Ma Goa, Putney

There were five of us who fancied a curry on an Autumn evening and being in Putney we decided to see if we could get a table at Ma Goa.  Diane had wanted to try it for ages and we were lucky to get a table as it's a popular place and was soon packed out, even on a Tuesday. 

It's smarter than your average Indian restaurant and the atmosphere reminded me of someone's dining room -gentle chatter, soothing colour schemes and soft lighting.

We had beautiful freshly made poppadoms to begin with dips served in small white china pots.  Our starter selections we shared with mixed success; ragra pattice were fried potato and herb patties served with spicy chickpeas (quite spicy but not much too them flavour-wise) and dhai puri were fried puris filled with potato, coriander, yogurt and chutneys (moreish).

Main courses are not your typical Indian choice - I went for zafrani murgh korma which is chicken cooked in saffron, tomato, yogurt, rose water and nutmeg.  It was very mild, tasty but not extraordinary.  The rice was very good though.  Other selections from the group included a bhajee thali which was a vegetable selection, apparently delicious which is a good job because their vegetarian selection is either that or choosing three of the vegetable sides -  they offer no vegetarian curries at all, which is pretty poor.  A special of the day was whole Spring chicken which my friend enjoyed, although it was quite a fiddly dish to eat.  The others both had hot curries which they loved.  A side of spinach was really good - soft and flavoursome but cold.  The service was mixed - two excellent waiters who recommended a nice wine but then when we went to order a second bottle it had run out and two scatty useless waitresses who got in the way and didn't know what they were doing.

We had an enjoyable evening but it was a mixed success - it's expensive for curry so the service and cooking really need to be top notch - they nearly are but just not quite.

Poppadoms, two courses and half a bottle of wine: £30 per head

Value: 6/10

Service: 7/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Food: 7/10

SCORE: 27/40

Ma Goa, 242-244 Upper Richmond Road, London, SW15 6TG.  Tel: 020 87801767.