Skipton Balti

10:04am Friday 14th March 2008

One of my colleagues, who has recently left, was a huge fan of curry and in particular vindaloo, so for his leaving do we headed to Skipton Balti on a Friday night.

I arrived at the Court Lane restaurant first and was greeted by friendly staff who offered me a drink, then left me to wait for the rest of the party.

The restaurant wasn't especially busy for a Friday night, but there was a good atmosphere and we were shown straight to our table when everyone had arrived.

We were left to look over the extensive menu and were somewhat amused by the section of Ghandi's specials, although none of us asked why they were the specials of the Indian spiritual leader.

We decided against starters, but did have popadoms and the usual accompanying dips.

For the main course our departing friend went for mushroom vindaloo (£4.25) which, although not the hottest he'd ever tasted, was tasty and he was perfectly happy with.

Two of the party went for chicken rogan josh (£4.25), which I'm told was tasty and flavoursome.

Another chose chicken makani (£6.50), which was "really nice".

I would willingly hold my hands up and admit that I'm not one for spicy food, so true to form I went for chicken korma (£4.25). The sauce was really thick and creamy and at first I was quite put off by the look of it, but the first mouthful proved me wrong.

I thoroughly enjoyed the korma. My only complaint would be that there was a lot more sauce than there was chicken.

We ordered a portion of lemon rice (£1.75) a portion of pilau rice (£1.60), a naan bread (£2.50) and chapatis (£1.95 each) to share, all of which were perfectly satisfactory.

The service was friendly and efficient and although there weren't vast numbers of diners, there were plenty of people going in for takeaways while we were there.

The bill for five, including a few rounds of drinks, came to a very reasonable £57.15. A small price to pay for an enjoyable Indian meal in relaxed surroundings.