The Kitchen

CLOSED LATE 2011

410 Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton

(Sorry photos of takeaway food usually turn out terribly - use your imagination)

Formerly Karahi Korner – on the same row in Chorlton as Oddest and North Star Deli, The Kitchen is another Halal takeaway doing curries (and pizzas).  Surely the market is saturated you cry – well not with good ones it isn’t.
 Although takeaways are part of this blog we’re more interested in cheap places in which you can ‘eat in’ and rarely does a takeaway menu that comes through the letterbox inspire us to pick up the phone – but Kitchen’s did. You can tell a lot from a menu and The Kitchen’s has a lot going for it. Not least the Pakistani classics of Haleem, Nihari and a daily changing Staff Curry – good signs.  And interestingly enough it has a ‘Nation's Favourite’ section with a Union Jack graphic with the Dopiaza, Tikka Masala, Madras type stuff in it. Again a nice touch.
So the plan was- a few veggie side dishes, a bit of a grill-up starter  and a traditional type curry.  After that we thought we’d have a reasonable feel for the place. – Best laid plans and all that. Unfortunately there were no traditional dishes on offer, all three requested were off. On a Friday night.
This was a real shame and gave us that sinking feeling that we’d been conned into thinking this was a decent place by fancy menu items that don’t exist. So we duly ordered as best we could – grilled meat, daal, lamb karahi and a few bits and bobs.
We then received a call back saying they’d run out of daal – but threw in a half portion as a gesture, free of charge. This was appreciated but also made us question the operation a bit – no lentils? Aren’t they almost free in the first place??
….So it arrived, not that it bore much resemblance to the original order. It was actually very good – clearly time and care had been taken with the food. The grills were all spot on, with a crispness and juiciness that only lasts a short period of time-  so clearly the delivery guy didn’t mess about either.  Big juicy lamb chops were great – when aren’t they? The bread and rice were very good; well flavoured, without the need for gaudy touches like red or green grains – another good sign.  The karahi was also a very creditable effort – so often the curry ends up playing second fiddle to the exciting variety of starters, but not this time.  Fine strips of ginger, garlic and coriander were some nice little touches that elevated it – although the rich, savoury sauce was doing a pretty decent job on its own and the meat was of surprisingly high quality.
In short the food was very good, as was the service – prompt, friendly etc and the pricing was very reasonable for the standard of food. The only issue was the lack of advertised dishes – and those being the more interesting ones. We think The Kitchen’s got a real chance here, they’re a very new business so perhaps it’s a bit manic and they underestimated demand or whatever. Or – if being pessimistic, perhaps they never really intended to do troublesome dishes like nihari – which takes a hell of a long time to cook and can’t be made with a base sauce – but put it on the menu to look authentic.  We really hope it’s the former – as everything else about the experience was very good.  We wish them all the best.