Crawley - 6th October 2015

Venue – Zari, 212-214 Ifield Drive, Crawley, RH11 0DQ

Attendees – Me, Malcolm, Rick (drink only)

For this JPT game, it was a reduced travelling party, with Rick joining us straight from London and only me and Malc making the journey from Essex. It was in fact the return of the group forever known as “The Aldershot three” as we were the visitors to Hampshire just after Phil Brown had been appointed manager of the mighty Blues. We only won once when he was in charge that season, which I think was for about 8 games, and it was on that night when we won 2-0, effectively sending the Shots down to the Conference. Fitting, bearing in mind that their dodgy floodlights effectively prevented us gaining automatic promotion the season before but that’s another story.  See the blog entry here - http://aroundthegroundsin80curries.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/aldershot-16th-april-2013.html

Crawley has a “New Town” feel to it; many places are modern constructions and of the 11 Indian restaurants in the vicinity, almost all of them seemed to be in small shopping parades of 8 – 10 units. Some of the pictures of these restaurants on Google Earth seemed to be graffiti clad walls/garages near or in front of the said eateries. It’s not overly conducive to want to book a table in a curry house when all you can see is a grey, soulless wall with black/white spray paint designs in front of wherever you would be going. I mean, anything could be behind that wall, including Harry “the knife” who is just waiting for some poor unsuspecting soul to wander through en route to collect their Chicken Vindaloo. Crawley isn’t nicknamed “Creepy” for nothing you know. They’ll be sitting ducks, I tell you (or sitting chickens, whatever, either way the portions will be poultry. See what I did there? Sorry, enough of the fowl jokes. Oops, did it again.)

Anyhow, Crawley is in fact a town that dates back to the 13^th Century (check out the Wikipedia entry here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawley#Origins) but enough of the history lesson – on with the food.

The last time we were here, we went to a restaurant called Cinnamon and a huge discussion ensued about whether to just order the usual dish & rice with the shared naan and side dishes or go for the Indian Banquet being offered. We didn't really have time for a banquet but it seemed cheaper. I don’t know if it was or not as we really didn't have enough time to eat everything, what with having a football match to attend and all that. We lost 3-0 then and it has since been erased from the memory, but I don’t recall the food being all that great. So we thought we’d try somewhere different.

The trouble is that nowhere looked very appealing due to the aforesaid Google snaps, but a bit of on-line research showed that a local curry house, Zari, was up for some award and in doing so beat off competition from a Michelin starred restaurant and The Queens Table, the restaurant attached to Amberley House. Now that must be something worth visiting I thought; so we did. As it turns out, it was just a shame there was only the two of us.

Zari was at the end of a dodgy looking parade of shops containing all the ingredients for a food tasters paradise; a Chinese take away, a KFC imitation chicken take away place, fish and chips, kebabs, Londis, a coffee shop, oh and a bookies, game exchange place and a small Co-op. Classy. The pub, “The Pelham Buckle” was alongside Zari’s and looked nice from a distance but up close less so. “Kim’s Kitchen – Home Cooked Food” was emblazoned on the windows and made it look somehow even less appealing. But in amongst all this was Zari’s restaurant, a double sized unit with pretty pink neon lights and deceptive surroundings hiding an absolute jewel in Indian cuisine.

We arrived at around 5:50 and were greeted by no less than 6 staff. They were obviously expecting a busy night as there must have been space for over 100 covers and there were only 4 people in there already. We announced that we were here for the football but the waiter clearly wasn't a fan of either Crawley or the game itself as he asked who won… we had to explain that midweek games were played in the evening and we had to be away at about 7 so needed feeding fairly quick. The obligatory Cobras and puppodums were ordered and this is when we got a flavour that this place was just a little different. Everything was home made on site, even the puppodums and the spicy ones were conical in shape (see picture). The chutneys/accompaniments were delicious and if there was a complaint it was that there wasn't enough.

