New Tayyabs

It seems like you can’t call yourself a food blogger unless you have been to New Tayyabs, so I thought I had better rectify that. I organised R, my brother, and his girlfriend, to travel to the wilds of Whitechapel, having managed to book a table online.

As I was looking at the map to work out how to get there I began to realise that I have actually been there before! A client took us when we were working round there, but I never saw the name of the restaurant and wasn’t given a menu since the client is a regular and ordered for us. Then as we turned off Commercial Road my brother realised that he had been there too, with Andy Oliver (of Masterchef fame) who he was at university with.

I was dubious about whether the reservation would work, but we were miraculously whisked past the queue and straight to a table. R had been dispatched to Tesco to get a bottle, and then poppadoms were immediately produced as we perused the menu. We decided that we would just share everything, which made the choices a bit easier. We also thought we ought to try the daily special.

First to arrive were the famous lamb chops, and some seekh kebabs. The kebabs were lovely and moist, and just spicy enough to get the taste buds going. The lamb chops were awesome, beautifully spiced and tender, we were soon all gnawing the bones!

Then arrived dry meat, karahi ghost (lamb), dhall karela, sag aloo and the aforementioned daily special, which I can’t remember the name of but involved chicken and chickpeas, accompanied by a pile of various naans and paratha. My client last time had said not to bother with rice, and so we followed his advice again this time. The dry meat, despite not sounding all that inspiring, was absolutely delicious. The meat was meltingly tender, and the taste was so rich. I also particularly enjoyed the saag aloo, where the spinach was almost pureed, and it tasted particularly great when eaten with the garlic naan!

An hour after we walked in we were back out in the howling wind and rain, totally stuffed and having only spent £12.50 a head. The queue had doubled in length in the time we had been there, but with that quality of food at that price, I can understand why. Now I just have to persuade R to go back again, soon!