For a country where curry is now as popular as fish and chips it sure is hard to find a restaurant that serves decent good tasting reasonably priced curries. Ever since I read Time Out‘s review of Chowki in their Cheap Eats Guide I’ve been meaning to go there but for some reason had never gotten around to it. Tonight Rehana and I finally got around to eating there.

When you first walk into the restaurant it has a very trendy bar/Wagamama’s feel to it with long communal tables, dark colouring, and red leather cub stools as seats. This seems in direct contrast with the authentic Indian home-style cooking it seems to be promoting. Not that I would know what an authentic Indian restaurant should look like. Chowki is different from a lot of other curry restaurants for its constantly changing menu which samples from three different regions of India every month.

To make the most of Chowki’s offerings and get value for money its best to go with their regional set meal which allows you to choose three courses from one region for for £12.95. Considering you also get naan bread, rice and a lentil curry its very good value indeed. Mains are priced individually priced between £6.95 to £10.95 (depending on if you go vege or meat).

As we didn’t want to limit ourselves to just a couple of regions Rehana and I ended up with just a starter and a main each. Although I wouldn’t say the curries were the best I’d ever had (Rehana’s home cooking still beats the pants off anything I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant) I wouldn’t say they were awful. The Tilapia fillet starter was amazing though.

Service wasn’t too bad though at times I felt a little bit rushed to get through the meal and finish up (not that the wait staff or rude or anything.) The ambience is just average – its probably not the best restaurant to go to for a chat as it does get fairly loud but can be fun and funky.

Overall I would probably go to Chowki again if only to sample their ever changing menu.