We used to go to the original Royal Nawaab in an old cinema building in Levenshulme. It was a large, slick operation but that pales in comparison with the new Royal Nawaab. Many thought that, after years of lying empty, the Stockport Pyramid had become a white elephant but serious money has been spent to transform it from an insurance company office to a restaurant and banqueting space. On the two upper floors, there’s capacity for 1200 guests for events such as weddings, etc. And, on the ground floor, a 400 seater restaurant, like the original, an all you can eat Pakistani and Indian buffet. Yes, 400. It’s massive. And most tables were occupied on the midweek evening we were there, mainly by small groups of youngish men of South Asian heritage. Worthy of note, all the food is halal, alcohol is not served and you have to book (they don’t accept walk-ins)
For us the all you can eat buffet offers two sides of a coin. First, the opportunity to eat a range of dishes, some of which you may not have come across in your neighbourhood restaurant. On the other side of the coin, there’s the temptation to be very, very greedy. The two of us managed both. The buffet itself runs down two sides of the room and is in sections – salads, starters, meat main courses, vegetarian main courses, a small European area and desserts. There is a lot of choice. The chefs who work behind the serving area are constantly topping up and generally keeping the area tidy (not always a given in buffets). We kept our portions suitably small so we could try a bigger range of dishes but still came away stuffed.
From the starters, we ate chicken chapli kebab, fish masala, samosa chaat, onion pakora and pani puri, together with pickles and chutneys. From the 20 plus main course dishes, we picked channa masala, lamb handi, chicken achari, lobia masala, an aubergine dish and a potato one (forgotten the names of these two). For carbs, there were poppadums, pilau rice, puri and garlic naan. And yes, we did manage desserts – moong daal halwa, firni and salted caramel chocolate cake. Quality was generally good, although with some dishes, there had been a heavy hand with the salt, which dominated flavours somewhat.
It’s not somewhere we’d put on our list of places to regularly visit – buffets are not really “date night” places. But it is good to know it’s there and only a few minutes drive away.
