[Cheadle, Greater Manchester] Aamchi Mumbai

It seems ages since we were last here. Certainly the last time was before the restaurant’s very deserving entry into this year’s Good Food Guide. It’s good to see that things are unchanged. There’s a short menu, including a section of Mumbai street food and another of Indo-Chinese dishes. There’s a kitchen that can cook. And service is friendly, welcoming and damned efficient. If I have a minor issue, it’s that with the short menu, we’ve managed to eat just about everything on it during our various visits since they opened about 18 months ago, so there’s a bit of a feeling of “samey”…

There’s pappads to nibble on. The mini “single bite” ones, topped with tomato and onion, rather than the big ones that you normally see in the high street curry house. There’s good chutneys to drizzle on them,

For starters, there’s a masala dosa. Crisp pancake, lightly spiced potato filling, just as you’d hope for. Sambal and coconut chutney are also spot-on. There’s also misal pav – a Mumbai speciality – spicy vegetable curry, topped with Bombay mix which is great for texture. It’s the texture of a thickish soup and certainly the spoon provided is what you need. It’s accompanied by bread – a light as anything “barmcake”.

For mains, there’s aloo gobi which Veggie Vera reckoned was the best she can recall in recent times. Potato and cauliflower cooked through but no sign of it turning to mush. Good clingy sauce. I ordered their only “special” – a lamb leg steak, marinated and then quickly cooked so the spices baked on. It comes with rice, a little salad and a separate jug of thin gravy. The spicing is well done – nothing overly aggressive – and the meat is still juicy. The rice is fluffy. The roti is crisp. What more do you need?