When I polled five under-the-radar restaurants that readers wanted me to review, Leytonstone High Road’s Star of India bagged 20% of the vote. And I realised I hadn’t eaten at this restaurant since before Covid, in another of its Star Of India incarnations – but before its short-lived Red Fort days.
A flyer and poster depicts “award-winning chef Abdus Sahid” grinning with telly institution Ainsley Harriott, the pair evidently enjoying some kind of starry ceremony – and it’s this patronage that the restaurant uses in all its local advertising.
More seductive is the Wednesday Banquet offer, comprising five-courses of “papadam and chutney, starter, main, a side, rice or naan.” It comes in at a reasonable £15.95, although an extra £3 per head is charged for seafood, lamb cutlets or mixed grill.
LOCAL ADVERTISING
Step inside and the now-contemporary interior is strewn with pink and green neon, a glass-encased water feature at the entrance, plush seating and quirkily hatted chandeliers beyond. And downstairs are the shiniest, most sparkling toilets I have even seen in this area. Someone is taking care of the small details, a fact underlined by the eclectic earthenware bowls and plates served with each course.
Donate just £2 to Leytonstoner
We arrived just before a gang of at least twenty male football fans, a little boozed-up but polite enough, who cutely thought we were on a “date night.” But no matter: soon we were immersed in the plentiful dishes, which kept on coming.
While the individual chutneys and yoghurts with papadams were moreish, the starters that followed were arguably the meal highlight: juicy king prawn puri, a Bangladeshi classic with its tangy, spicy and rich masala sauce, served on a puri (deep-fried pancake) to wrap it up in; and golden-crusted onion bhajees, squished flat and fritter-like, crunch-perfect with a squeeze of lemon.
Our mixed grill main – which added the pesky £3 surplus each – comprised a mix of grilled and tandoori chicken, a single (but delicious) charred lamb cutlet and a spicy lamb tikka. We also ordered a vivid komola lamb, the meat tenderly braised with saffron and almond, its name a reference to the citrus hit from the use of orange zest: a little sweet for our palates, almost dessert-like if it weren’t for the savoury garlic naan, it was still an interesting choice. Classic tarka dhal, however, was creamy and garlicky in equal measures, while pilau rice was, as you’d hope, exemplary.
As the neighbouring table grew a little rowdier, we paid up and left, glad of the twenty-minute walk home to walk it all off: “banquet” is no exaggeration. And at those prices – the bill around £30 each, including a tip, with two large glasses of Malbec (£9 each) – this is one feast that won’t break the bank, either.
For the full version of this story and loads more like it, delivered every week to your inbox, and long before the stories appear online here, please subscribe to the newsletter. Every story we publish goes on the newsletter first here.
Please support us if you can
We are about to reach our 10th birthday and have a bigger audience and social media following than ever before, but due to advertising revenues in freefall both Leytonstoner and our small network of independent online titles is under threat. As readers we need your support more than ever to keep delivering ‘good-news’ cultural stories that celebrate our wonderful neighbourhoods. Every reader or business contribution, however big or small, is invaluable in helping the costs of running the website and the time invested in the research and writing of the articles published. Support Leytonstoner HERE for less than the price of a coffee and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
