Last weekend we were celebrating my Nanna’s 80th birthday. Naturally, she wanted to mark the occassion with a curry, like all 80 year olds do. So, we went to Salim’s in Loughborough.
Positioned opposite the pretty scuzzy Phantom pub (inhabited mainly by equally looking scuzzy students and young people), Salim’s is on Leicester Road just a little way out from the town centre, as if you were heading out towards Quorn, Leicester etc.. The frontage doesn’t look much from the road, just a standard Indian restaurant?
Once inside, things pick up a bit. The decor is simple and tasteful. Clean walls and simple artwork make a refreshing change to a lot of curry houses in the area which is stuffed full of swirly wallpaper and heavy coloured fabrics. The leather seats were comfortable and fresh flowers on every table were a nice touch. This isn’t a bring your own joint which does push the price up a little but the waiter quickly arrived to take our drinks orders. Lager for me. Its the only place I drink pints these days.. wine and curry doesn’t seem right somehow!
Unfortunately for my Dad, they don’t offer any ales or bitters – as our resident ‘grumpy old man’ he wasn’t overly impressed that he had to drink “that gassy rubbish you drink”…
We had the usual round of poppadoms and dips which were all pleasant enough. We were pleased to see a choice of 6 dips – the usual suspects, onion mix, raita and mango chutney but also lime pickle, a dry coconut dip and a spicy tamarind chilli paste.
For my main, I had the Achari Gosht. This is something I’ve had (and loved) at old faithful, The Spice Cube in Mountsorrel so I was interested to see what it was like here. A medium spice lamb dish cooked in a base of a lime pickle with spinach, the flavour is really punchy and very moreish. The spice isn’t blow your head off but the pickle does give the dish an intensity which some people may find too much. Eaten alongside my fave G&T (garlic and tomato naan) and mushroom rice, the meal was absolutely yummy, hot and delicious.
There were 7 of us in total. Each had 2 poppadoms, sharing a rice and naan plus a main with 1-2 drinks. The bill came to around £130.00 – an average of just over £18.00 each. Good value I think!
So, overall… I was very impressed with Salim’s, the food was delicious, service was good and the decor is fresh and tasteful. Would I rank it Salims as my favourite local Indian restaurant? Probably not, but its a close second to my all-time favourite – Spice Cube in Mountsorrel.
