Randomness Guide to London Menu

Indian cafe in the basement of Allders in Croydon, serving various teas, cakes, biscuits, Indian snacks, curries, sandwiches, and breakfasts (including the interesting-sounding "desi breakfast"). Note that although its postcode begins "CR9", it's actually physically located within the CR0 postal district. See Locale CR9 for an explanation.

Despite its description on its website as "an exotic haven", it's hard to forget that you're in the basement of a department store, given the low ceiling, weird lighting, and canned pop music from the rest of the store competing with the cafe's own Indian music. However, the space is broken up with pillars, and made a little cosier with curved banquette seating arranged in small islands. Highchairs for children are available.

Kake visited a couple of times in July 2011, the second time in the company of Sarah. The first time, I had chai latte (£1.95), which was unsweetened and only very subtly spiced, and some of the Indian snacks photo.

Veg tikki (95p) was relatively spicy, with bits of red chilli in, while pakoras (£1.45 for five) were nicely fried, with a good but not over-dominant onion flavour. Vegetable samosa (95p) was competent enough; the pastry wasn't the best I've ever had, but at least it was proper samosa pastry rather than filo. On our second visit, we had some chocolate chip cookies (50p for two) which were OK but nothing special.

Kake's verdict: I might pop in if I was in Allders and needed a sit-down, and I might come back on purpose to try the desi breakfast, but then I do live quite close. It's probably not worth much of a journey; the food and drinks I've had here so far were competent but nothing special.

Accessibility: Although it's in the basement, there's step-free access from the street via various ramps and lifts, and there's also step-free access to the accessible toilet on the third floor of Allders, again via ramps and lifts. However, there isn't much signage and you do have to hunt around a bit to find the ramps.

See also:

• Photos of the menu as of July 2011: 1, 2, 3, 4
• Croydon Today review
• Londonist review
• Local Guardian article
• Tandoori Magazine article