Tap & Tandoor | Restaurant Review

Dearest reader,

It seems that a new establishment has opened within Peterborough’s borders boasting the finest cuisine inspired by India. Therefore, it was only natural that this writer would visit to see if the claims were true. As you very well know, I do not ignore any opportunity to shed light on an independent business but do not assume that means my words will be false. I can assure you that I would not lie should even Her Royal Majesty herself decide to open a tearoom within the palace gates that was below expectation. And lest I forget, to any new establishments hoping to share the delectable goods to the ton, I hope you know to remain on guard. Always be at your best. For you never know when I shall choose to grace your threshold…

Yours truly,

Lady Abayomi

I would apologise for the theatrics of the introduction but that would be insincere. I am quite excited about season two of Bridgerton coming out on Netflix this Friday. Although my heart mourns that there shall be no Duke of Hastings (let’s be honest, he is the main reason why we all binge watched season one), I am excited that there will be an introduction of a new character. I bought 6/8 books after my two-day binge fest of the show so I’m fairly aware of the direction the show is going in but Shonda Rhimes has a way of surprising people and I can’t wait to see what she’s got planned!

However, this blog post is not about me fan-girling over a steamy romance novel but rather me giving a review of a new restaurant has opened within Peterborough. To be honest, the restaurant isn’t completely new as I believe they opened up last summer but I hadn’t had the opportunity to pay them a visit until quite recently. Tap & Tandoor describe themselves as an “Indian gastropub” specialising in “craft beer, small plates and homestyle curries”. This is what attracted me to the restaurant in the first place because I hadn’t been to a tapas-style Indian restaurant before and was curious what small plates would be on offer.

Before I go into my review, I think it would be helpful to explain my criteria for reviewing a restaurant. I always pay attention to 3 things: the vibe, the service and the food. By vibe, I am referring to the general atmosphere and whether I feel like it’s somewhere that I would want to spend my time and money in. For example, if you read my previous post about my Grub Crawl then you know how much I adored Pizza Pilgrims because the energy was infectious. When looking at service, I am judging how long it takes for food to arrive, how helpful were the staff or how well did they resolve any potential problems that arose. I should caveat that I understand that staff are people and people can have bad days so I would never judge a restaurant harsher if it is evident a member of staff was having a rough day. (Lord knows I’ve dropped my friendly demeanour at work a couple times when I was in dire need of caffeine… and possibly a holiday…). And finally, the food has to be really good otherwise everything else was pointless. For the sake of ease, I try and give each criteria score out of 10 so it’s easy to compare restaurants but do let me know if you find this helpful or not.

Now that’s out the way, here is my review of Tap & Tandoor!

Vibe check

I was fortunate enough to book a table on a Friday evening just before the evening rush kicked in. Therefore, when we were seated the restaurant was practically empty except for a few people sat at the bar which I was okay with as it gave me the opportunity to have a good look at my surroundings. The restaurant has a slight playful energy about it as they had a mural on the farthest wall which paid homage to the craft beer they sell. The tables weren’t too close together and it definitely felt like somewhere you would want to bring your friends or colleagues after work to swap stories. I really enjoyed that they had dark wooden floors because it always makes a restaurant feel warm and inviting. I can definitely say that the decor matched the personality and energy the owners wanted to create within the restaurant. Essentially pop in, grab a drink, order a few small plates and have a natter.

The face of someone who's ready to eat

However, this was until dinner service was in full flow. I didn’t mind that the restaurant got busy (what else do you expect on a Friday night?) but my issue was with how the building was structured. On the ground floor you have the bar and restaurant with all the tables but what I didn’t realise was that the kitchen was upstairs. For anyone who is scratching the head as to why that would be the case, it becomes clearer when you realise that there are buildings in Peterborough that are quite old. Tap & Tandoor is based on one of those buildings so I assume the only reasonable solution that didn’t mean losing a lot of tables was for the kitchen to be upstairs. The problem was that it was noisy. You can constantly hear the sounds of people and equipment upstairs which I was not a fan of. It doesn’t distract from the eating experience and it isn’t even irritating but it was unwelcome.

