This Friday saw us venturing into one of the less salubrious areas of the city in a bid to comprehensively cover the various curry house on offer in Bradford. After a poor pint in the Snobs and Scruffs - to be avoided at all costs - we ventured up the road to Ithfaak's. We arrived while mopping up operations were going on after a visit of the Bradford University football team. The Ithfaak is a smallish, friendly establishment serving curries at the cheap end of the price scale. We kicked off with vegetable pakora, onion bhaji, mushroom bhaji, and vegetable samosa (all £1.00). The mushroom bhaji was the best of the bunch - whole, fresh mushroom in fine, spicy batter. The onion bhajis were good too, deep fried crunchy batter covering succulent onions. The vegetable samosas were of the standard Bradford variety, though the portion I had had been microwaved and part of it was still cold. We were not as impressed with the vegetable pakora - a little tough. Our main courses were adequate without being anything special. I had vegetable and mushroom madras (made up from the side dishes menu) and while I had no complaints with the generous portion, it was a curry out of the bolognese school - a thick, tomato-based sauce, mild for a madras. (The chapattis, by the way, were excellent). The madras vegetable masala was the best of the bunch, fresh and succulent with a pleasing spicy madras tang. The tarka dall was a trifle bland and undistinguished. The tandoori masala was... (Ian a few words, please.) Also, we had to wait quite a while for our meals, which given the fact that we were the only diners did not impress. We finished with fantastic ghulab jaman (70p) and a very good coffee (a bargain at 50P). The Ithfaak is slightly below average compared to others in the city. The meals are perfectly acceptable, but nothing to write home about, and while the waiters are friendly and helpful, the chapattis, coffee, and ghulab jamans great, it must be said that there are many better establishments that should be visited before this one.

(All dishes are served with a choice of 3 chapattis, 2 roti, rice, or chips.) The Ithfaak offers a 10% student discount.