Showing posts with label Saffron Desi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saffron Desi. Show all posts

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Saffron Desi - Guiseley

Over the years I must have eaten more curry here at Saffron Desi than anywhere else!  It's my local curry restaurant you see - me living in Guiseley.  Eat ins and take aways, we've had them all. Sorry for not blogging sooner.

Saffron Desi, however, does have it's roots in Bradford, and is a genuine Bradford Curry eating establishment - see here.  NB.  Saffron Desi opened the Guiseley branch a good few years ago now, and I understand the original Leeds Road, Bradford Saffron Desi has now closed.

Naans on sticks - Excellent.
At Saffron Desi you get a very good quality meal, with excellent service and an overall splendidly trendy experience.  I have always been happy here.  Over the years the Mrs and I must have sampled the majority of the menu, but stand out dishes for us, and the ones we re-visit time and time again are, for starters, the Saffron Mixed Grill.  It is a massive, packed to the rafters sizzler with chops, fish, kebabs and tikka etc.  It is not for the people with weak constitution!  Rather for those with a bottomless appetite.  The Grill alone can fill you if you're not on top of your game!  But as with everything in life, size isn't everything, and the Mixed Grill is great tasting too.  All spicy and carcoaly - very nice.  For mains, the stand out dishes for us are the Vensi and the Saffron Ka Khana.  The Vensi is not a dish you'll come across very often - indeed a quick Google search produced very little info - but it is a brill dish.  It is a creamy dish - which I don't often favour - but it has heat and sourness, which gives it a real kick.  Comes garnished with peppers too, which add another dimension and flavour.  It is one of our favourites.   Secondly the Ka Khana, which is your more traditional Bradford Curry in a thick onion/tomato based sauce, and is a 'complex dish of many individually roasted ingredients' apparently - or something like that.  It is dark and rich and very tasty.   As always, the above are accompanied with a garlic naan on a stick (a nod to Akbars??) which is always warm, fresh, fluffy and, above all, bery garlicy.

Saffron Achari
The Lamb Saffron Achari I had recently was perhaps not in the same league as those discussed above evenif it was listed on the Saffron Specialities - Award Winning Dishes section of the menu.  Different to other Acharis I have had in Bradford recently, it ticked all the right boxes on the menu, with mention of yoghurt marinades, pickle masala and a dash of cream, but it was rather too creamy for me, and not quite as butt puckeringly sour as I would have liked either!  Having said that, it was still very good, a perfectly good take on an Achari - worth a try if you are a fan of this variety.  Perhaps ask for extra sour when ordering?

It is great to have such a quality establishment on ones doorstep.

Monday 2 May 2011

Saffron Desi 29/05/2009


So Saffron Desi has been and gone, and I have to be honest, and say, that I was a little indifferent to it.

Yes yes yes it ticked all the boxes for it to be an uber cool and trendy modern Bradford curry restaurant. It had the grand entrance, big glass windows, stainless steel, wood, tiled floor, etc, but it just didn’t seem to have the character of other places we have visited. It was curry restaurant by numbers.

The food was very nice, and was exactly the same as our local Saffron in Guiseley or Rohan in Ilkley, to the point where I tended to think there may be some association??? No mention on the web sites though??
Following poppadoms and pickles, a number of the group shared the mixed grill, which was very tasty, and large – a little too large - and included fish – a nice addition – but was difficult to enthuse about simply because it seemed so familiar.


For my main I picked the ‘chef’s special’ Saffron Delight – which was delightful in name only. It was a kind of rich, creamy, smingy sauce with chicken, and had cashew nuts and fried onions sprinkled on top. I think this was an award winning dish, and had earned its own special highlighted box on the menu!!! Not for me – very disappointed. That is not to say all the mains were poor though. The Achari lamb was really good – with a large bit of lamb on the bone in an excellent sauce.


To conclude - nice enough but there was nothing to make me want to go back – especially with Akbars just down the road, and Saffron in Guiseley just down the road from my home.

John