But I am not yet at the stage where I’m ready to eat and drink indoors and, with the exception of a post-vaccination celebratory brunch at Fidget & Bob last month, this was the first time I’d had an al fresco meal this year. So to say those plastic tables and chairs were a welcome sight would be quite an understatement; the waitress probably didn’t understand why we were so excited. So we sat outside, at the very beginning of West Reading, where things begin to get a little bit more lively – I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy people-watching – and for the first time in a long time I held a physical menu in my hand and decided what to order.

I picked Crispy Dosa for my first restaurant review in over a year for a few reasons. One is that I knew they had outside space. Another is that I had a feeling dosas wouldn’t travel well if I’d ordered them as a takeaway dish. But most significantly, on the day I visited them they were Reading’s newest restaurant, having opened at the end of April. They have two other branches, in Hounslow and Greenford, and they opened here with relatively little fanfare – mainly because they missed out on all the publicity that comes with opening over forty different sock puppet restaurants on delivery apps. What can I say? I like an underdog.

Reading has had a bit of a love affair with South Indian food over the last twelve years. First Chennai Dosa opened on Whitley Street in 2009, and proved so popular that people were queuing to get in (they didn’t take cash, which at the time was noteworthy: these days you’d steer clear unless a restaurant accepted cards). Then Chennai Dosa moved to the old Casa site, just over from Reading Library, and Cafe Madras took their place on Whitley Street.

There have been more musical chairs in recent times. Chennai Dosa became “Chennai Dosa Artisanz”, a transformation which mostly seemed to mean that they added a couple of quid to every dish on the menu, and then it closed, leaving that site vacant for nearly three years until Madras Flavours opened there this year, also offering southern Indian food. And Cafe Madras closed too, to be replaced by Vel, another southern Indian restaurant. So the market is clearly there, and the question is whether it’s big enough to support a third restaurant (and, I suppose, whether Crispy Dosa is the third restaurant for the job).

Crispy Dosa is entirely vegetarian, and its menu is a mixture of South Indian dishes (specifically dosa and uthappam, its thicker sibling) and Indo-Chinese dishes you’d find on the menu somewhere like Bhel Puri House. There’s also a selection of curries and noodle dishes, if you want something more conventional. But the centre of the menu is definitely the dosa options which span three sections, “Dosa Corner”, “Special Dosa” and “Chef Recommended Dosa”. I’m not sure what adjective to use out of reasonable, affordable and cheap, but nearly all the dishes cost less than nine pounds and many are significantly less expensive. We ordered a few starters to share, and a main course each, and sat back and waited.

But first, I got to reacquaint myself with mango lassi. I love this drink, and I hadn’t had one in a long time; it’s not something you really add to a JustEat basket. Crispy Dosa’s version was lovely, a bright orange slurp of tropical sweetness, and it took a reassuringly long time to arrive. The wait staff apologised for the delay, something they repeatedly did and didn’t need to: they also came out to tell us our starters were on the way, when there wasn’t any rush.

Our starters were taken from different sections of the menu, a hodgepodge designed to sample a wider range of dishes. The first, the Madras crispy masala potato slice, was the most disappointing. I’ve been spoiled by Bhel Puri House’s bhajia, slices of potato in a crispy batter, beautifully spiced and served with a bright carrot chutney. This dish, by contrast, felt like a bare minimum way to live up to the description on the menu.

It really was just sliced potatoes which had indeed been fried (although not all of them were enormously crispy) with some spice powder dusted on top. They were meant to come with sriracha, but instead we got what tasted suspiciously like ketchup. I guess if you’re South Indian both of those sauces are equally inauthentic, but I expected something a little more than sliced potatoes and tomato sauce. It looks quite nice in the picture, mind you.

The gobi 65 was better. You got a fairly generous helping of small florets of cauliflower, cooked but still with a little nutty firmness, in a spiced batter, along with some decorative fanned-out slices of red onion (Zoë thought they really added something, although she’d happily eat raw red onion for fun: I gave them a miss). But these were pretty good, and more interesting than the sliced potato. Again, I was baffled that it came with ketchup – had they given this to us because they thought it was the kind of thing we’d enjoy, or was it standard issue? It might have benefited from something to dip it in – a whole dish of it got a bit dry – but Heinz? Really?

This was even more of a no-no where my dining companion was concerned. She dislikes almost anything with vinegar in it – I always get a black look when I open a jar of pickles – and has a visceral loathing of tomato ketchup which took me some time to fully grasp. Early in our courtship, down the pub with friends, I placed a bottle of ketchup in front of her on the table and watched in shock as instantly, in a single unthinking reflex action, she picked it up and chucked over her shoulder, clean into the river (if it had been any other establishment they might have barred us, but to my shame we were in the Back Of Beyond: I’m sure they’ve seen worse). I’m allowed ketchup with fish and chips, but I have to take the plate through to the kitchen and rinse it the moment I’m finished: she claims she can smell ketchup at great distances.

