Some good friends from back home are back in the UK so tonight to officially welcome them back we went out for a typically London thing to do – a curry at Brick Lane.

Brick Lane is what non-Londoners seem to associate with curries in London so its surprising that I haven’t actually eaten at any of the restaurants at Brick Lane in my nearly three years here.

Navigating up Brick Lane is made extremely difficult and slow as each restaurant has their own little touter shouting out discounts to you and sometimes even following you and hassling you up the road. I find it hard to just say no and ignore such people so I always end up carrying on some sort of conversation with them.

Finally we had had enough of the touting and chose Monsoon at 78 Brick Lane.

We were the first diners in the small restaurant but it soon filled up and actually got quite rowdy with both the conversation and sound system. The prices are fairly cheap but I’m sure are inflated to incorporate the “discount” being offerred on the street. No doubt the “discount” is to get you to come in and then buy big on the alcoholic or other drinks.

I’ve read some reviews where a lot of people weren’t very impressed with the service but I can’t say that we had too much of a problem, in particular I was happy with how our bill dispute with dealt with, though I’m not sure how they’d cope on a busier night. The food was actually pretty tasty to my uneducated palette and, though not giant portions, we couldn’t actually finish all that we’d ordered. You will have to definitely choose the right curries to suit your taste to get the most enjoyment out of it.

In the end Monsoon offerred pretty good value for the quality of the curries. Probably best to avoid when super busy as you will no doubt be on the receiving end of harried service that may possibly try and push you out the door to fit in another group of diners.