Magna Tandoori, Bedford
Tuesday, 20 March 2001
restaurant factfile

Another trip to the Tavistock Street area of Bedford and this time to the Magna Tandoori where we were offered a table by the window - the coldest part of a particularly cold restaurant. The furniture was all wicker or bamboo and therefore not particularly solid or comfortable. We'd asked for a non-smoking table but we were seated alongside the other two groups - both "regulars" and smoking like chimneys (perhaps they had realised that this was the only way to generate any heat!). We opted for the £7.95 special which allegedly consisted of any starter, main dish, rice, veggie side dish and coffee or ice cream. Having made our choices, however, the waiter growled to us that "special" main dishes were subject to a £2 surcharge - not such a special offer after all - so we had to rethink our orders.

We all opted for the tandoori mixed grill starter - tandoori chicken wing, sheek kebab and chicken tikka. The portions were a bit minuscule but at least the food tasted good. The sheek kebab was particularly spicy and as a bonus arrived on a sizzler. The accompanying mint sauce was some of the best we've tasted for a long while.

Our hurriedly selected main dishes were chicken dopiaza, chicken pathia and meat pathia. The dopiaza's gravy looked as if it had been through a liquidiser with a few onions thrown in as an afterthought. The chicken chunks were tender and well cooked. As you'd expect, the two pathias were very similar. The lamb was excellent - not that hideous, tough, chewy stuff. However, the chicken was very low quality brown meat. Even when you don't take the breast option you expect a lot better than this. Rice was included as part of the deal and turned out to be perfectly acceptable. we did persuade the waiter to swap one rice for a plain nan (bizarrely, he was insistent that only one rice could be swapped even though the nan was a cheaper option!) which turned out to be of average quality. The veggie side dishes were onion bhaji (best part of the whole meal - large balls but nice and crisp throughout, well tasty), cauliflower bhaji (not up to much) and potato bhaji (a Bombay potato by any other name tastes just the same!)

The Magna certainly lived up to its name - it was a major disappointment. The special was falsely advertised and as we're not big side dish/coffee/ice cream fans we would have spent less ordering from the normal menu. The staff were miserable - they sat us by the door and then spent the whole meal hovering and staring at us as if we were about to do a runner! When we actually needed them to bring the bill, they spent the next twenty minutes ignoring us. The only redeeming features were the excellent onion bhajis and the equally excellent and reasonably priced draught Red Stripe.

The Scores

Which gives an overall rating of 3 bhajis.