Historical version 1 of Sangri, CR0 1QH (view current version)

  • 020 8686 2626
  • 265 High Street, Croydon, CR0 1QH

Sangri is a recently opened restaurant offering what they term bespoke Indian cuisine in south central Croydon. Externally it resembles a smart, modern restaurant with a few elephants and flowers about the place to give it a more Indian feel. Piped Indian music (of the fairly standard Indian restaurant kind) adds to this atmosphere.

Robbie and Shuri visited on 7th October to try the "Express Business Lunch" offer, which is advertised as four courses for £6.95 per head. What you get is a starter (choice of three), a curry (choice of vegetable, chicken, lamb or prawn) of one of half a dozen standard types, a side dish and a sundry.

When starters arrived (Chicken Tikka and a Potato Pakora) it looked a bit nouvelle cuisine in the portion size department. The Chicken consisted of two pieces of chicken, an artfully arranged side salad and the de rigeur drizzle of something on the plate. They were followed swiftly by the rest of the food: express appears to mean "comes all at once". The chicken tikka turned out to be juicy, perfectly cooked chicken well marinaded in tasty spices. The pakora was also nicely flavoured btu equally small.

Chicken Madras was just the right heat level with a nice mix of spices and other flavours making it tastier than the average. The vegetable korma was made with courgette, aubergine, cauliflower, broccoli and celery, and was coconutty and nicely spiced. Butternut squash as a side was also nicely flavoured and met with approval. The only disappointment was the rather bog standard onion bhaji - ok, but not up to the standard set by the rest of the meal.

Soft drinks of various kinds were around the £2.50 mark, with a rather tasty mango lassi coming in at £3.95. Overall, it came to a shade over £10 per head plus service.

Portion size wasn't a concern in the end - Robbie was comfortably full afterwards and Shuri was defeated. The curry dishes must have had TARDIS-like properties.

The normal evening menu is more expensive and fancy (and I forgot to note anything down about it), and the place has never looked that full when I've passed it. We were the only diners there from midday until 1pm, so I fear this establishment may not be long for this world.

The business lunch offer runs from 12 until 2:30 and is well worth a look in though.

This is version 1 (as of 2008-10-07 13:19:40). View current version.