Eastern Eye Curry House

Looks like the bill will be more then £20 per person if they have to pay some fines!

Shome mishtake, shurely! 

......Yes indeed - I fully endorse Jons' comments above about poor service - however as always great company - big thanks to bruv Nige for the lifts, and Jon, Phil, Big Darren and Pete as well for their tremendous contributions to some rich anecdote-spinning on a very incident-packed evening to say the least!!!!! ("not much" lager spilt (over and by me!!) - always a bonus!!)...........

..........ah yes - all who know the Progmeister (aka Lord_Tanktop aka chelstongull) can rest assured that the rest of us present last night managed to keep him "relatively" calm as he neared fever pitch with the "finger in the cold curry" incident fast approaching by the calming method of quoting obscure King Crimson album tracks to him and the naming of a few 70s Kraut rock electro-ensembles also - this and trying to get him to imagine he was actually in Flox Records, Fleet Street back in 1974 seeking out THAT Roxy Music album cover "seemed to do the trick"!!!!! - Yep, deffo the Naz next time we forage north of the Kerswell Arch!!!!!...........

I read about the Great Curry Debacle with a mixture of sadness and alarm.

This needs to be rectified before I next travel two-thirds the length of England.

Sort it out, Donovan!

I'm not going to make any suggestion, or I hope inference, that Mr Chelston's opinion and decision are in any way mistaken. After all, the poor lad ended up hungry at midnight and severely frustrated.

I, however, have a differing view.

I was, I'm sure, led to believe that the Eastern Eye was an excellent Indian restaurant that was well worth visiting and, indeed, was popular with the TFF massive. I was excitedly looking forward to a visit as the guest of my friends from the Pop Side.

In context I don't think it should be forgotten that the restaurant fell victim to what some might suggest is a heavy-handed approach by the UK Border Agency in arresting four staff for forgetting to renew their visas and another one for coming into the country by the back door. I mean, come on - we're not UKIP yet. If they can rustle up a Chicken Shashlik in 10 minutes surely that's a valuable skill that this country is crying out for! It transpired that the restaurant had managed to replace two of those by the time of our visit but were still three staff down. On the other hand it was noted that the Bollywood Spice next door looked fairly quiet so maybe they should have borrowed some chefs from there.

It's got a good history on well-known Joe Public rating site Tripadvisor: 65% of reviews rate it at least Very Good (and 15% rate it Terrible!).

My point is that I believe we were unfortunate on Saturday.

Well, some of us were. I know that my expectations (and life is about managing expectations) may be different that yours in the English Riviera. Waiting an hour for a main course isn't that unusual up here; and Mrs Rags and I will easily clear £40 for two mains, two sides and a couple of large Cobras (with pops and spinneys, natch). It was a long wait and that wasn't good enough for anyone with a time deadline. As it happens I didn't have a deadline and didn't care less how long my main course took to arrive. I was with 5 mates and having a great time chatting about this and that - from 21st Century Schizoid Man to what words Dave Bennett wrote in green on the left hand side of the blackboard. Frankly, the food came too soon, but I accept totally that nobody else on the table would agree.

But what food!

Ignoring the pops and spinneys that were the best I'd ever tasted outside of Atul Kochhar's Michelin-starred Restaurant (and surely that's worth a few points out of 10 alone?) my Vegetable Kathmandu was stunningly good. I don't know what a Kathmandu is - Jon recommended it to me and promptly ordered something completely different himself - but our willing waiter organised a vegetable version for me. The Aloo Gobi was excellent - it looked like new potatoes in there rather than a few clumps of Megachip (yes, that is a potato variety). I wasn't keen on the colour of my chana massala - I've never had one that shade of red before but it tasted alright.

The beers were slow arriving and our waiter had to chivvy the bar along a bit, but we weren't left gasping.

At the end of the meal we all agreed that it was unacceptable for Phil to pay anything, or for any of his order to appear on the meal. Don't worry, we did ask him a number of times how he rated that particular meal but his decision never wavered. And it wasn't as if he had to be persuaded not to pay anything. His main course was last to arrive, a good 10 minutes after ours, and it was so cold he stuck his finger in the dish to prove it. Not once, but twice. When it returned it was steaming, but only in temperature. So was Phil - as above, he compared it to chicken casserole and it was the rather hefty straw that broke that camel's back. He wasn't best pleased.

At bill time, Phil's garlic naan and rice were still on the bill so we deducted the cost of that (about a fiver) and plonked the correct cash on the table. 6 sambucas were brought for us. With Nige and Darren not drinking, and both Phil and I averse to that particular evil, it fell to Jon to snaffle up a couple and Chris to down the rest. Then a bottle arrived which was about a third full.

So, we faced the argument/discussion with the manager as to why our cash offering was £5 short of the bill, while Chris was repeatedly refilling his sambuca glass from the bottle. I did wonder at what point the manager was going to point out that Chris had drink twice the cost in sambuca that we were insisting be removed from the bill; but he didn't notice or chose to ignore it.

The overall service was poor, Phil's food was unacceptable, it wasn't necessarily the Easter Eye's fault but it certainly wasn't our problem. They could do nothing but take Phil's order off the bill, however that didn't fill him with food and doesn't repair the disappointment.

But I'd go back there in a flash, and I would hope that one day Phil would consider giving them another chance. I have here a piece of paper (hand-written on an Eastern Eye compliment slip) valid for "meals for one person", valid Mon to Thurs only and excluding King Prawn, desserts and drinks. It belongs to Mr Chelston himself and I hope he takes the opportunity to use it (although I do think Mon-Thurs is a bit restrictive).

And we finally solved the Mystery of Room 11!











.

Chelston told me a couple of years ago that he would NEVER go back to the Devon Dumpling after experiencing poor service there.

Now he takes his wife up the Dumpling once a week.

Right admit this is a week after the event but better just endorse what has been said about the Eastern Eye last weekend. Crap service know doubt but have to say my meal was fantastic too. Sorry about that Phil !! He does however have every right to complain as it was cold and just looked naff and I wouldn't have eaten any of it either. I saw Phil just before the start of the match today and he was waiting for me to give him some stick but I didn't and reckon it will be Naz next time!

Apart from those bad bits the evening was still good and meeting up with Rags too (know who you are now).