The Brilliant, Southall

Those familiar with the richness and quality of the Punjabi restaurants in Southall may feel it's a bit of a wasted opportunity on my part to have travelled to the area just three times in a decade only to revisit the same place twice. I don't have a great excuse really; I'd love to try one of the Punjabi pubs - the Prince of Wales maybe, or the Sportsman - or sample the jalebi from Jalebi Junction, but I found myself back at the Brilliant thanks to a combination of near-constant praise from others, a few people on Twitter suggesting the place after a disappointing meal at Gifto's Lahore and, yes, a PR invite which meant that even if things didn't go well at least I'd only have to finance the service charge.

There's also the non-trivial factor of the journey home to Battersea taking an hour and a half. I don't mind travelling for a good meal, but I would have been a very unhappy chappy indeed if I'd ended up on TFL rail at 10pm after another experience like that at Gifto's. I needed a sure thing, and fortunately from the moment I stepped through the door of the Brilliant (half an hour early because I misremembered the journey being 90 minutes from the office, not 60) everything went swimmingly. Tables nicely spaced, other diners chatting happily in their bubbles, and a pint of ice-cold Kingfisher to welcome me in from the rain.

With three kinds of poppadums (baked, spicy and fried) the Brilliant offer a range of house chutneys and pickles, all home made (as you might reasonably expect) but also in some cases quite unlike any you might find elsewhere. Pickled carrots, for example, in a kind of earthy, nutty herb mix I couldn't quite place but which worked incredibly well. And a super-sharp lime pickle, the limes with a similar refreshing texture to preserved lemons, and dangerously addictive.

And from there on, you really couldn't fault anything about the Brilliant at all. These chops, which I seem to remember being vaguely disappointed by a decade ago, were vibrantly spiced, nicely charred and absolutely dissolved in the mouth into fatty, lamb-y heaven.

The Brilliant "butter chicken" is, like a lot of the things they do, a twist on the classic. Served unsauced, and on the bone, it had all the spice and complex flavours of the usual version but the stark presentation seemed to concentrate attention on the chicken itself, which (being on the bone) was beautifully tender and incredibly moreish.

Seekh kebabs were similarly accomplished, nicely browned from the grill but soft and sausage-y inside, boasting a powerful chilli kick and plenty of flavour. It's only when trying the 'mixed grill' stalwarts from a restaurant that really knows what they're doing that you realise how badly some other places have been getting it wrong. I shudder at the memory of the tubes of blitzed sawdust that are passed off as seekh kebabs in some places.

Papri chaat was a little wetter than normal - that's a lot of yoghurt - but no less tasty, containing nice crunchy chickpeas alongside pomegranete seeds for extra texture, and lovely sweet tamarind.

After troughing our way through so many starters (you really need a large group to make the most of dinner at the Brilliant - damn you, Tier 2) we only really had room for one main, and that task fell to the famous house Methi Chicken, a dark, complex sauce containing chunks of tender grilled chicken. Again, you will have seen dishes like this in restaurants across the capital, but the finest versions, like this, sing to a wonderful tune of their own.

There was, though, just about room to squeeze in a tarka dal, which balanced the usual dense butteriness with a nice hit of chilli and went down very well. Also a special mention to the Brilliant house breads, one a lacha paratha which was fatty and crunchy like the finest patisserie, and also a roomali roti (literally "handkerchief bread"), whose soft, stretchy rolls were perfect for mopping up the last of the Methi Chicken sauce.

Anything you don't quite have space for the Brilliant will happily box up and let you take home, so we toddled out into the wet Southall streets laden with leftover lamb chops, tarka dal and plenty of that lovely roti. The next evening, the reheated leftovers were somehow even better than I remembered on the night - this kind of stuff really travels incredibly well. So if you're still nervous about dining out, or indeed if you're a local and want to make use of the place when the inevitable second national lockdown hits, I can't recommend their takeout service enough.