The menu was also completely different with lots of items I have never seen before anywhere. The waiter recommended a red curry, which Malcolm had (Madras strength) and I had a chicken dish which was incredibly aromatic and full of flavour. I can neither pronounce nor remember its name but it was certainly delicious. It was either that or a Biryani dish that they make with a pastry crust, so it was like a pie. Tough call. The Keema rice and Garlic rice were also very tasty and the Peshwari Naan was home-made and less “doughy” than I have had elsewhere. Absolutely fab.

The toilets were spotless and I have eaten in places less clean than they were. The staff were attentive and if there was a criticism at all, it was that for the second curry running, the waiter came over and asked if we wanted our food. Yes please mate, we’re in a rush as there’s a football match on and we don’t want you to let it get cold somewhere. Just bring it over. 

Rick joined us at the end for a drink and all in all it was a cracking meal out. More expensive than usual but only to be expected and well worth it.

Marks

Exterior - 8

Surroundings - 7

Interior – 9.5

Toilets – 9.5

Service - 9

Quality - 8

Value – 7.5

Overall - 8.36

The football

Crawley were statuesque. Southend were so far and away the better team in a 3-0 win that it was embarrassing. Quarter finals here we come!

Coventry, 31st August 2015

Venue - Nashaa, 154 Longford Rd, Coventry

Attendees - Me, Dave, Harry and Andy "Villa"

A new taster was welcomed for this trip, Andy "Villa", who is essentially a Villa fan but who now lives in Southend and has adopted the mighty Blues as his club. I'm actually not sure who he would cheer for if we drew Villa in the cup... could be interesting!

Anyhow, he generously agreed to drive us to new re-arranged fixture on Bank holiday Monday evening(?) at the Ricoh Arena. Now this made parking interesting, because most of the stadium car park was already being utilised for a convention that had been going on since the Saturday, hence the re-arrangement, and being a bank holiday, most of the other car parks available were closing before the match finished, which wasn't helpful. However, he managed to pre-book parking at Wayland Ltd, official stadium parking about 20 minutes walk from the Ricoh.

We arrived in good time through the rain for our 6pm table reservation at Nashaa, a highly rated restaurant 15 minutes walk from the car park and about 20 minutes from the stadium. In fact, we were 40 minutes early, so allowing for the walk, we would have 25 minutes extra time so a stop en route via a pub for a quickie was the plan.

Well, it would have been, had we not turned the wrong direction out of the car park and walked for approximately 1 mile before realising, turning back and got onto the right road, negotiating a multi- junction road with no pavement or walkways directly under a bridge on the M6 and a large grassy, wet roundabout which we had to walk straight across. Andy blamed Google maps... seems rude not to.

Sure enough, the other direction saw us eventually arrive at the restaurant just over the brow of a canal bridge, plenty of pubs but no time to visit them as it was now bang on 6pm. Having walked about 3 miles we were now ready for some food... oh, and a Cobra.

Looking a bit puffed, Dave?

The interior of the restaurant was clean and smart; there were 2 or 3 other tables being occupied (the place opened at 5pm)  and we were immediately seated and given menus.

Spicy and plain poppodums with pickles were ordered while we decided on the main course and they were very nice... the spicy ones a touch burnt but the pickles were clearly home made and included Tamarind sauce, a deep red, spicy accompaniment together with the usual chopped onion and tomato, mango chutney, lime pickle and Raita.

Everyone ordered a main and a rice, plus we had 2 Peshwari naan breads and a mushroom bhaji to share. I opted for the Chicken Jalfrezi which initially I was disappointed in heat-wise but then I found the chillies... well, lets just say I needed three pints to everyone else's two in order to cool the mouth down! The flavours of all the dishes were superb with no complaints from anyone... it all went and the bill per head came in at £23 including a tip of around 15%! About right I'd say.

The only area that could have been better was service related. Absolutely nothing wrong with the service, the speed or anything like that, but our waiter was perhaps... well... see what you think. He kept interrupting our football related conversation to ask us if we wanted our food?  Er, yes please, you're a restaurant, just bring it over. We've ordered it, we're not going to refuse it are we? Can you imagine the conversation -

"Excuse me gents, sorry to interrupt your football chat, but you know your food?  Well it's all ready. Shall I bring it to you?"

