The Rayners Tandoori Restaurant

The Rayners is one of the oldest restaurants on the Rayners Lane curry strip and the first one I went to when I moved to the area five years ago. Back then we found it not spicy enough for our tastes and were put off by a strange water feature they had (think stagnant drain with water leaking into it). It underwent a refurb last year (removing the water feature) so we thought it was time we gave it another go.



Prawn Puree

The Rayers was established in 1987 and always seems busy on weekends. It's a tandoori restaurant so a tandoori dish to start was a must. We ordered the duck tikka (£4.95) and king prawn puree (£4.95). The duck was delicious, tender strips of breast meat, full of flavour and sizzling hot on the cast iron plate. The prawn puree had a generous amount of juicy prawns in a nice tomato and onion sauce and was served on a decent puree (I hate it when they are oily).

Lamb Korahi

We asked our waiter for a recommendation for the mains saying we were after a lamb dish. He asked if we like onions, we replied we do (would be unwise to be in an Indian restaurant if we didn't!) so he recommended special lamb korahi. It was under The Rayners specialities section so sounded worth a try. A korahi is a round cooking pot (similar in shape to a wok) used in Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Nepalese cuisine. When a stew is made is on the dish is generally named after the pot eg. "chicken karahi" and "karahi paneer." The lamb was delicous - lots of big, tender chunks in a tomato, pepper and onion sauce with nice, subtle spice flavours. 

Saag Paneer & Mixed Vegetable Curry

 The sides ordered were saag paneer, mixed vegetable curry, garlic naan and plain rice. Usually in London saag dishes are served as a pureed spinach sauce (often from canned spinach), but this was made with fresh spinach, some chunks of fresh tomato and big cubes of paneer. Not being in a "gravy" made it lighter tasting than a more traditional version. We liked it a lot. The mixed vegetable curry was a nice mix of fresh vegetables, mildly spiced and with curry leaves. It went well with the lamb.

The staff were lovely and they'd made an effort to creat a nice ambience (nice lighting, candles on the tables, posh (Chinese looking!?) plates and flowers on the table). The food was good, but for our tastes, a little lacking in chilli kick. It's certainly improved since the refurbishment, but isn't going to be entering our favourite top 3 on the Rayners Lane curry strip.

Address: 383 Alexandra Avenue, Rayners Lane, Harrow, HA2 9EF    T: 020 88684317
W: raynerstandoori.com