From the outside, the Café Pakistan looks good: well-illuminated, a little up-market, inviting. We should have guessed, by the fact that we were the only customers at ten in the evening, that we were in for a less than pleasant dining experience.

Our starters were no indication of the meal to follow. We ordered onion bhaji (95p), veg pakora (£1.00), murgh tikka (£2.20), chicken pakora (£1.80), and vegetable samosas (£1.10). They were all very acceptable, well-cooked, nicely spiced and appetising - an above average selection of starters.

Then came our main dishes. One hour and five minutes after ordering, they finally arrived. (There were nine of us in our party, but the restaurant was otherwise empty.) I ordered balti aloo chana; my first complaint was that the potatoes were cut too large and so had not absorbed the curry flavour. My second complaint was more damning: the dish was too salty. The 'handy' murgh was even worse: the meat tasted odd, according to DaveW, and again the curry was over-salted. The sabzi mix was described as too salty and oily, while the lamb shahfhani was too dry and, again, far too salty. The achar murgh followed along the same lines. JonF enjoyed his dish, murgh makhan, though two other people who sampled it described the sauce as sickly sweet.

It was so late after finishing our curries that we didn't want to hang around for coffee and deserts. All in all, the Café Pakistan was a vast disappointment. On this showing, with stiff competition form the nearby Silver Jubilee, we can't see it staying in business for much longer.

(All dishes come with a choice of chapattis or rice.)