The Gurkha’s Inn

So I received some feedback the other day about how much people like my 1-​star reviews.
The problem is, I don’t like writing them. They reflect having bad experiences that shouldn’t be repeated, and reflect my astonishment at how a business can get away with this in 2015 when there is so much awesome around, you feel like this is the peak of awesome evolution!
Sadly, my experience at this restaurant is another 1-​star.
I happened upon this place randomly. A bunch of us were at Twickenham stadium and getting hungry having visited a nearby pub for a drink. One of us searched Google and recommended the place based on that. We were easy going and followed, and I didn’t bother checking Unilocal myself (shock, horror)!
Anyway, the staff seemed friendly enough, and the menu was extensive. There were a few people already in there and this was not a match day so in an otherwise empty high street, seeing people in a restaurant is a good sign.
We sat down and they apologised for not having enough menus for us. This was kind of weird because we hadn’t even filled the restaurant. I’m not sure what they would do if they had a full house.
They took drinks orders fairly promptly and asked us if we wanted poppadums. I knew they’d charge us for this, and that’s always a bit of a scam, but we were a group so it was kind of normal. What wasn’t normal was being charged for the chutney. The chutney wasn’t really that good either. Disappointing. But not as disappointing as my drink. I ordered a coke. You know, the most popular soft drink in the world. But they didn’t have any.
They only had coke zero or diet coke. No fanta either, only sprite. So I ordered a mango lassi instead, forgetting how badly you could go wrong with a mango lassi. These guys have not forgotten how badly you can get it wrong though. They clearly practice it regularly. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t undrinkable, but it wasn’t the sort of drink that slides down your throat and encourages you to immediately drink more, the way it does in other restaurants I’ve been to. Maybe Nepalese lassi isn’t the same as Pakistani or Indian lassi.
You know what else is vastly different in a Nepalese restaurant compared to Pakistani or Indian? The chili paneer. It’s not very spicy here, and instead of cubes, they cut the paneer into annoyingly floppy thin strips. And they use tomato sauce, which means it’s nothing like the dish you’re expecting. But hey, maybe this is normal chili paneer in Nepal. I’m not going to hate on them for that, because although not as expected, it was still reasonably tasty. Unlike my main dish.
I ordered a fish curry with some rotis. When it eventually arrived (which took ages, probably because they wanted to serve all of us at the same time) the rotis were fine, as I would expect, but the fish curry didn’t taste of much. It had a weird spongy texture and a really bland sauce. It was like they had boiled a filet-​o-​fish from McDonald’s in some diluted Tesco Value curry sauce… I only ate about ¼ of my dish.
And how much did this wonderful meal cost me? £23 plus a tip, which is what I would pay for 2 people if I was eating in Hounslow or Southall. In their defence they didn’t add a mandatory service charge despite the size of our group, and we were left to tip by ourselves. My contribution to the group effort was about £2 but if I’d been here on my own I wouldn’t have left a tip at all.
As much as I don’t want to wish ill upon anyone, I don’t know how they get away with offering this kind of food here. They probably get most of their business on Rugby match days, but there are plenty of other places nearby (including specifically Nepalese stuff) that you’re better off sampling before you get to this restaurant.