"No thanks, we just want to talk for a bit longer about tonight's possible team and potential changes to the offside rule, could you leave it out to get cold please?"

Let's face it, that just isn't going to happen. Cut the conversation killing, just bring us our beer and food! That would be perfect!

Aside from that, it was a pretty good curry, well worth a visit.

Marks - 

Exterior - 8
Surroundings - 7
Interior - 9
Toilets - 8
Service - 8.5
Quality - 9
Value - 7

Overall - 8.07

The football

A cracking game in continual rain, ending 2-2. Probably a fair result, we could have been 3 or 4 up at half time instead of only 2-1 but our kepper kept us in it with several cracking saves including a penalty save in the second half. No complaints. The Ricoh is a tremendous stadium, one of my favourites.

Footnote -

This blogpost would not have been complete without a recount of the walk back to the car. First of all, we were at the wrong end of the ground to where we needed to be, so had to walk all the way around. In the pouring rain. We had been joined for the game by Andy's daughter Amy who had to get a cab back to the station, and this involved walking all the way in one direction before backtracking and intercepting a taxi on the main roundabout outside the stadium. Then Andy keyed in the car park address in good old Google Maps and off we set. Soon we were walking along the A444 towards the oncoming traffic in the dark and the rain which we though cannot be right. No, google maps says it is, so we persevered. Bearing in mind the car park was only meant to be 20 minutes walk from the stadium, we comfortably exceeded that with Google showing us still some distance away. We got there in the end having toeither walk in the gutter of the main dual carriageway and avoid the glare and constant flashing of the headlights from vehicles not expecting to see 4 drowned rats walking towards them, or choose the grass verge which was slightly safer but in deep grass, sopping wet and having to negotiate the frequent low hanging branch or protruding bush or hedge. After we while, we left the A444 and ended up on the approach road to the M6! We made it - obviously - but it took over 45 minutes. To say we were wet was an understatement. My hoodie was still soaked by the time I got home at about 1am and that was underneath my anorak that was still damp the following evening.

Just for fun, Dave retraced our steps on Google maps the day after. The yellow route is the one we should have taken, the red one is what we actually walked. Ignore the "Dropped pin" caption, there is an arrow at the end of each colour to show where we needed to end up.

Technology... you can't beat it!

York, 20th September 2014

Venue - The Raj, 21-23 Bootham, York, YO30 7BW
Attendees - Me, Dawn

None of the usual curry tasters were able to make the trip, leaving me and my better half Dawn to have a football based kid free weekend. She has got right into the footie, becoming an avid Southend fan and was delighted to come to watch the York match and sample the post-match curry, complete with an overnight stay. Yay!

We had set off early Saturday morning and stopped en route at the Ok Diner, a cool looking place on the side of the A1 near Newark but sadly the fayre was not up to a huge amount.The tea was the worst I had ever tasted - barely more than coloured water, certainly no flavour - and my breakfast was only really acceptable. It was off the menu and called the "Yankee Doodle Dandy" except that they had spelt it "Yankie". Hmm. Pancakes were nice, the eggs less so. It was however needed to set us up for the day.

In the evening, we went in search of a curry house and found The Raj just along the road from where we were staying, the restaurant was in the Bootham area of the City - not the best but still quite pleasant - and was about 250 yards from our hotel. According to the signs in the window it was "award winning" and certainly looked very clean, spotless in fact and with a quite modern feel. I liked it, Dawn not so. Just goes to show!

What was quite nice was that for once the curry didn't have to be rushed so that we could make the kick off. Therefore we arrived at around 7:30 and went into the lobby area (also the take-away collection area), asking for a table for 2. We were simply invited to take a seat so an answer to that question was completely avoided, but after a few minutes we were shown into the restaurant and to our table, which looked like the last one available!

We ordered some water and a bottle of wine, plus the obligatory poppodums, 2 plain, 2 spicy. They came up with the usual selection of pickles which were disappointing, straight out of a jar. I think that you can tell quite a lot about a curry house from it's pickle selection and if they can't be bothered to make their own then that's a warning sign.

