A Prince among curry houses?
The OCC continues to venture far and wide to find the 2020 CHOTY, and all the greatest curries to be found in the UK. On this occasion, with no complaining, the OCC headed north. Zone 4 North London to be specific.
The Purple Flame in Queensbury was a surprising venue, partly because this isn’t where we were supposed to go this evening. From the outside, one could say it’s very purple. Visually stunning, the venue was a fusion of a strip club that meets a curry house, with a sprinkle of fish tanks and tv screens showing Indian pop classics.
Once inside, we noticed it was packed! Clearly this was a Friday evening treat for many folks who love their curry, even during these corona virus times. The 12 of us were shown to our table that, really, was too small for a party of our size. Perhaps we should have booked earlier.
Menus were dished out and we were promptly served our first round of drinks - cobras, G&Ts and coca-colas. Our interim vice vice vice vice chairman MVP Mark lead the meeting. Following our OCC pray, tiny winy poppadoms (almost disco crisp-esque) arrived and were accompanied with only two sauces, which were in rather big bottles. These unique style of popadoms were hit and miss with the OCC. For example our OCCO Smudge loved them, but our 2018 CHOTY CHAss Seve hated them. Further variations of sauces wouldn’t have gone a miss.
Starters and Mains were ordered together, and clockwise, after much debate. Plates and knives and forks were placed in the middle of the table for the OCC to hand out - great hospitality. The starters were enjoyable, with lots of different dishes being ordered and served. MVP Mark loved his lamp chops and Pep enjoyed his wings, but Eddie wasn’t sure what he ordered. When the mains arrived further confusion ensued, with Mayo eating a tikka paneer for the table rather than his chicken tikka masala. However the food was great, and the quantity was mass. Many a comment from our internal OCC review system highlighted the taste of the food and the value of it too.
Overall, Purple Flame is a decent gaff and it’s not surprising it receive an overall score of 7.07 from the OCC. Not enough for a sticker, but definitely worth your time if, for some reason, you are out and about that far north when in London.
Customer Care: 6.45
Service: 6.79
Value: 7.66
Quality: 7.29
Atmosphere: 7.15
Total Score: 7.07