Posting this as we went there following positive reviews (some here too). After long day on the river, looking forward to Abingdons best indian dining restaurant.
Slightly puzzled when in response to being asked to suggest, based on what they do really well the only response was ' how spicy?' No mention of any other possible quality or flavour criteria. This should have rung some warning bells but we missed them, lured into a sense of security by the branded carpet.
Anyway we ordered and about 45mins later (time to consume a couple of beers) a meal arrived. Of sorts.
The chicken 'speciality' was bits of chicken, surrounded by chillies - mounds of chillies. Clearly designed for drunks bragging rights rather than as actual food. My lamb was strip/slices of grey dry leathery frazzled meat, submerged in a brown ghee 'sauce', which I suspect the meat met en route to the microwave. Bombay potatoes looked like cheap catering mixed veg heated in another sauce.
I have not seen such awful indian food since the 80's, and I have no idea how they get away with it, or have a reputation as a good place to eat.
So bad was this that it was actually funny - until the London level bill arrived. Ouch. We paid up because we didn't want to cause a scene, and put it down to experience.
The pain of the bill however was as nothing to the ensuing gastric eruption at 0300, and the next three days which left my chum Andrew a dehydrated husk, considerably slimmer and lighter than before but rather weak. He ate the chicken, in retrospect a huge mistake. Even his curry hardened constitution couldn't handle the foul toxic brew of a Dil Raj chicken special. Lucky for me I couldn't swallow with the sauce which I suspect included nitromors, possibly for antibacterial reasons, and I gave up on the shoe leather passing off as lamb, so escaped with only a mild dose of Abingdon's premier gastric cleansing operation.