However, everything else was A-ok and we waited for our main course. I had opted for the Akhini Chicken - a mild and fruity curry with pineapple, almonds, sultanas, tomato and cherry, garnished with rice and served with a "special" curry sauce - whilst Dawn opted for the seafood special. Side orders were a Peshwari Naan, Roti bread, a Sag Paneer and a Dall Masala.

Again, everything was ok, but not really much more than that. Dawn's seafood was very good and there isn't a lot wrong you can do with a Dall and Peshwari Nan (again, commercial rather than home made) nut the Sag Paneer was runny like a sauce and whilst the flavours were good, it struggled to get to the height of what might have been expected of an award winning restaurant. Perhaps that was the issue - it bigged itself up a lot and looked so lovely that the food expectations were extremely high.

Service wise it was ok considering it was busy although the waiters didn't seem over friendly but we were offered a complimentary drink afterwards. Price wise it was much more than I would have paid for a pre-match curry, plus we had wine as well (but no other drinks aside from 2 small bottles of Harrogate spring water) and most of the dishes were vegetarian. I thought £55 was on the high side.

Marks

Exterior - 9
Surroundings - 8
Interior - 8
Toilets - 7
Service - 6
Quality - 6
Value - 5

Overall - 7

The football

Southend made it a 3rd win in a week with a terrific 3-2 victory against a York side that had only lost their first game in 23 last week. Fantastic 2nd half performance and we were well worth the victory. The ground at York is quaint and old fashioned with a good "feel" for the real football fan. All in all a great weekend.

Oxford 5th October 2013

Venue - The White Horse, Wheatley Rd, Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, OX33 1EH
Attendees - JB, Dave, Harry, Peter

Due to work committments I was unable to join the gang for the Oxford trip... therefore I hand the review over to JB, our guest blogger for the day.

Dear all

As you know, some of us went to see Southend play at Oxford on Saturday – as this took in a pre match curry, I thought I should try and report back in Mr Goodson’s absence. I don’t actually know how to Blog, so you’ll all have to do with a good old fashioned Email. Here goes:

So, the day had arrived, our annual trip to Oxford, but there was something missing, or rather someone! I couldn’t quite get my head round the fact that Malcolm wasn’t joining us. Malcolm is always a given for these days out, and I just don’t know how Gill had been allowed to book up a weekend away with friends without Malcolm’s knowledge!! Luckily, he sent his brother Peter along instead, who has exactly the same voice, so as long as we didn’t look at him, no-one knew the difference.  We also lost Mike (another weekend away, but not so surprising as he’s under the thumb!), Bill (on holiday – again!) and Mr Goodson himself, who had some sort of excuse about being busy at work?!?!?! What does that mean?

Anyway, there were just four of us, a small group but perfectly formed – Peter, me, Harry and Dave. Unfortunately, Mark’s late change of plans meant that Dave had to drive – I think anyone who’s been in a car with Dave recently knows what that means. We set off on time from my house, Dave narrowly missing a car whilst pulling away from the house. How we laughed and teased. Last time Dave drove he hit a stationary car in Nelson Drive. We thought it was particularly funny that we might have had our first bump before actually getting out of my road! Still at least we wouldn’t be going down Nelson Drive this time. Far more sensibly we were going along Leigh Road – no chance of Dave clipping a stationary white van mirror this SSSMMMACCKKKKKKKKKK. He hit a stationary white van’s mirror!! The noise shocked the life out of poor Harry, who’s becoming quite the expert at putting the wing mirror back together again! It turns out that it was the van man’s fault for not turning his wing mirror in, and also apparently my fault – for being in the car!! Dave only hits vehicles when I’m in the car?? So, I apologise for this Dave and will pay your Insurance Premium next year – the least I can do.

The rest of the journey was relatively quiet – good conversation about our chances on the day – the Tutts and Peter were very confident, I thought we were in for a hammering. We were also looking forward to meeting up with Dave (6ft 4ins) Kitson, Oxford’s towering Centre Forward  after the game for a beer and an insight into how the game had gone from a player’s perspective.

