One of the things I find most confusing is the practice of going for a curry when you’re hammered. Having tried this with friends a couple of times, I have concluded that anyone who likes the pints-then-curry act is a liar or feels so awful regularly that the feeling afterwards is nothing abnormal. There is no type of food I dislike more than bad Indian: the places where a vindaloo means three scoops of curry powder and a rogan josh means two; where onion is undetectable in the sunflower oil bhaji. The last time I went to a bad curry house after drinking, I left the place with a curious sensation, a suspicion that my small intestine had been pushed up into my oesophagus, that a layer of ghee had clogged up my stomach acid pumps, that if I were to take a swig of water then it would just immediately splash out of my mouth, and that a part of my stomach was in danger of getting trapped in a door. Specifically, of the off-licence over the road.
Cantonese and Turkish food are much, much better for post-drinking. Stir-fried noodles soak up lager very well, while every single Turkish restaurant in the country has contrived to be a 7/10, so you know there won’t be any nasty surprises.
No serious eater is properly accomplished without having discovered an Indian place that no one else knows about
And yet Indian food at the elite level is perhaps better than anything else. No serious eater is properly accomplished without having discovered an Indian place that no one else knows about. My dad is one of those with this Indian bug: he even had a phase of growing his own ‘ghost chillis’. On a holiday to India when I was a kid, he ordered a laal maas every night, concluding that none was as good as the one he liked at the now closed Shikara in South Kensington. He has been looking for a good Indian ever since and texted me the other week to say he’d found one: Marlbank Indian Cuisine, near Malvern, an area he says is an ‘undiscovered gem’ because it’s ‘just one hour too far for London weekend tossers to bother’.
The cravings started as soon as I got that message. But where to go? I’d heard things about Koyal in Surbiton, debatably in or outside London. Andy Hayler, a diligent gourmand who has visited every three-star Michelin restaurant in the world, says that it’s better than any of the Indian food in central London. I suggested going with a former colleague, who’s from Surbiton and of course a traitor for leaving this magazine.
We started with hara pyaaz (£8.50), which were spinach fritters: these were fried well and the hari chutney was good, but I didn’t quite get the vegetal depth you want from spinach. Garlic tiger prawns (£13) had been pelted with Kashmiri chilli and marinade, to the point where it could have been anything under there. The lamb chops (£12 for one) were superb, so if you’re a lamb chop ultra, then start your car.
Masala butter chicken (£16) was creamy but not cripplingly so: neither tomato nor butter dominated. It would have been good if I’d tasted it before I’d burned my tongue on the tadka dal (£7.50), which was too spicy. You may also find that your constitution can take the wild boar vindaloo (£19) better than mine.
We then indulged in a rarity: dessert at an Indian restaurant. The kala jamun (£6.50) – fried cottage cheese dumplings in syrup – were wonderful, but on the train home I couldn’t help but think: ‘Still not quite found it…’
Koyal, 59-63 Brighton Rd, Surbiton KT6 5LR; tel: 0208 399 5533.
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