Sai - Merton

SeriousIy really raised hopes to see a Punjabi restaurant within a 5 mile drive from my home. There was I thinking “no more epic journeys to Southall”….. some of our local Bangladeshi restaurants make a pretty decent effort to produce north Indian type dishes, but you can’t beat the real thing. A true Punjabi restaurant as you might find in a city like Chandigarh would give meat eaters and vegetarians equal preference – not just in choice, but also quality. The menu looked just about right when I saw it online – so, off to Raynes park we went. The gold standard for Punjabi vegetarian dishes would include Paneer Tikka/Shashlik and Dal Makhani, so I ordered both. The Dal was just odd…none of the tang, sweetness and colour of tomato, none of the zing of ginger and watery texture with little of the required buttery luxury that should come from the all night cooking…dare I say that I’ve tasted better Dal Makhani that’s come from a tin? The Paneer Tikka on the other hand was a total disgrace. A few thin slices of what looked like shop-bought paneer dyed a pinky/purple colour there was none of the beautiful texture of the bricks of homemade paneer that you’ll get in a good Southall restaurant (let alone the Punjab itself) none of the exhilarating aroma of the yoghurt based and spiced marinade. This was a dismal excuse for a Paneer Tikka…any self-respecting Punjabi would have sent it back! As we left, scratching our heads, I wondered if the chefs in Sai were actually Punjabis – the all important vegetarian fare was not good enough. Some Bengali places do it better.

Terrible service and clueless staff. A lady with glasses, in jeans and t shirt had to be asked 5 times for our food!! No apology, kept ignoring us, half of the group without food, waited more than 30 minutes by which time others had finished. Rushing orders, missed other items. Incompetent lady in charge, kept opening door so we were all freezing cold! Won't go again. Food average, service terrible and value overpriced for a poor experience.

We went there for a family birthday. The onion bhajis were amazing! Our dishes ranged from lamb and chicken Biriyani, butter chicken, saag aloo, steamed rice, rogan josh. The food was nice. The restaurant only had a few people in as it was a Tuesday night, so we expected the service to be good. The service was very slow. Food took an hour between starter and mains. When it did arrive it didnt arrive together so one of our family had no food whilst ours was all there! Then when it arrived, it had food colouring in despite being told previously it didnt so the dish had to be changed. Some of the family had been there before and rated it highly for service and food. With that it mind i was disappointed with the service and speed of the food arriving. It felt like they were more interested in take aways rather than their customers in the restaurant.

We have been looking for a good curry restaurant for years. I have no idea why it took us so long to try this place but it was delicious. The starters were so good. Lovely onion Bahjis not greasy at all. Lamb samosas excellent and the prawns were amazing. We then had a mixed grill and a curry with some rice and one roti. With a beer a glass of wine and a bottle of water it was £73. Just amazing. We had way too much food so had to get a doggy bag. Just brilliant. We will be back.

One of my friends put down her cutlery to chat, and her fork was promptly snatched away, even though there was still food on her plate. The waitress hesitated to determine which fork belonged to her but eventually brought her a fresh set. Meanwhile, I didn't notice that my wine cooler had been taken away with wine still left in the bottle. It wasn't until we flagged down the waitress that we realized the wine had been prematurely removed from our table. The bottle was retrieved from the fridge, and there was still a significant amount of wine left. When I asked why the bottle hadn't been returned once they realized we hadn't finished it, there was no satisfactory explanation. This experience was disappointing, as we had previously recommended this restaurant to friends. However, this incident has tainted our opinion, and we will not be returning in the future.