Masaledar, SW17 7TJ
- 121 Upper Tooting Road
Masaledar was an Indian restaurant in Tooting, between Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway stations. As of November 2018 it seems to have closed down — the building is stripped out photo, and although a notice in the side window photo says “See you late June!" this seems more likely to mean June 2018 than June 2019, especially as the website, Twitter, and Instagram accounts given on the notice no longer exist.
The information below is retained for historical purposes.
The ground floor has a visible kitchen and a small number of tables. The decor is pretty gaudy with a colour changing waterfall photo and a wall of gold glitter photo. They do BYOB with a corkage of £1.
secretlondon and Zair went here on a weekday evening in May 2016 as part of an attempt to eat everywhere interesting in Tooting. The menu was noticeably expensive for Tooting, with mains between £8 and £9. Although most of the menu were marked with chillis, representing hotness, we felt the ones we tried were very mild. The menu gives one chilli as subtly spiced, two as spiced and three as hot. This is misleading as you might think this was heat rather than flavouring. We thought even spicy things were really mild.
We had mogo (cassava chips) for £4.25 photo and bajia (onion bhajis) for £4.50 photo. The mogo was supposed to come with tamarind chutney but just came with a plate of popodom style sauces. These were not fluorescent green, thankfully, but still not tamarind.
Our mains were haleem (£10) photo which secretlondon liked but was mildly spiced, and saag murgh (£8.25) photo. Pilaw rice was £3.75 and a paratha was £3.50.
The ladies' toilet was full of small flies (like fruit flies) and did not have a working hand dryer. I am told the gents was also full of flies. There was a weird smell near where we were sitting. We're not sure what it was, but together with the flies made us wonder about their food hygiene. When I got home I looked up their food hygiene to find it was missing. Google's cache gives a score of 1, but it seems to have been removed from the actual websites. After checking, this is probably due to a change of ownership.
secretlondon's verdict: I wasn't impressed and won't be coming back. It's overpriced and below quality for the area.
Accessibility: There are some tables on the ground floor; but most tables, and I think all the toilets, are upstairs. The stairs have no handrail.