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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
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A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Rowan Moore's rating
Reader rating
Family feast: owner-managers and brothers Hamid (left) and Mez Choudhury
Matchli tikka, for those who don’t know, is a herby, spicy chargrilled fish dish, delicate, dry but with a little moistness, which does a good job of overcoming the fact that the fish in question, boal, is feeling a little tired after its long journey from the Indian Ocean.
It’s a pleasure to eat slowly, in small bits at a time. Mezai chicken, meanwhile, is served on the bone, which gives the piece of ex-poultry a more realistic air than those abstracted cuboids of breast, halfway to being astronaut food, that Indian restaurants often serve. The dish includes mango and cinnamon, which gives it a sweetish spiciness that stops just short of sickly. The side dish known as toak has a superficial resemblance to Heinz tomato soup, but turns out to be more subtle, thanks to the bay, garlic and green chillies mixed in with the sloppy tomato stuff.
La’lia kebab, as a fellow diner observed, is nicer than it looks — its long brown cylinders look like props from the coprophagic scenes in Pasolini’s excruciating movie Salo or, to be more basic, like pooh in pooh sauce. They are therefore much nicer than they look, with lemon, mint and tamarind suffusing the lamb.
The observant reader will have noticed a quiet revolution taking place, in the craft of restaurant reviewing, which is that this review starts by talking about the food, rather than riffing on forgotten rock bands or classic TV ads of the Seventies. The reason for this groundbreaking approach is that the food is the most interesting thing about the Noiya Indian Kitchen.
Noiya is not claiming to be a new concept, and its branding and marketing is low-key. The décor, with white walls, black furniture and pinkish lighting, is in the style we still call “contemporary”, even though it was developed by the likes of Terence Conran in the early Nineties. Which is not to say that it doesn’t make a pleasant background for dining.
The main thing that Noiya tries to do is offer more imaginative variants, more skilfully done than usual, of the standard Indian restaurant fare. Hence the matchli, the mezai chicken, and the toak, and things like pomfret grilled with spices, and king prawn with garlic, mint, lime, yoghurt, mustard seeds and herbs. Hedging its bets a little, it also offers the usual parade of madras, korma, pasanda, jalfrezi and dansak.
It does a good job, with a crispness and cleanness of scents and flavours and an avoidance of excessive gunk. Basics like okra are served with simplicity, chopped small and retaining its crunch and freshness. Only sometimes does the food succumb to an overdose of elaboration. You are served slowly, but with good nature, and you can sit on an outdoor terrace that contributes to Lavender Hill’s nascent attempts to resemble a Parisian boulevard. Last Sunday lunchtime, it was a nice place to enjoy what I have to call an Indian summer.
The bill is a pleasant surprise, coming out at under £100 for five people whose curiosity led them to order more dishes than they strictly needed, and who washed it all down with plenty of lassi.
It would be nice if Noiya gained the confidence to ditch the conventional end of the menu and concentrate on its toak and boal but, even so, it’s a very welcome addition — neither conventional nor pretentious, but intelligent — to the city’s stock of Indian restaurants. I write as an east London snob, who is suspicious of Indian food west of Aldgate and, worse, south of the river, but Noiya overcame my scepticism.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
This place makes the best curry in south London. I've recommended it to my snobby friends who were hesitant at first but after eating their chicken dishes, were blown away. These guys use the best fresh ingredients and you can so taste the difference. Their rice is to die for. I dont know how they put it together but I cant recreate it at home. Awesome dishes, very authentic. It seems a lot of curry houses have fallen foul of just pumping out standard tastes from an enormous long winded menu. So much so that I cant stand reading through them when I go. Noiya just kicks them right out the picture. So if you want a good curry go to Noiya. I hope they pay me for this. LOL. The food is payment enough I think.
- Andrew, Clapham
I saw this restaurant while walking back up from doing the JP Morgan run, noticed the funky decor and took a menu. I have to say, out of the curry house on Lavender Hill and the ones that deliver in the SW11 area, this really is up there, they are well priced and the food so far has been excellent, their Indra Chicken is awesome, it packs enough heat without losing the flavours, add that to some pilau rice and some garlic naan with a Cobra and you really cannot lose - highly recommend it! (and no, I do not have any affiliation with them, however if you want a good apres cocktail, pay The Underdog a visit on The Nortcote Rd 
)
- Alex 'Curry Monster' L, London, Clapham Junction
Yippeee! The more good Indian food restaurants the better! Must be good though. Unfortunately a lot of us get addicted to cheap hot High St curry houses when we're students. Like fatty chip shops, they tend to be unhealthy, loaded with fat or ghee. Really bad for us. It doesn't make sense to bring in cooks from the subcontinent when they are untrained and unaware of the healthy eating drives in Britain. Especially when our NHS is so against any kind of poor eating habits or weight inducing lifestyles. So, great news when good Indian food restaurants with intelligent and imaginative chefs open their doors.
- Harriet, London
