(1) Oh NO!, I thought Just what we wanted - yet another Indian Restaurant in T.Wells! (DOT.wells residents eat nothing but curry, pasta and burgers? NO Turkish/ Lebanese/ Tapas etc.) Still it professed to be a more upmarket offering and peering through the window during the countdown to opening day - it certainly looked the part. SO we booked. What a huge disappointment. I would say it was the very worst Indian style meal I have ever eaten. Drinks were forgotten, there were delays and finally the wrong dish materialised. But hey ho - they'd only just opened, must be patient. But the food. Pappadoms (the size of coins) and served with 3 small bowls of different types of coloured sugar. Clearly all items were from a jar or tube and all were disgusting. Then the mains. I ordered a hot dish - it transpired as bland and tasteless. Both of our dishes had that ready-made "from a jar" smell, taste and consistency. The lamb was tender and very well presented and the decor was expensive-looking. Indeed I wondered how such decor could be provided with such low cost meals. (they were cheap prices). I think the answer was they employ jar-openers - not chefs. frequent diner

(2) The Spice Club is a brash new Indian restaurant with a difference. With a very modern interior and modern menu to match, and also having been very impressed with its sister restaurant (The Spice Club in Sevenoaks - review on this site), I was really looking forward to our evening here. We booked a table for 8.15pm, I had asked for 8pm but the gentleman on the phone advised 8.15 would be better...... no problem I thought. We arrived at 8.10 and the table was not ready, so we decided to head to the 'lounge bar' downstairs for a few drinks, again no problem I thought. After our initial drinks, I asked if they could let us know when the table was ready. During our time waiting, an extremely loud smoke alarm went off, apparently caused by the steam from the dishwasher!! Finally, after about an hours wait and reminding the waiter, we were taken to our table back upstairs. Whilst perusing the menu, I noticed the gentleman pointing out discrepancies on his bill where he had been overcharged. So far we were not impressed. I have to say the menu itself is excellent, the best I have seen in an Indian restaurant. It is actually better than the one on offer in Sevenoaks. The menu has everything from crab, lobster, red snapper, salmon, duck and then your more traditional beef, chicken & lamb. Our waiter arrived to take our order - he eventually turned out to be part of the family that owns the restaurant. We were given the obligatory poppadums and he took our order. For starters, I went for the Duck breast, napped in spices and served with a red cabbage dressing. My partner went for the crab cakes. Both were absolutely out of this world, the presentation was also second to none. Unfortunately, after making up for the earlier delay, the night once again went swiftly downhill. It took around and hour and three quarters for us to receive our mains once we had finished our starters. It was quite obvious they had lost our orders twice, one can only wonder as to how they managed to do this. During this agonising wait, the embarrassed owner ( I assume he was the owner!) came and apologised a number of times. I did also feel slightly sorry for the staff as a number of undesirables had managed to gain entry and were being quite offensive. However these yobs did actually manage to arrive far later than us and also finish their mains before we had even received ours! When they finally did arrive, again they were impressively presented. Though we couldn't help but feel they had been rushed. I had a garlic chilli chicken with mushroom rice and my partner went for the chicken tikka masala. By now we had also lost our appetites so failed to complete much of our main courses. Once again our waiter apologised, and I must say he was a really nice friendly chap, he also offered us free cocktails, I felt this was not good enough and also commented that I did not want to sit waiting any longer! I suggested a reduction in the bill, but they said this was not possible. On the way out I bumped into a friend who had experienced the same problem and was refusing to pay full price. A real shame, as if they can get the service standard to the same level as the Sevenoaks eatery, this will be a real gem. I will wait a while before going back, and continue to use the excellent Junakhi (review to follow shortly). Food - Excellent, cannot be faulted. Service - needs vastly improving. TheLa