Tandis

Great food with massive portions. Recommended.

We popped in here for a late lunch with friends, and were really impressed. We skipped the starters and shared a combination of kebabs and stews. Each of us got a big plate of perfectly cooked Saffron rice, which went very well with the lamb, chicken, plum and spinach mains we ordered. Everything was cooked perfectly and delicious. Try out the Persian tea too, sweet and refreshing.

With a round of drinks, this came in at about £15 a head, great value. One word of warning though, the menu quotes beer prices for pints and half pints, but we got 330ml bottles of beer, so felt a tiny bit short-changed at £3.60 a bottle. If we'd realised they weren't pint bottles or from draught, we'd probably have stuck with the teas and saved £12 off the bill.

Overall though, a great option for a quiet lunch.

Having read about this place in the recent Time Out (“Eat well for less than a tenner”) we headed here for dinner on a Monday night. Booking a table on that day would not have been necessary as it only slowly filled up over the evening.

It’s a very nice restaurant with modern interior. Staff was very friendly (already when booking on the phone) and attentive.

For starters we shared a selection of 4 different ones for 10 Pounds. While one of the aubergine dips and the chive yoghurt dip were really nice, the other aubergine one wasn’t quite as tasty, and also the feta cheese didn’t blow me away. Delicious however was the flat sesame bread that accompanied the starters (ask for it seperately). Portions were really generous, we needed to have a little break before the mains.

If we had known how generous the mains are we would have taken an even longer break…every dish came with a big pile of fluffy rice, perfectly cooked and a very decent amount of meat/stew/one of the biggest lamb shanks ever seen in London ;-) - they happily get you a to go bag if you don’t finish it all.

But not only was it a lot, it was also nicely prepared. The chicken mince could have been a bit tastier, but the lamb was nicely flavoured, not too strong though, but definitely typical Persian flavours.

Did we stay under a tenner? No, because we couldn’t get around trying their cocktails (6 Pounds each) which were good. Also, some of the mains are around 10-11 Pounds (lamb shank and fish for example), while others range around 8 Pounds (a bit less even for the vegetarian stews). Still, these prices won’t break the bank. Considering the quality and quantity of food you get it’s good value.