 The slight difference on this away trip is that we decided to eat Thai food instead of Indian, mainly because the Indian restaurant was in the heart of Oxford and I know that getting in and out of the City on a Saturday is a real pain. Dave has a particularly fine Good Pub Food app that we used when we went to Crewe a couple of years back, and once again the App pointed us to a great looking country pub - The White Horse – see picture. What a brilliant choice. By the way, I should point out that Dave couldn’t actually see the pub when it was right in front of him. I think I now know why he keeps hitting things!! The sooner Harry passes his test the better! Anyway, inside the pub and not many people there, maybe three or four tables, we had an excellent hostess who had our drinks on the table in no time. So what to eat? This is what we went for:

Dave – a green chicken curry, a little limp wristed in my opinion.

Harry – Phad Prig – not sure if I’ve spelt that correctly

Peter – I can’t remember, I’m really not up to this job am I?

Me – a red chicken curry and easily the most manly of the choices

We shared starter of Crispy Wontons, spring rolls and chicken on toast – very nice indeed!

The food was excellent, and as we chomped happily in this most scenic of pubs, we started once again to discuss the match and how awful it would be if Dave Kitson scored a hat trick. On mentioning this, Harry broke down in tears, seriously blubbing, and we worried that the whole football experience was getting too much for him. Turns out that he mistook a chilli for a pepper and ate the whole thing in one go! What a man we now have in our midst, and quite the modern man too for letting out his emotions in public!

Scores for the pub:

Positioning  10

Service 10

Food 9, would have been 10 but for Harry’s chilli!

Company 11

And so on to the game itself – probably the best performance of the season from the Blues – totally outplayed Oxford, and could easily have been 5 or 6 goals. And a goal from Prosser, which was followed by the song How Shit Must You Be, How Shit Must You Be, How Shit Must You Be If Prosser Has Scored – a classic! Had a cast iron penalty turned down, and missed two one on ones! At the end of the match the players came over to the fans and there was a hint of a tear in Prosser’s eye when he realised that Mike was a no show! Dave Kitson ended up being a no show also, I suspect because he would have had to walk through a load of disgruntled Oxford fans in Frankie and Bennie’s to talk to Southend fans. He’s NOT popular there. Anyway, I asked him how he thought the game had gone and this was his text reply 

Thought you played well even though we gifted you two goals. So many chances for both teams. We were crap but life goes on! – so there you have it.

Good banter on the way back. Somewhere along the line ‘Phad Prig’ became Fat Prick which was very funny at the time. Harry bought a huge KFC banquet (surely a misnomer!) which smelt disgusting, and possibly tasted just as bad. Probably need a chilli to help it along!

We had the best day – please make sure you check your diaries for the future – can’t have you missing another day out like this.

I love you all.

Jb

Dagenham, 28th January 2014

Venue - The Kalijeera, 32 Corbets Tey Rd, Upminster, Essex RM14 2AD
Attendees - Me, Mike, Bill, Liz, Dave, Harry, Peter, Kit, JB and Roland

Ok, ok. I know that Upminster isn't in Dagenham (for those not 100% familiar with the Geography it's about 6 miles and 20 minutes drive) but it's close enough... especially as we had decided to meet in The Crumpled Horn pub, the venue for the pre-Wembley visit when Southend United got to the final of the JPT last April. The Kalijeera was about 100 yards away on the opposite side of the road and had come well recommended; Bill, showing impressive organisational skills, had pre-arranged the whole thing and we had selected our meals in advance. The game kicked off at 7:45 and we had to allow a good 45 minutes to get from Upminster to Dagenham, park (no mean feat in Dagenham on a Tuesday evening for what is a local derby), buy the tickets and take our seats. This meant leaving the restaurant at 7:00 latest, which in turn meant a 5:30 - 5:45 arrival for the food. Allowing for a drink or two in the pub first, we therefore set off at 3:30 from Leigh for the short trip up the A13 - the shortest away trip this season by some distance - to see if we could continue our good run of form and our push towards promotion and League One by grabbing three points off of Dagenham.

