Last week we visited the Theatre Royal and I wanted to try a restaurant nearby that I hadn’t been to before. I debated between Taas, the Nepalese (and Indian) restaurant and The Raj, an Indian restaurant. Both are on Bootham and within a 4-minute walk of the theatre.
I have often parked in Bootham Row car park where you can smell some wonderful cooking going on at The Raj. It sealed the deal, so that was where we went.
Now I’ll be honest, to begin with, when we first entered the restaurant I wondered if we had made a mistake and even apologised to my husband as the restaurant choice was my idea. The fault was ours really as we arrived at the restaurant very soon after their opening time. We were the first guests in and it felt a little uncomfortable and lacking in atmosphere. As the evening went on and more people came in, this did lessen and we felt more at ease.
As we were short of time, we didn’t order a starter or poppadoms and went straight to our main courses. I often get asked to recommend an Indian restaurant and don’t review as many as I would like to. I was torn as to what to order as normally I like to order something a little bit specific to the restaurant, but in this case I really wanted to know whether they did a good chicken tikka masala as we all know how popular that dish is! I’m pleased to say that yes, they did an excellent chicken tikka masala.
I ordered two chapatis to dip in my sauce and these were similarly good.
My husband ordered the tandoori mixed grill (he often orders this!) and was impressed. It was a good size portion and as you can see very attractively served (and accompanied by a salad.
We were really short of time so we did just order the main course so I can’t show you anything else, but despite our initial impression we thought the food was excellent.
At the end of the meal wet wipes were brought and chocolate mints were served.