Vibe score: 7/10

The Service

We came before the evening rush so we were seated very quickly and within a matter of minutes they were ready to take our drink orders. They were then ready to take our food orders but it took us awhile to figure out what we wanted to order. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I can be indecisive by nature and I’m even worse when I know that I want to review a place because I feel like I want to eat as much as possible to give the establishments their best chance of impressing me. However, our server had to check in with us about three times before we had finally decided what we are ordering. The reason why we had taken so long was because it wasn’t very clear on the menu just how big the portion sizes were for the “small plates” and what would be reasonable to order for two people who just want to try a few things. I think if you see guests that are struggling to decide it can help if the server just asks “Do you need any help?”. However, I would like to give a shout out to the lady who served us because when we were finally ordering our dishes she did explain to us what the portion sizes were and answered any questions that we had.

From left to right: Mogo chips, Tandoor Salmon & Tandoor Paneer

I was quite surprised at how swiftly the food came considering how much we ordered. By the time we put our orders in and got settled the restaurant was starting to fill up and I assumed it would take forever for us to get our food. However, the wait time was reasonable. As things became busier, the staff were definitely stretched to keep on top of all the tables. It took us quite a long time to pay our bill and get takeaway containers for the absolute monstrosity of food we had leftover.

Overall the service was pretty good but could be improved.

Service score: 8/10

The Food

The food can best be described as a mixed bag of welcome surprises and predictably flat dishes. When I ordered I wanted to give as much of the menu a chance to shine so I ordered from the tapas style small plate section, a curry, dishes cooked on the tandoor and a few sides plus some rotis. I found that the menu size as a whole made sense for the restaurant and I like that there was a lot of variety in what could be ordered.

We started with the small plates and I ordered the Amritsari Fish and an Aloo Tikki Chaat which came with a side of mint chutney and a chili sauce. The fish obviously tasted good because it’s fried fish but I did enjoy the spicing in the batter. It had an aniseed undertone which I really liked. It’s similar in European cooking where you get fennel paired with fish dishes. However, my favourite was the Aloo Tikki Chaat. It was a dish of potato cakes and chickpeas smothered in a tomato and tamarind sauce. It was so well-balanced and I loved that it was tangy. It definitely had some heat but it was the type of heat that was addictive as opposed to off-putting. If you do visit Tap & Tandoor, I highly recommend you order this with some rotis or naan bread and call it a day!

Aloo Tikki Chaat

Moving on to the curries, I found myself quite disappointed. I ordered a lamb curry and it wasn’t bad but it was just… unmemorable. I love a lamb curry and I always order on when I go to an Indian restaurant and it tasted like the lamb curries I get at my local takeaway. In some ways, that can be a good thing because it’s familiar and you know what you’re getting which is important for restaurants when they’re trying to appeal to the masses. However, I could have gotten a similar curry without having to leave my house, so I feel like if I’m going to restaurant I want to taste something slightly different. The main credit I could give the curry was that they were generous with the meat because usually it’s a lot of sauce with five depressingly small cubes of lamb suspended within it.

Chicken Palak (left); Lamb Curry (right)

However, I need to say that the sides and the dishes from the tandoor were delicious. I ordered Mogo chips (also known as cassava/yam chips) which are coated in a tangy tamarind and chili glaze which was so tasty. Cassava is a very starchy and dense vegetable that has a very different texture to potato when it’s cooked because it does not go fluffy. Therefore, when you fry it and you glaze it, the almost dry interior with a very saucy exterior is really nice in the mouth. The tandoor dishes were lovely but I know that I’m impartial to anything that resembles barbecued food. I ordered tandoor paneer and tandoor salmon and should I ever return I’m ordering them again. The salmon was still moist and seasoned really nicely. The paneer was also nicely seasoned and a tad crispy. In honesty, I don’t really like the sizzling plate theatrics but it did me no harm.

Food score: 8/10

Overall score: 7.5/10

The restaurant is decent and it’s a fun way to catch up with friends on a Friday night. I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit the restaurant and I think next time I would stick to the smaller plates and the tandoor dishes. If you’re looking for a curry house, this restaurant isn’t the one for you but thankfully we live in the UK where curry houses are a plenty. However, I do have to say that I’m happy that there is an independent restaurant in Peterborough Centre because it seems that the number of chain restaurants is increasing exponentially and I worry that it is slowly losing its uniqueness.

Was this review helpful? Do you think you might give the restaurant visit? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

See you in the next post,

Mary xx