“Flavours from a journey,” were the words embroidered on the back of the waiters’ uniforms at MyLahore in Blackburn, and it pretty much sums up the whole dining experience.
From the familiar flavours of spices in the curries that tell the tale of Britain’s colonisation over the Indian subcontinent, to the historic features of Blackburn’s oldest pub that remain cemented throughout the building, the restaurant took me, and other diners, on a voyage of British and Asian fusion culture.
The restaurant in the old Red Lion Hotel in Whitebirk Road, which is now the sixth MyLahore to open in the country, opened on Monday, August 1.
The restaurant’s dazzling yellow lit sign warmly welcomed us before we had even stepped foot in the restaurant – and when we did, a friendly server greeted us with a brief rundown of the restaurant’s heritage, before showing us to a table tucked away in a cosy section towards the back.
It was Saturday evening - a pre-launch event - and the vibrant restaurant was packed with tables of excited families and friends.
Despite it being that Saturday night type of busy, the bustling atmosphere was balanced by the smooth and thoroughly planned out service.
My two friends and I were handed menus and talked through them by our attentive and impressively knowledgeable waiter Dinesh, who didn’t let our glasses of the Passionists mocktail run low all night.
The starters were varied, making it inevitably difficult to choose between, but we opted to share a portion of poppadoms, a meat samosa, breaded king prawns, papri chaat, and the combo platter which comes with chicken seekh, mutton seekh, flaming chop, chicken pakora and (another) meat samosa.
The star of the starter show was the papri chaat. The traditional Indian street food dish, priced at £3.95, came in a bowl big enough to share between two to three people and was the best version of the recipe I’ve ever tried.
The rest of the dishes were as good as expected for a chain restaurant. The breaded king prawns were a fun twist on the classic prawn cocktail starter coming served in a cocktail glass with a wedge of lime and sweet chilli sauce looking (almost) too good to eat.
The meats from the starter combo were tender and flavoursome and the portion sizes were the goldilocks standard of ‘just right’.
The menu has a varied list of your traditional curries with a choice of meats, as well as five different vegetarian curries to try from. They’re all reasonably priced too, ranging between £8 to £12.
For those unfortunate people who aren’t keen on curry (my thoughts are with you) the menu offers Italian pasta and lasagne dishes, as well as deli lunch style sandwiches and salads, and east-Asian stir-fry dishes.
I considered taking the adventurous route, but played it safe as I wanted to see where my usual curry order would place on my personal leaderboard.
I went for lamb rogan-josh with one portion of pilau rice and a garlic naan. I’m pleased to say it ranked highly.
The dishes were garnished, and the presentation was fine. The lamb was succulent, and the sauce had the perfect kick of heat without overpowering the warm, wintery spices. The garlic naan was fine and was enough for three people.
The curry and rice portion sizes were enough for one hefty plate in the restaurant and a second heated up in my microwave the next day – so could serve up to two people.
Unfortunately, and I was gutted about this, we had no room for dessert which is a testament to the generous portion sizes - which earns extra points considering the fair pricing.
There’s an assortment of traditional British desserts priced at £4.95 and Desi classics that very nearly tempted me into ordering one.
Throughout the meals, the service from Dinesh, and Usman (another waiter who checked on us regularly) couldn’t be faulted.
They were both as attentive as they were friendly, so combined with few stand out dishes, generous portion size and reasonable price, and warm and homely atmosphere, MyLahore Blackburn receives a full five stars.
To book a table, call 01254 414497 or visit MyLahore's website.
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