Randomness Guide to London Menu

South Indian restaurant on London Road in Croydon.

It's quite small, with just eight tables seating a total of 32 (though there's another room on the first floor to seat 25-30 more). Hangings depicting Keralan landscapes and culture brighten up the glossy white tiles of the walls, while tall red and black pleather chairs surround the tables. Flatscreens are mounted by the ceiling, and a fully-stocked bar is squeezed in at the back.

Kake visited on a Monday lunchtime in February 2018. There were two other customers when I arrived around 12:30pm, and several others turned up while I was there, including a couple of groups with small children. The flatscreens were showing some sort of TV drama with music but no dialogue, not too loud.

I went for the express meal (£5.50) photo, which came with a huge mound of basmati rice, a small poppadom, pickle, rasam, an omelette, a vegetable dish, a small fried fish, onion salad, and salted yogurt.

The rice was fine, with nicely separate grains. The vegetable dish was cabbage; crisp and coconutty, flecked with whole spices and shreds of carrot for colour. The onion salad was crisp and juicy. The omelette also included onions, along with green chillies. The fish was thoroughly deep-fried to the point where the head and bones were edible, but they'd managed to avoid making it too dry. Overall, there was a good mix of flavours and textures.

Tap water came swiftly on request, and was topped up from a chilled jug when it ran out.

Accessibility: No steps to get in. The toilets are up a flight of stairs with a sturdy handrail and one bend.

See also:

• Photos of the menu as of February 2018: page 1, page 2
• Chowhound thread
• TripAdvisor comments