Yes, it's all a bit up in the air at the moment isn't it. Eating out in late 2020 in the UK is both an exercise in wilful denial and making the most of it while you can - looking at upcoming events in my restaurant-spod diary I wonder how many I'll be able to make, and how many will have to be parked for happier times. Who knows. In the meantime I'm going to carry on as if the world as we know it isn't collapsing around our ears, and hope that if we do all have to put our lives on hold, for however long, when all these dark days become a distant memory and we re-emerge blinking into the sunlight there'll still be restaurants like the Brilliant to welcome us back. That's something to look forward to, isn't it?

9/10

I was invited to the Brilliant and didn't see a bill, but prices are online and I estimate our dinner for 2 would have been about £70 without booze, which isn't bad really is it.

Gifto's Lahore Karahi, Southall

Having spontaneously decided that it had been too long since I'd travelled to far West London for dinner, and having picked an evening to put that right, the next step was to decide precisely where to eat. Various parties have, over the years, come to the conclusion that the Brilliant was the top of the charts in that part of town, but an unfortunately lacklustre meal in their sister restaurant recently in Fulham Broadway meant we didn't quite have the nerve to risk it. So instead, we found ourselves one fateful Friday night travelling (slowly, oh so slowly, thanks to the fact that Southall appears to be one continuous traffic jam) towards a very similarly well-regarded (according to an Eater list I read) Gifto's Lahore Karahi, occupying a large and brightly-lit chunk of the Uxbridge Road.

First impressions were good, thanks to a very friendly welcome by the staff and that all-important heavenly aroma of tandoor-grilled meats. It's a functional, rather than objectively attractive, dining space, as these places tend to be, but give me a wipe-clean surface, a laminated menu and the ability to order a Mixed Grill and that's more than enough to put me in the frame of mind to enjoy myself. With a mango lassi to provide liquid refreshment (they don't sell alcohol, and though a review in the Guardian from 2001 says they allow BYO, this is apparently no longer the case) we were very much looking forward to what followed.

It continued successfully enough at first. Pani puri came with a very generous measure of tamarind liquid and chick pea filling; too generous, really, for the only six pastry casings provided - we had to leave about half a cup full of each. But the flavours were great, the pastry was glistening straight out of the fryer, and these were really very enjoyable indeed.

Also good was something called Maash Dal, new to me but using split urid lentils (more like grains of Arborio rice than chickpea) and of a thicker, dryer consistency than the more common tarka dal. Very nice it was too, with a good complex spicing and buttery feel in the mouth, and something we'd both happily order again.

Next this absolute beauty of a naan, delicate and bubbly and crisp and slicked with ghee, a very fine example of its kind. You'd expect somewhere like this to produce a decent naan, perhaps, but it's never less than delightful when it happens.

But the mixed grill. Oh dear the mixed grill. At first glance it looked the part, not arriving with as much sizzle and smoke as you might expect perhaps, but colourful and piled high with the usual suspects of lamb chops, chicken tikka and seekh kebabs. But almost immediately we noticed something just felt wrong - a kind of sadness, a lack of life and love. The lamb chops were cold and dry, clearly having either been cooked a long time ago and kept warm or (even less forgiveably) reheated. Both chicken and lamb tikka were dry and mealy, presumably subjected to the same mistreatment, a nice rich spicing for each hardly improving matters, just making the whole thing more upsetting. Only the seekh kebabs were worth the effort, being moist and full of flavour and feeling very much like the only element cooked to order.

Had the starters and sides been a bit lacklustre but the mixed grill good, I think we would have felt a lot more positive about our visit to Gifto's. Yes, nice bubbly naans and fresh puri are lovely things to enjoy, but you don't come all this way (an hour from central London on trains and a bus) for nice sides - you need the main event to be worth the effort. And this really wasn't. It wasn't even cheap, £19.80 being about £5 more than the equivalent offering from Tayyabs. And I'm yet to notice Tayyabs reheating anything.

