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Rama's Bridge - New South Indian Restaurant

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This new restaurant has opened in Crookes this week and we thought we would give it a try.

 

We arrived at 9.30pm on a Thursday and it was fairly quiet but there were a few people in. Greeted by friendly staff and shown to our table. It was a bit chilly in the restaurant but this was not a problem when the spicy food we ordered began to arrive.

 

Good selection of wines and beers to choose from. Large and varied menu to select food from, especially vegetarian. First of all we were given complimentary poppadums and pickles. Then we went for a mixed vegetarian starter to share. It came and was massive! Lots of really tasty idly, chilli paneer, vada and dips and salad. Wonderful flavours and well presented.

 

For mains I had a dry Sri Lankan fish curry, my missus went for the Mushroom curry. We shared a rice and portion of chapatis. Again really well presented and really tasty. In all honesty we couldn't finish everything as we were absolutely stuffed.

 

This new place isn't quite finished yet as some salesman was demonstrating tablecloths whilst we were there but this didn't bother us in the slightest. The food was good and that's what matters.

 

We spent £36 on starters , mains, 2 glasses if wine and a large kingfisher which I thought was excellent value.

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Excellent, I just noticed the restaurant as I was walking the dog this morning, and thought I'd pop in tonight. Glad to hear the food's good!

 

A quick Google indicates that the people opening the restaurant already run East and West on Abbeydale Road.

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I am really looking forward to trying this place! Bungleboy - can you tell me what sort of spicing level I can expect here? Is it South Indian authentic or typical British bland?

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Another makeover for this place, so far its been about 4 different restaurants in 2 years- the owner must have deep pockets!

 

Hope its sucessful though, its in quite a prominent position in crookes.

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I really hope so too. I'm guessing that, if it's run by the same people as East and West, then it's a new owner - presumably the same owner wouldn't keep refurbishing it just because he couldn't think of anything better to do.

 

When we first moved to Crookes, 12 years ago, this place was a tapas restaurant (which, for some reason, I always felt had a bit of a Belgian style to it) and was really good, but it declined over the years and then the place started rebranding every year or so. I hope this is the last changeover in a while - although we've plenty of Indian restaurants in the area, there's nowhere in miles where you can get a good masala dosa.

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there's nowhere in miles where you can get a good masala dosa.

 

Maveli is around 1 mile from Crookes...the dosas are very good there!

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OK, correction: there's nowhere within _a mile_ where you can get a good masala dosa.

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We had a great meal here on Wednesday - little bit surreal eating curry in the middle of a snow storm!

 

The food was great quality. Even the poppadums seemed freshly made. We shared a paneer dosa - it was just the right level of crispiness and it was absolutely stuffed full of paneer. Then we had a dal and a lamb curry, with paratha and rice. Nothing was very spicy, but all of had a well-balanced flavour with a reasonable amount of chilli kick to it. I'm sure they'd adjust the spice levels up or down if you asked.

 

The service was very friendly and they were very keen to answer questions about anything on the menu. They were having table cloth issues when we went, but they weren't planning to be open until 1st December and I'm glad they opened earlier.

 

Prices are a bit more expensive than East and West, pretty much on a par with Maveli, although I found the meat curries at nearly £10 for a not very big portion quite over-priced, particularly when the fish curries were cheaper and the incredibly large dosa which more than served as a starter for two of us was only about £5. I think they'll need to tweak some of their pricing if they're going to compete against, for example, Zara's which has a pretty good reputation. I know that they're offering completely different styles of cooking, but I think a lot of people will look at the price of a lamb curry and decide to go with a curry house that they know and trust. Having said that, our meal was remarkably good value for money - because the dosa and the veggie dishes were such excellent value, and we got free poppadums too, because the restaurant had only just opened.

 

We'll definitely be going again.

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I am really looking forward to trying this place! Bungleboy - can you tell me what sort of spicing level I can expect here? Is it South Indian authentic or typical British bland?

 

I requested South Indian spice level and the food came as requested, spot on, I'm salivating whilst typing this, thinking about the food.

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Just back from a family lunch at Rama's Bridge. Fairly quiet - 3 or 4 other tables in - but not bad for their first Sunday. They brought us a lunch menu of snacks and light meals, but we went for the main menu to see how it compares to the original East and West. It was interesting to see that they also do breakfast from 10am - a morning egg roti could be nice!

 

We ordered chilli paneer, a mini masala dosa, cashew pakora, chicken 65 and masala vada as starters. After free popadoms, the starters arrived one by one after 15 minutes, a reasonable delay, and were instantly devoured. We actually received a large masala dosa instead of the vada but this was also finished, so I didn't bother to comment. The chilli paneer was nice and spicy but the others were mild.

 

Main courses were ennai kathrikai (fried aubergine), thoran (dry bean curry), mutton masala dosa, fish molee and spinach dal. None of the dishes were particularly spicy, which seems to be the default. However, they were all very different and interesting, with the fish probably the winner. A coconut rice and mixed breads were very pleasant but filling.

 

Apart from a general lack of heat (which we could have changed during ordering), I was very pleased with the food. The prices are distinctly higher than E&W, but then the environment is a lot nicer and it's much closer to home! With a jug of lassi, we paid £80 for 5 people but we ordered more food than we really needed.

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We went last week and had a very disappointing experience. I am not sure I will return. It was obviously teething problems, but poor management, filling all tables in twenty minutes is insane.

 

Service very slow. 20 minutes to order a drink. Longer for food. If you pop in for a drink, you are served straight away. Three groups walked out after long waits.

 

The vegetarian dosa starter arrived as a main, with chicken.

The main course fish curry was completely inedible. Very cheap, dry fish with a vinegary sauce. For £10 I would expect it to be at least palatable.

Plates and serving plates low grade.

Male toilet broken.

They had painted over the old picture hooks without removing them.

Overall totally disappointing, dreadful service and inedible food.

 

I am saddened to write such a review, as I was really looking forward to this food.

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Absolutely lovely and authentic food. Service a little slow - hopefully just some teething problems.

 

 

Posted from Sheffieldforum.co.uk App for Android

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