Stage one went to plan, despite getting caught in the school traffic en route and taking nearly an hour for what is usually a 35 minute journey. By 4:30 we were in the pub, allowing a good hour for a couple of bevvies and saunter along to the restaurant (which, incidentally, we had arranged to be opened early to accommodate us).

The waiter was standing at the door as we arrived and happily took the picture shown above (which we had about 6 attempts at)... such was our sense of humour we then thanked him very much and started to walk off up the road. Oh how we laughed!

We then went back to the restaurant and entered, apologising for our wind-up, and said we'd take our seats and await the previously arranged order. The waiter, presumably to get us back a bit looked at us in a dead pan style and said, "What order?"

Ha ha, we were still laughing as the pints of Cobra arrived, followed by the poppodums and pickles and then the main courses. We had a good time although I seem to recall the food being good but unspectacular. There was some confusion over the bill and the fact that a deposit had been paid, but we got there in the end. In an attempt to hurry matters along, Dave had squared up on his credit card and we all settled with him afterwards. I think it worked out at about £15 per head.

Marks - 

Exterior - 7
Surroundings - 7.5
Interior - 7
Toilets - 7
Service - 8
Quality - 6.5
Value - 8

Overall - 7.29

The football

This had made us a bit late in leaving and so we made haste to Dagenham and eventually managed to park in a cul-de-sac. We just about made kick off and have to congratulate the ground staff who got the pitch looking really good considering the monsoon-like weather we had in the lead up to the game. The first half was non descript really and it then started raining. It didn't seem too bad but it got worse and worse as the match went on. We took the lead just after half-time but Dagenham equalised with a deflected shot and after that it was anyone's game. A point will have to do. Walking back to the car we discovered just how bad the rain had been as we were walking through puddles several inches deep across the car park and on the way back to the car. I don't think I could have been wetter if I had jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed.

Portsmouth 26 November 2013

Portsmouth v Southend, 26/11/13.

Venue - Gandhi, 39-41 Kingston Rd, Portsmouth

Attendees - Me, Malcolm, Harry.

It's been 7 months since the last Curry Blog, mainly because of our inability to make the play-offs and having to remain in this God forsaken division populated mainly by teams hundreds of miles away.  Portsmouth, believe it or not, is one of our most local trips which presumably played some part in the wisdom of the Football League deciding to schedule this game for a Tuesday evening.

We had managed to set off at about 3:15 and had been pretty much the last vehicle through the A3 tunnel before it's closure caused havoc on the roads, a delayed kick off and an even longer journey on the way back.  Luckily we did get through as otherwise we wouldn't have been able to make the curry at the Gandhi restaurant on Kingston Rd, approximately 2 miles from Fratton Park.

The Sat Nav decided to thread us through a council estate to get there mind, which looked as though it could have been interesting if the car had broken down!  We were lucky to be able to park almost outside and made our way in at about 6:20, giving the restaurant about 40 minutes to serve us before we had to leave for the game.

The staff were incredibly accommodating; complimentary poppadoms and pickles beautifully presented, all home made (the mango chutney was fantastic, possibly the best I've tasted) and drinks on the table within 3 minutes of entering.

We had opted for simple dishes as we were in a rush, so there was a chicken tikka masala, chicken tikka madras and chicken jalfrezi as the main dishes, 2 pilau and one mushroom rice together with 2 onion bhajis (one portion).

Again, it was all home made and different from the usual indian restaurant fare, far less oily and full of flavour. If there was any negative comment then the madras and jalfrezi had no heat and were just above a korma in strength, certainly not what I would call hot.

We had a diet coke and 2 pints of cobra, which made the bill £51 including tip maybe fractionally high bearing in mind we only had one drink.

