Moza -
Summary
‘Twas off to Newport Pagnell this month then. Fourteen members and one guest, we met at the Cannon pub on the High Street (unless you were Reg who took his party to Station Road), where we learnt that Dave had popped his head into the restaurant to check everything was OK with the table. He discovered that they could not accommodate us for 8:30, but 8:45 instead and would have to do some manoeuvring of tables to fit us in. Potentially not a promising start?
The pub seemed to be very busy (or at least in the section we took over) and the talk was about the British Grand Prix being the reason for this. Of course, we don’t frequent NP often, so we were possibly (likely) talking out of our backsides.
At 8:45pm there was a mad rush to the Moza Indian restaurant – not just because we were hungry, but just in case there were only 10 seats. The stragglers had to wait sometime for the management to throw some people out and rearrange the tables before they could sit down. Most inconvenient really for those of us already seated had to put up with the late five loitering by the door and hurling abuse.
The Moza has only been open for eight months, although (apparently) it was the Blue Spices for 21 years before that…strange we’d never stumbled across it before, then!
Anyway, all were seated and after a further delay in the ordering, we waited anxiously for our drinks. And waited some more…and then…well, eventually we got them, although some of the more complex orders – like Carlsberg and Lemonade did seem to cause some confusion (not helped by Douggie’s insistence he wanted Heineken – which they didn’t sell). Poppadums were ordered and when they eventually arrived, there were of good quality, although there were only 4 pickles on the tray including a luminous red mango chutney. The lime pickle got a good rating down the end of the table I was at. It took a long time before we could get the meal ordered, though (do you get the theme here?)
When the starters arrived they all seemed to get fairly good to very good reviews. I had the onion bhajee – my tradition for a new restaurant – which was good, although not the best I’d had. Flat, not balls, but well cooked and a good size portion. Some entrepreneurial members went for the mackerel chat and were extremely pleased.
Anyway, that done (you guessed it) we waited a long time for the main course to arrive. I ordered the lamb patia and I have to say that it was very good – definitely hot, sweet, sour and the lamb was a pretty good rival to the Rose of India (which, rightly or wrongly – OK, rightly – has become the benchmark for tender lamb curries). The veggie dishes I tried were all very good, and the keema rice was tasty, but I found it a bit “sticky”. The breads looked good, but I did not try them.
There seemed to be a bit of a divide on the food at the two ends of the table. Our end seemed to have really good food, the other end was more average.
Conversation swung back to how busy the place was and how difficult it seemed for the staff to cope: the most popular reason for this was that it was Grand Prix weekend, although I did ask the manager at the end and he said they had a member of staff off sick – I assume kitchen staff as there seemed plenty in the restaurant.
I think, though, the general impression overall was that the food was above average and that some of us would come back with our other halves. The staff tried hard to cope, but clearly the service did not meet up to expectations and I suspect the overall score will suffer from that.
Summary -
Common Curry -
Web site -
Other Comments
Positive:
- Good crispy pops but a limited choice of dips
- MaA good ambience, even without any music
- ckeral chat was fabulous
- Onion bhajee quite good but a bit soft and sticky
- Prawn and king prawn puri's were excellent, especially the fluffy fried nan
- Very good mushroom bhaji and bhindi bhajee
- Very good rice, stuffed paratha and nans
- Hyderabadi chicken, not salty and excellent texture and spice strength
- Lamb Methi Madras, tender lamb, nice flavours and not too hot
- Lamb Pakia, very good, lamb equally as tender as the best
Negative:
- The restaurant and its staff seemed overwhelmed by our number, even though the time had been booked
- One hour in the restaurant and still no starter!
- There were no food heaters on the table, probably due to lack of space
- The beer had not been chilled, hence a lack of choice. Even the soft drinks were poor
- Untidy outside the tiolets
- Rashmi kebab looked good and well presented but the burger was plain and average
- Vegatable Sag main course too salty
- Generally, the dishes were not as spicy as expected, especially the special order (not on the menu) of the chicken laziz which was asked to be made with madras strength
Prev Review
Next Review