The New Maharajah's

Restaurant

The New Maharajah's
17 Forrest Road
Edinburgh

Phone:- 0131 220 2273

Website www.thenewmaharajahs.co.uk

Overview

Eva and I spent a few days over Christmas in Edinburgh this year. We arrived on Christmas Eve and, with absolutely no plans, decided to pop out for a drink then something to eat.

Having imbibed of a few welcome drinks, we found that rather disconcertingly many of the restaurants we looked in on were in fact closed. The night was getting cold and we had almost resigned ourselves to returning to our hotel, and eating in, when we came across The New Maharajah's; an Indian restaurant serving Tandoori, Mughlai and Bengali cuisine.

The restaurant, situated near the famous Greyfriars Bobby pub, is under new management and claims to have been recommended by Egon Ronay and the Good Curry Guide.

Ambience

The restaurant was bright and cheerful, not one centimetre of flock wallpaper was in sight! Most especially welcome, on that rather cold damp night, it was warm and comfortable.

The walls are painted a light cream colour, the floors wooden parquet. The chairs are red velvet backed, comfortable to sit on and the tables laid with linen clothes and napkins.

Unlike many Indian restaurants, the background music was not a the usual selection of "Asian style" mood music, but an eclectic mixture of disco and Motown from the 1950's, 60's, 70's and 80's. In fact we rather enjoyed naming the tunes, but would note that the music was not intrusive.

Menu

The menu offered a good range of Tandoori, Biryani and Mughlai dishes; additionally there were a number of house specials and standard curries.

As with many Asian restaurants the New Maharajah offers a take away service as well.

Service

The staff were friendly and welcoming, even though it was 9:00pm on Christmas Eve they showed no sign of trying to rush us through our meal.

The service was attentive and efficient, and the staff were happy to explain the dishes when asked.

Food

I chose the lamb baja for my starter. This consisted of a most excellent and succulent chapatti, stuffed with minced lamb and spices. I was very impressed both with the taste and texture of this dish. It was, to my view, an ideal starter.

I chose the Jhallfrezie chicken for my main course, this is a marinated Tandoori chicken with fresh green chilli, coriander and garnished with ginger. It was spicy and flavoursome.

I had plain boiled rice and allo jeera (potato with cumin) to accompany it.

Eva started with the lamb kebab; this was a dish of succulent and tender Tandoori cooked lamb chunks in yoghurt and medium spices, served with a salad. The meat was good quality, and the spices not overpowering

Rather bravely, for her main course, Eva chose the chicken Balti Rooflifter. This dish, not surprisingly was very hot, I guess it had been created especially for the Scottish palate. It consisted of pieces of chicken in Balti spices, chopped onion, green pepper, mint, yoghurt coriander and Kashmiri massalla.

She chose pilao rice to accompany it.

She was delighted with this dish, even though it was by far the hottest that she has ever had.

It is fair to say that it opened the pores!

The meal, which included a good bottle of Pouilly Fuisse and liqueurs, came to £48 including service.

Overall Opinion

We had a splendid meal, and are more than happy to recommend the New Maharajah's as a place worth visiting when in Edinburgh.