Fortunately our third starter came with an assortment of chutneys, which were also handy for starters one and two. Medhu vada are doughnut shaped fritters made from urad dal that are often eaten as breakfast or a snack in South India: I’d never had them before, but enjoyed them a great deal. You got a couple for just over three pounds – they looked a little lonesome on that big steel tray – and they had a nice texture, crispy on the outside, doughy without being too heavy. I expected a little more in terms of spicing and curry leaves, but as a vehicle for the chutneys and sambar I thought they worked nicely.

“It’s the chutney I judge these places by” a friend of mine had said to me earlier in the week. “We haven’t found any good ones in the UK so far.” Although I quite enjoyed Crispy Dosa’s chutneys I suspected they might have left her underwhelmed. The coriander chutney was probably the best of the lot but it didn’t quite have the zing I’d have liked. The coconut one was pleasant, and the sambar, although thin, had a pleasing heat to it. But the red chutney felt a little lacking in oomph, and I didn’t make great inroads into that.

Our main courses arrived while we were tackling the tail end of our starters. I’d forgotten just how huge a dosa looks when it’s plonked in front of you – you need the superwide lens on an iPhone to fit it all in – and how attractive a dish it is. I’d gone for the ghee podi masala dosa, and it was burnished on the outside and glossy with ghee inside, sprinkled with a dry powder made from lentils which gave it a savoury kick (the closest thing I can compare it to – let’s insult two cultures at once, shall we? – was the shrapnel at the bottom of a packet of dry roasted peanuts).

It was terrific finger food, and probably worked better with the chutneys and sambar than the medhu vada had. Only the potato masala let the side down – for me it was too creamy and bland with a strange note of something like condensed milk, and didn’t have enough in the way of spice. I finished my meal feeling full, so I didn’t lose too much sleep over leaving some of it, but portions at Crispy Dosa are so generous that I probably could have skipped the masala completely. Maybe I’ll branch out next time.

Another good candidate for next time was Zoë’s choice, from the “Chef Recommended Dosa” section, otherwise known as the “What Other Things On The Menu Could We Stuff Into A Dosa?” section. I suspect this bit of the menu would give purists conniptions – Szechuan noodles in a dosa doesn’t sound anything but weird – but Zoë’s paneer Manchurian dosa was very good indeed and worked well as a dish. It came rolled and cut into segments, much more like a traditional sandwich, and the paneer in it was firm, tangy and pretty tasty stuff. I wasn’t entirely convinced this dish needed the chutneys, as it managed perfectly well in its own right, a thoroughly enjoyable dish.

“It reminds me of a quesadilla, and I fucking love a quesadilla” said Zoë, handily proving that I wasn’t the only person not averse to a spot of cultural appropriation: arguably the restaurant started it by giving us tomato ketchup, anyway.

If we had had a better idea of portion size, and maybe paced ourselves a little better, we might have saved room for dessert. I have a soft spot for kulfi, it was the perfect evening for it and Crispy Dosa does a pistachio kulfi that I imagine I’d have enjoyed. Another one to notch up for next time, I think. We were probably there about an hour in total – ever so slightly on the brisk side, but understandable for the kind of restaurant Crispy Dosa is – during which time the Oxford Road gradually got louder, crazier and more watchable.

“It’s nice to have another spot that’s perfect for a quick meal before heading to the Nag’s” said Zoë. “This place and ThaiGrr! will come in handy for that.”

“Good point. That’s been a gap in the market since Tuscany and the Jolly Fryer closed down.”

“I know” she smiled. “You should mention that in your review.”

Our dinner for two – three starters, two mango lassis and two dosas – came to just over thirty-five pounds, not including tip. That’s not bad value, and you could easily spend less and come away full. Service was excellent throughout, and I did find myself rooting for them despite the occasional misstep. We were the only table outside, but they worked very hard to make us feel like we hadn’t been forgotten. It’s been such a difficult year for restaurants, and Crispy Dosa has hardly opened at an auspicious time, but it felt like there was a decency and integrity to what they did.

Reviewing restaurants again means putting ratings at the bottom, which means the usual hoo-ha about people thinking my reviews are too harsh, or too generous, or that the mark is too low or too high to match the words. I’m not sure I’ve missed that; the current feedback seems to be that I’m too harsh, though no doubt it will swing around before too long. But I liked Crispy Dosa, perhaps more than I enjoyed the sum total of the dishes. Some were good, some were middling but all were reasonably priced enough that you can explore, make mistakes, revisit.

Perhaps my spectacles are a little rose-tinted by just how wonderful it was to sit outside a restaurant again. But I don’t think so: I think Crispy Dosa is a decent, solid restaurant which adds something to Reading, especially if you live on the west side of town, or especially if you’re vegetarian. I’m glad it’s decided to open here, and that paneer Manchurian has my name on it at some point in the not too distant future. It’s no longer the latest restaurant to open in Reading – that honour passed this week to some burger place on Friar Street – so it will just have to settle for being the latest restaurant I’ve reviewed. Small consolation, I know, but them’s the breaks.

Crispy Dosa – 7.0
60 Oxford Road, Reading, RG1 7LT
0118 3273670

https://www.crispydosarestaurant.co.uk