Marks -

Exterior - 8
Surroundings - 6
Interior - 8
Toilets - 8
Service - 9
Quality - 9
Value - 5

Overall - 7.57

The football

And so onto the game.  We drove down to Fratton Park and managed to find some parking within a mile of the stadium but unfortunately on the wrong side for the away fans, so we had to walk all around the ground. On arrival we were informed that the kick off had been delayed by 15 mins due to an accident on the motorway (was this the reason for the tunnel closure maybe?). But what a brilliant old fashioned "proper" football ground Portsmouth have.  The away end, aside from the seats, was almost unchanged from what the original terraces would have been with the concrete urinal walls in the toilets, fences and barbed wire everywhere and the whole place steeped in history, tradition and passion.

We met up with Dave and JB who had come down by train and were well oiled, so to speak.  They had missed out on the curry but sated their appetite with a Pukka Pie from the stadium kiosk. None of us (except Harry) were overly optimistic as Pompey had just sacked their manager after 4 straight defeats and Southend had never won at Portsmouth in their history so the initial omens did not look good.

It looked even worse after 90 seconds when Portsmouth scored with a stinging shot from the edge of the box and despite plenty of possession, chances for Southend were at a premium.  Manager Phil Brown made a substitution on the hour mark to try and change shape but that backfired within 5 minutes as the sub got sent off for elbowing an opponent so not only were we losing, we were down to 10 men.

The Southend fans however have recently found their voice and a tremendous visiting turnout of 773 for a Tuesday night were singing and chanting all game.  It was relentless and the Portsmouth fans were quiet as incredibly the 10 men began to take a grip on the game.  First came an equaliser and then a winner to send the visiting fans into raptures! The chorus of boos at the end spoke volumes.

We decided to avoid the tunnel on the way home and our journey was punctuated by a stop at a Harvester for a quickie before a drive along the coast towards Brighton and then up the A23/M23 before getting home just past 2 AM.  Tough on a school night but made well worth it by the result and atmosphere.  Oh, not forgetting the curry too!

Aldershot 16th April 2013

Aldershot v Southend., 16th April 2013

Venue - The Bengal Lancer, High Street, Aldershot

Attendees - Me, Malcolm, Rick

I've only been to Aldershot once before; last February, when Southend put in one of the worst away performances I've had the misfortune to witness in a 2-0 defeat where we failed to register a shot at goal.  We ate at the Bengal Lancer in the High Street, about 10 mins walk from the ground.  I seem to remember it was ok, so we thought we'd revisit this year, especially as Aldershot were bottom of the football league and  looking very likely to drop out (especially if SOuthend won) so we may not be back for a while.

With the season petering out, there were only 3 of us on the trip, about 50% down from what we would normally expect to take.  I drove down with Malc and Rick was meeting us there having arrived on the train.

We arrived just before 6pm and were the only ones in the stereotypical Indian restaurant; clean but dated with an interesting colour scheme of blue and cream walls with a green carpet.

The toilets were old but spotless and they served both Cobra and Kingfisher on draft, much to Malcolms delight.  As the driver, it made no real difference to me as Coke tastes pretty much the same out of a can, bottle or pump.

We ordered puppodums and pickles while we waited for Rick and these were of the standard commercial type, average and unspectacular.

When it came to order the meal, Rick went for Vegetable Biryani, Malcolm had his usual meat Madras and I went for a Chicken Kochi, three completely different dishes. It was therefore a surprise to see that all three looked virtually identical in their serving dishes and we had to be actually told which was which.  The keema rice and mushroom pilau were also virtually indistinguishable by sight. Notwithstanding that, it tasted pretty good... it's hard to do anything spectacular with a Biryani, my Kochi was delicious if a little too mild and Malcolm's Madras was one of the better ones he has had.

Onion bhajis and peshwari naan completed the feast.  The bill arrived and for the meal including 2 rounds of drinks each it was a very reasonable £20 per head including tip.  Not too shabby.

Marks - 

Exterior - 6
Surroundings - 6
Interior - 6
Toilets - 6
Service - 7
Quality - 7
Value - 8

Overall - 6.57 - Ok, would probably try somewhere different next time if we ever go to Aldershot again as they look like they will be relegated out of the league.

The football -

A comfortable 2-0 win against a side huffing and puffing with as much penetration as an impotent eunuch. The play offs are still on but only just about and in our dreams.