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When Chillies first opened in MK we thought - "Brilliant! Eat as much as you can for a fixed fee every night of the week!" Then we saw the fee was £13.95, we paused slightly to pick our jaws off the floor on the way to splitting our sides with laughter. The reaction must have been pretty unanimous as after only a couple of weeks the price was hastily halved. We booked a table but needn't have bothered as the place was half empty. OK so it's a big venue with lots of tables so half empty is pretty busy but it still seemed somehow depressing - a sort of a cross between a school canteen and a motorway service station with the best features of each (schoolgirls and arcade games) left out. There was a big choice of starters but they were all the usual stuff from a normal restaurant menu with the added bonus that they'd all been sitting around under heat lamps for some time. The onion bhajis were not bad - they were pleasantly spiced and had still managed to retain their crispness. The tandoori chicken legs were quite reasonable whilst the chicken tikka was tasty but a bit dried out. In general, everything was edible and at least resembled similarly named offerings at other venues. There was also a big choice of main dishes ranging from allegedly mild to very hot although most tended to be a lot hotter than their descriptions indicated - even the korma almost cauterised the taste buds. The Madras and Jalfrazi dishes would probably have been sold as Phals or Vindaloos elsewhere. As it was self service, you could at least ensure that you got plenty of meat in the non-veggie dishes and both chicken and lamb chunks were nicely cooked. The nans were a bit on the thin and puny side. The rice looked okay and seemed light and fluffy. However, it was hard to tell if they also tasted OK as our taste buds had now become completely numb. It was a great relief to find that the desert trolley consisted of 5 litre tubs of kulfi. Although this turned out to be just normal ice-cream with coconut, mango or orange flavouring, it still went some way towards extinguishing the inferno in our mouths. There was also strawberry jelly available (Why?). These "Eat As Much As You Can" deals seem like excellent value at first glance but when the food is so hot as to be almost inedible, their appeal wanes somewhat. If you like your curry mega-hotter-than-hot then fair enough but we're pretty sure that most people's idea of a good curry is one that leaves you with lips. The beer (lots of brands available) was over priced and chilled to almost freezing point - not a good accompaniment to the curries on offer. If you must visit Chillies then stick to the starters or mix in lots of yoghurt. It may have been coincidence but out of our party of eight, the following day we had three extremely dodgy stomachs, one case of vomiting and one person had to take the day off sick. Draw your own conclusions. The Scores
Which gives an overall rating of 1.5 bhajis. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
restaurant factfile
