Masala Zone, 147 Earls Court Road, SW5 9RQ

After meeting up with some friends for a moving-of-things-session around the Earls Court part of town, we were pondering over that all important question which we ask ourselves, and each other, daily.

Where should we go for dinner.

We’d spent the day being stuck in traffic, while trying to get from one side of London to the other. Usually, without traffic, this journey takes about an hour. With traffic, you’re looking at a leisurely time of about 3 hours.

With nothing much to do while stuck in traffic, I took some snapshots of London on a Sunday evening (looks warm but it’s not). In fact, it was raining and windy throughout the day, with bits of sunshine in between, which was when I took these pics.

These were blocks of flats near Earl’s Court. In the evening light, they looked like something out of a movie, and very unlike any flats I’d seen in London, so I took a picture of it.

When we got to Earls Court road, we were spoilt for choice as to what we COULD have if we decided against Masala Zone.

Japanese? There was no one in there so probably not. Chinese? Wagamama’s didn’t seem too appealing. Masala Zone was it, so in we trooped.

The girl behind the menu is not trying to be the Masala Zone man, she’s just holding up the menu for me to take a picture of. Most of the pictures here are in an attractive shade of orange, mainly because I believe in getting the ambience of the place like it was when actually dining there.

Mainly also because I don’t know how the white balance on my camera works.

Dhaaba roghan josh thali £10.45

Although it may seem as though I’m taking pictures of the same plate of food, just from different angles, I assure you this is not the case. The plates just all look the same, with curries in slightly different shades or red and orange.

This dish (same as the one above, in case you can’t tell the difference between them) was nice. Not as nice as the Grand Thali, which is basically the thali seen here, but with MORE STUFF. More stuff is always nice.

This thali had the vegetable of the day which was curried cauliflower, spiced potatoes, curried lentils (dhal) and the chapati. The main part of the dish was the roghan josh, and although it looks really red here, it wasn’t actually that spicy.

You could taste the spices coming through, not heat-hot spice, but more, flavourful spice. The meat was rather too lean, and so was slightly chewier than I preferred.

Yellow chicken korma Grand Thali £7.40

This may look particularly yellow here, but it was quite yellow in real life also. Does what it says on the menu though.

I don’t usually go for kormas because there’s something about the creaminess of it which I don’t like. The korma is a curry stereotyped as the one you go for if you can’t take spicy food, but this is not always the case. It has its own taste, and that day, my friend (who can eat spicy stuff) decided to have this for his dinner. I didn’t try it so I don’t know what it tasted like.

Since we’re taking lots of pics of the same meal, but from different angles and in different mood lighting, why not take more of the different bits to the meal. This is the pilau rice on the thali, which was very flavourful and well cooked. Each bit of rice had enough spice on it, and was firm (but not too firm) to the bite. One of my favourite aspects to the meal.

This is the kachumber, which is the Indian salad according to the menu. Served chilled, this was slightly tangy, slightly sweet and very refreshing to have between bites of the spicy curry.

The potatoes that came with the thali, each bite was fluffy yet slightly chewy the way I like it. Not too spicy either.

Dhaaba roghan josh thali £8.05

Tender pieces of lamb in a very flavourful sauce, accompanied with the mini portions of potatoes, rice and veg.

Overall, this was the first time I’d had thali here, and found it an enjoyable experience. Would I return to this restaurant? Most certainly so, and I’d recommend it to anyone despite it being a chain restaurant as the food is tasty, the quality is satisfactory, and the ambience is always good for groups of friends wanting a loud party or even couples wanting a quiet dinner.

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