Review of Shahee Mahal, Staines

This saddens me to write an unflattering review of a restaurant I have frequented for nigh on ten years but sometimes, things must be done.

As mentioned above I have gone to this restaurant many times, partially as I used to work and live nearby and also as you could guarantee a good if not outstanding indian meal, however as advertised in the local papers recently its now under new management and offers a buffet all day, as well as the a'la carte.

We went as a group of four yesterday evening and were very disapointed, we opted for the sunday £9.95 buffet as we all pretty much like trying new and different dishes and were not overly hungry (thankfully in hindsight).

The choice on offer (the paper advertised 30 different dishes) was very poor, the restaurant was admitedly quiet but the containers had hardly anything in and not everything was labelled, 'starters' were odd tasting and rock hard mini spring rolls, chicken nuggets of all things and dry looking pieces of chicken tikka (I didnt dare try either of them!), supposedly a choice of veg or meat samosas but I only found lamb ones in the 'vegetable' container(!), flat bland onion bhajis and poppadoms.

On to the mains, (which all had an unattractive film that had formed over them!) 'meat bhuna' (bland and indifferent), 'meat dopiaza' (which turned out more firery than hell and seemed to consist of whole green chillies), a small container of warm coloured rice, there was another rice but as the light was off / broken I didnt look in, saag aloo lacking in the saag or flavour and a dahl dish that was so runny I didnt dare put on my plate for fear of spilling, there was also a couple of other unlabelled and unappealing curries. There was also slices of cucumber and orange slices laid out on another stand in such a fashion that they actually looked lonely and we didnt dare distrub them, the only saving grace of the meal was that we ordered fresh peshwari and keema naans that were both hot and edible. We promptly ordered the bill skipping the vanilla ice cream that was on offer which seemed to surprise them, I thought the fact our plates were still half full would surprise them more.