DEBORAH ROSS
n artist friend of mine wants to take me to a restaurant in town that he loves, Hokeydokey, I say, as I am never less than obliging except, now I think about it, in those instances when I am. A recent example may include the cold caller who phoned just a couple of minutes ago to ask how many windows I would replace if I could. 'None. I'm a mole. I have no interest in windows whatsoever. The fewer the better. Now, if you could offer me an interest-free burrow-improvement loan to include dampproofing, we could do some serious talking.' That usually gets shot of them. Where were we? Oh yes, my artist friend who, at the last minute, suddenly gets cold little artistic feet. 'I'm not sure I want you to write about this place,' he says. 'What if next time I go I can't get in for Spectator readers?'
Thankfully, I am able to put his mind at rest with some ease. Spectator readers, I say reassuringly, won't eat anything they haven't hunted, shot and plucked themselves. Didn't you read Max Hastings's Diary a couple of weeks ago? The bit on the game cookety where Clarissa Dickson Wright demonstrated how to place a feathered pheasant on the floor, stand astride it with one foot on each wing, then take the legs in both hands and pull firmly and steadily. According to an overjoyed Sir Max, 'One is left holding simply the skinned breast on the bone,' I say to my friend: do you think Spectator readers have time to go out to eat? Sometimes, I think Spectator readers don't even have time to read The Spectator, busy as they are standing astride pheasants and ripping their wings off. 'I can see,' says my artist friend, that I have been a big ninny, worrying unnecessarily about one of my favourite places being overrun by Spectator readers, I thank you greatly for putting me right,' We do wonder what Spectator readers do for pudding, though. Do they lay applepie traps, then rip the crusts off with their bare teeth?
Anyway, the place my friend loves — and it's possibly more a 'place' than a 'restaurant' — turns out to be the India Club at the Strand Continental Hotel, Now, think the Cinnamon Club. You have? OK. Well, now get it right out of your mind. Done that? Good. It's simply not helpful, thinking of the Cinnamon Club at this moment. The two could not be at more opposite ends of the spectrum. It would be like comparing, say, a microwaveable ready meal with smacking a grouse about before biting its head off and sucking out its insides while it's still thrashing about. The India Club is ... well ... no frills. More, it's no frills without any of the frills you still expect even when you know somewhere is no-frills. I can't think of anywhere less frilly, although I can think of somewhere more chilly. My burrow. (Oh, how I yearn for that damp-proofing.) The entrance itself is at the Aldwych end of the Strand, next to a branch of Greggs, the world's least artisan bakery. The stairs to the bar/reception on the first floor are covered — I use the term loosely, as much of it is coming away — with such badly worn lino you can't even call it vintage chic. It's badly worn lino and that's that. The reception/bar has its prices displayed in those cheap, gold sticky-on letters you used to be able to get at hardware shops. (Can you still?) A visit to the ladies' reveals a ceiling that's part falling off. The initial impression is of a decaying, rundown, out-of-season hotel. Quite surreal, in the middle of the very middle of London. I put it to my artist friend that he's taking the piss. He says he can't get over the fact that the Hastings household gets through 150 head of game a year. 'Don't they eat any other part of it, after going to all that trouble?' The deal here seems to be that you buy your drinks at the bar, then take them up a floor to the restaurant. Or it's BYO.
Up to the India Club itself, then, which was, indeed, once a members-only place, founded just after independence in 1948 by Krishna Menon, the first Indian High Commissioner to Britain, as a meeting place for Indians in the UK. (It's situated opposite the Indian High Commission.) Founding members included, apparently, Lady Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's first PM. The restaurant and hotel are now privately owned, but the decor does not appear to have changed, or to have been tarted up in the slightest, in the last half-century. Actually, there isn't any decor. A portrait of Menon, a portrait of Nehru, a portrait of Dadabhoy Naoroji (first Indian MP in the UK) and a collection of unclothed Formica-topped tables and that's it. I'm told that this is just how restaurants in Bombay or Calcutta are, right down to part-falling-off ceilings in the ladies'. As I have never been to Bombay or Calcutta, I cannot verify this. However, I think I can say with some confidence that Elle Decoration and Changing Rooms have yet to take a firm hold over there. I think I can also say that as someone who is utterly bored with conveyor-belt Conranised restaurants — wenge wood, starched tablecloths, big white plates, big fat prices — I'm starting to find it all strangely charming.
It's busy enough, certainly. Lots of lawyers, from the look of it — we're opposite the Royal Courts of Justice, too — as well as lots of student types. Lots of Indians, too. Now, I can't say what's on the menu exactly, because I don't see one. We're a party of 12 — six adults, six kids — so my artist friend negotiates a deal of £12 a head for the adults for a set dinner, and £12 for all the kids, even though they are all, pretty much, pre-teen boys with the sort of appetites that can only be marvelled at. First, it's hot, spicy poppadoms with delicious, chunky, obviously homemade mango chutney and lime pickle. The lime pickle, particularly, makes your lips go all a-tingle. Then it's onion bhajis and chilli bhajis, although be warned: the chilli bhajis can take the roof of your mouth off. Yikes? The trick is loads and loads of beer. (Should it be renamed Strand Incontinental Hotel?) Then, well, masala dosa (pancakes filled with spiced potatoes) served with fresh coconut chutney, bhuna lamb, bhuna chicken, mixed vegetable curry, dhal, green beans and coconut, tandoori chicken . . . and that's just what I can remember. It's all excellent, fresh, served by friendly waiters who josh the children happily. We eat until fit to burst. The cooking, which is southern Indian, is of a standard way above your bogstandard high-street curry house. It's really a brilliant place. Quick, cheap, quirky, eccentric and, I'm guessing, rather authentic. It's a proper Anglo-Indian experience in all its faded glory. Oh-oh. Spectator readers are going to love it. No matter, I tell my artist friend, they won't come. They're probably too busy hunting down trifles, which I hope they slaughter humanely. Personally, I will not eat a trifle unless it's been slaughtered humanely, and always check the packaging just to make sure this is so.
India Club, Second Floor, Strand Continental, 143 Strand, London WC2. 020 7836 0650
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