A day or so after the meal, under an Instagram post on That Naan, alongside a few people urging us to give the Brilliant another try there was a comment from a food writer who had been sampling various places in Southall for an upcoming article. They had noticed a drop in the standards in the restaurants of Southall over the past decade or so, and attributed it to (amongst other things) 2nd and 3rd generation Indians having little interest in working in the restaurant industry. Which I suppose is understandable - restaurant work is hard; often rewarding, but hard - but doesn't make it any less sad. Perhaps Southall's best years are behind it, and we will look back on the early 2000s as some kind of golden age of Punjabi cuisine in London. Or maybe I just need to try the Brilliant after all.

6/10

The Brilliant, Southall

Ask anyone who lives in West London where their favourite Indian restaurant is, and they will very likely point you towards Southall. Try to convince anyone who lives anywhere outside West London to travel to Southall for dinner, however, and you may encounter some quite understandable resistance. My God, it's a journey. From Clapham Junction I boarded one of those rickety branch lines that seem to run once every second Thursday, which got as far as some godforsaken place called Brentford. From there, the 195 bus meandered on a leisurely arc through dark suburbs until finally, one and a half hours later, it pulled up outside the Brilliant. "It better bloody had be", I thought as I slunk inside.



It all started so well. Worryingly well, in fact. The selection of house pickles at the Brilliant contains some of the most astonishing flavours I've had the pleasure of eating, including a mixed pickle in a subtly nutty (sesame?) oil and a fantastically strong lemon concoction which cleansed the palate better than any amuse bouche. All home made (apart from the more workaday mango chutney) and remarkably fresh, these really were impressive, and along with a half pint of the house passion fruit juice (also freshly made) all signs pointed towards this being a very good dinner. The possibility began to dawn that I'd be having to make quite a few of those nightmare journeys if this really was as good as it gets in London. Cripes.



But then, with reassuring mediocrity, the mixed grill arrived. Actually perhaps that's unfair - some of it was pretty good, particularly the lamb chops which were nicely charred on the outside and almost sausagey in texture inside, and the prawns were also well timed, the flesh having moisture and bounce if not being particularly strongly spiced. But chicken tikka pieces were watery (literally - I don't know where all that liquid was coming from but it seemed rather unnatural) and bland despite the skilful grilling, and seekh kebabs were similarly dull. It was all just a bit tame, and although it was all perfectly nice in a kind of family-friendly way, there was nothing particularly exciting. At £15, too, it was certainly at the upper end of what I'd expect to pay for this kind of food.




The best bits of the main courses were very good. A vegetable biryani had a lovely vinegary gloss to it, nice crunchy vegetables, and a decent tomato/curry sauce on the side. And a dish of butter chicken in some kind of tomato sauce (sorry we had somehow managed to order this one "off menu" and I can't remember exactly what went into it) was genuinely delicious, with complex spicing and tender pieces of grilled meat. I should also mention the bhatura bread, which was as fluffy and rich as you could want and made soaking up the leftover curry sauce extremely enjoyable.



On the other hand, there was a pretty horrible bowl of paneer, which consisted of lumps of flavourless cheese in a sauce of unseasoned spinach, the whole lot tasting not unlike green wallpaper paste. And Papri Chaat was a cold, claggy lump of grainy chickpea patty soaked in low fat yoghurt that I could barely take more than a mouthful of before gagging.

So, a mixed bag then. Some good stuff, some not so good. And ordinarily this wouldn't be too much of a problem - after all, even average Indian cooking is streets ahead of most other types of cuisine - if it wasn't for the hellish journey required to get here (for most of us, at least) and - most importantly - the price. At £70 for two with no alcohol, this was not a cheap meal, and I can think of a good handful of other Asian restaurants that you could enjoy a decent mixed grill with bread and a couple of mains for literally half that amount. In fact, I can think of one restaurant in particular, in a comparably remote corner of the capital, where I did just that last week. And it's there, and not the Brilliant, that I will be returning next time I'm in need of some lamb chops and seekh kebabs. Come on now, you didn't honestly think I would get through a review of a curry house without mentioning Tayyabs, did you?

6/10