London Curry House

What’s better than Indian food on a rainy winter night? Maybe soup? Maybe. But a good curry could still hit the spot. And, like many of my recent dining decisions, London Curry House in Alexandria existed in exactly the right place in roughly the period of time in which I needed it. Close enough, at least. I could also order online for pick-up. It’s an introvert’s dream!

Something I appreciate about London Curry House: they let me know right on the menu which things are “must try!” Thanks, London Curry House! Another thing I love about them: they had so many good looking things that they actually convinced my husband to move away from his beloved chicken tikka masala and try something new. I really did marry an adventurous eater, but the man knows what he likes. He ordered the madras curry with chicken (I mean, we can’t get too crazy now) and I got the “must try!” goat nehari. Then, feeling all the more adventurous, I added an order of shahi naan, stuffed with coconut and nuts.

Not pictured: enough rice to feed an Indian village for a week.

Forgive the horribly inaccurate picture. This was actually an enormous amount of food. The madras curry (bottom right) was different but not particularly flavorful, and had kind of a gritty texture from the coconut. It was creamy and the chicken was good, but sparse. I think my husband will be going back to tikka masala next time. The goat nehari (bottom left) had a spicy, oniony sauce that was heaven in a bowl…but the goat was overwhelmingly fatty and chewy, almost all of it still stuck to small pieces of bone, and that made this dish partially inedible. When goat is cooked well, it should literally fall off the bone. If I can cook goat like this, so can every restaurant. Also, it’s just so hard to eat a saucy dish that still has chunks of bone in it. How do people live like this? I ended up eating mostly sauce and slivers of onion.

The naan was really tasty, though. I mean, it’s bread. Stuffed with dried coconut. There’s no losing here. It was messy to eat because all the dried coconut just kind of poured out of the torn bread, but it was still slightly dessert-y and yum.

Price: $20 per person.

Bottom line: I was pretty unsatisfied with everything we got to some degree, and my complaints were all over the map. Except the naan; that was pretty good. DC has kind of a dearth of good Indian food but I’m pretty sure I could find something better than this.