Dulwich Tandoori, Dulwich, London

Dulwich Tandoori is TOPS for eating inside the restaurant.

Delivery, on the other hand, would get two stars for the same reasons others have mentioned – slow, lukewarm when it arrives, and occasionally something is missing.

Don’t write them off if you’ve only experienced their delivery service. In house food is amazing and quick, with fantastic service. The first time a group of us went, they were full but re-arranged an area and brought out an extra table with chairs from storage to fit us in. Food was fab.

Whatever you do don't go to Dulwhich Tandori, they took 2 hours to deliver, forgot the free beer and also burnt the poppadoms...i'm mean who burns poppadoms, its the most basic thing on the menu. What's even worse is they sent the delivery guy back to take the food back before they would even think about money off...talk about bad customer service!? You have been warned!

We just ordered away curry from here. We had to call 30 minutes after the curry was due to arrive. The man who answered was surly and told me I was not waiting in my flat despite the fact that I had been here all night. When it eventually arrived the order was missing a naan and was lukewarm. I do not recommend this place.

After so-so experiences at several of the competing curry houses in East Dulwich, I'd all but given up on them, putting the quality down to a lack of authenticity and a surfeit of generically spiced, pre-prepared, fast food served for a predominantly Anglo-Saxon palate. I used to live just off Tooting's curry mile, and so the loss has hit me hard.

I was therefore somewhat dubious as we entered the Dulwich Tandoori, one of the only we haven't tried yet. As it goes, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a real throwback to the 80's mind you, I felt like my father. Dusky red 'ethnic' wallpaper (verging on flock), a Bollywood-lite covers soundtrack of contemporary pop hits, paisley carpets and a small white jug of carnations on every table took us both back. The irritatingly sexist man arguing with his partner on the next table added to that Ashes to Ashes authenticity, though was perhaps less welcome.

We had a couple of poppadoms and skipped straight to a combined main course. the menu offers a few surprises. While they have every dish you'd expect from a local curry house, there are a few Bengali specialities that warrant a further look; Shatkora Chicken, named after the sour aromatic citrus fruit of the same name and a fish dish called Rup-Chanda made with the pomfret, a fish I'd certainly never heard of. They also, rarely, had several duck dishes on the menu.

The chicken Dhansak, a traditionally Gujarati dish, was excellent. Succulent and perfectly cooked chicken served in a spice hot lentil mixture, flavoured with cumin, garlic and chilli. A fresh (if not especially authentic) mushroom pilau and a pleasingly flavoured Aloo Gobi complemented the generously portioned dish, easily enough for the two of us. It was all light, relatively oil free (with the possible exception of the Aloo Gobi) and obviously fresh. Microwave hot towels came on completion, and the modest bill was presented with a brace of After Eights. I'm sure, if we'd had room to contemplate looking, there would have been various frozen ices, served in fruit shells to finish.

I'll be back, the friendly service and interesting menu options will prove too tempting to avoid. It's no Benares certainly, but it's nice to find a good local curry house finally. Seeing what they are capable of with shackled with a menu stuffed with obvious staples I'm also tempted to ask the kitchen to prepare me one of the dishes that they'd prefer to be eating.

Indian food cannot get any better than this, this restaurant is superb, excellent and the best around. It has been running for 20 years and is one of the best local restaurants in lordship lane, east dulwich. The staff are excellent and make you feel really welcome, it has a genuine friendly environment and is very relaxing. The food is excellent and cooked by proffesional 5* chefs. The restaurant provides take-away, delivery, parties, air-con, outside catering and are allergy aware. My experiance there has been fabulous thus I keep going back every friday night. You will find the number in yellow pages or the net, do try them out!:)