Club 2000 - Mogo Chips & Beers

Club 2000 is a sports bar serving a wide range of Indian dishes, including East African Indian dishes, such as mogo (cassava). Decorations are an odd mix of Hindu art and sporting paraphernalia and the plasma TVs usually have on cricket or some other sports match. Despite this, it’s usually not dominated by men. It’s actually popular with Asian families. Whenever we dine there we are usually the only table of two with the other diners being large family groups, with the women often wearing beautiful saris.   

Being a bar, Club 2000 is heavy on the fried snacks. They do a range of bhajis - chilli, onions, methi (fenugreek leaves), paneer spring rolls and mogo with masala or garlic, or simply as chips.

Mogo (also known as cassava, manioc and tapioca) is on many Rayners Lane restaurant menus and is an excellent example of East African Indian cuisine. The Indian diaspora in Africa consists of approximately 1.5 million people of Indian origin living in Africa. Most arrived in the 19th century as British indentured labourers, many of them to work on the Kenya-Uganda railway, while others had arrived earlier by sea as traders. When the Indians migrated to Africa they brought their spices with them. They eventually started growing many of these spices in Africa and used the local ingredients with their spices. Mogo proved so popular with the Indian immigrants in Africa, that you now often see it on Indian menus around the world. Mogo is a starchy, tuberous root so great for making chips. I find it hard to resist mogo chips with a spicy tomato masala sauce.

Usually we have mogo and bhajis to start at Club 2000, but on our most recent visit we tried the chicken tikka. It was very good - juicy, lean chicken breast, nicely spiced and a generous portion.

Kasoori prawns are my favourite main at Club 2000. So on my most recent visit we had these with bhindi masala and vegetable biryani. Koosori methi is dried fenugreek leaves and tastes similar to a combination of celery and fennel with a slightly bitter bite. The kasoori prawns at Club 2000 are in a spicy tomato, garlic, chilli and ginger based gravy with dried fenugreek leaves. It's delicious. On our last visit the okra in the bhindi masala were over-cooked (some of them blackened) and the dish was a bit bitter. It was disappointing as it was so over-cooked, I don't think it should have been served.

The spinach biryani at Club 2000 is fantasitc and goes well with the prawn kasoori, but last time, to try something different I ordered the vegetable biryani, which was no where near as good. The spices in it tasted harsh and there weren't many vegetables in it besides peas. In contrast, whenever I've had their spinach biryani, it's been packed with spinach, carrot, peas and other vegetables. Next time I'll be sticking to the spinach biryani.

Club 2000's menu assumes diner's know Indian food well, so there are no descriptions on the menu. We've always found staff friendly and happy to answer any questions we had about dishes we are unfamiliar with. In recent visits we have found service terribly slow and on our most recent visit the food wasn't as good as it had been in the past. So it might be a little while before we visit Club 2000 again.

Address: 427-431 Rayners Lane, Pinner HA5 5ER

T: 020 8868 2500 W: www.club-2k.co.uk

* Note - Club 2000 is a members club. However, we’ve never been turned away. It just means they have us sign into their member’s book each time we go there. Once we asked why it’s a members club and were told it’s because they used to get loud, drunk people coming for a curry after too many drinks and ruining the atmosphere for other diners. The member’s club status stops this as they can refuse entry if people are too drunk

Annaluxmie - Coconuts & Seafood

Annaluxmie often looks quiet, which had wrongly led us to think it probably wasn't very good. We tried it for the first time recently and went back again five days later - it was that good!

Annaluxmie specialises in Sri Lankan, South Indian and Chettinadu foods, so dishes featuring seafood and coconut are the stars of their menu when it comes to the Sri Lankan and South Asian dishes, whereas Chettinad lends itself more to meat dishes.

Chettinad cuisine is from Tamil Nadu state in South India. It is one of the spiciest and the most aromatic in India and famous for its use of a variety of spices used in preparing mainly non-vegetarian food (chicken, lamb and fish; not pork and beef). The dishes are hot and pungent with fresh ground masalas, usually with generous amounts of peppercorn, cinnamon, bay leaves, cardamom, nutmeg, green and red chillies. The Chettiars, a merchant caste in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, migrated to nearby Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to Chettinad cuisine becoming popular in Sri Lanka. The people of Chettinad speak Tamil. Today there is a dispora of Chettinad people who live in places such as the USA, Singapore, Malaysia and Rayners Lane.

To start we've tried Annaluxmie's devilled king prawns and the devilled squid. Devilled dishes are a staple of Sri Lankan cuisine. Here you can choose from devilled chicken, fish, prawns or squid, which essentially means stir fried with tomatoes, onions, peppers, chilli and ginger. Both the squid and prawns were delicious and packed a firey punch.

Next up we had the garlic fish curry, chunks of fish cooked in special South Indian spices, tamarind, garlic, shallot and tomato gravy. It was subtly spiced with nice tender chunks of fish and really tasty. We had it with coconut rice, which complimented if perfectly. The rice was made with fresh grated coconut and tasted fantastic.

Of the vegetarian dishes we have tried dahl makhani (rajma dhal, black dhal and channa dhal all mixed in garlic butter and garam masala) rich and delicious; and bhindi masala (okra cooked with Bombay onion, tomato, chilli and garlic), which was excellent and an ideal accompaniment to the seafood curries. The paneer palak (spinach puree and paneer cheese sautéed with onions, garlic, tomatoes and single cream) we found too creamy and a little sweet for our tastes and Indian chickpea staple of channa masala was very good. I tried a dish called ennai kathirikai for the first time here. The menu said this is fried aubergines with sesame and peanuts in gingerly-oil flavoured gravy, so obviously it was going to be a heavy dish, but still we did find it a bit too oily for our tastes. 

The masala dosa here is fantastic and so are the roti. We tried the chilli roti and it was packed with fresh green chillies.  

Annaluxmie is very reasonably priced. Both times we've eaten there we've had beers and eaten a feast and it's come to £20 a head, including tips. The service is very friendly and you can tell they really want you to enjoy the food and dinning with them. We'll be going back again soon to explore more of their menu.

Address: 436 Alexandra Avenue, Rayners Lane, Harrow, Middlesex, HA2 9TW
T: 020 8866 4960  W: www.annaluxmie.co.uk