One of the privileges of writing restaurant reviews is to come across somewhere you think others would love to go.
Huddersfield is certainly blessed with some fine curry restaurants ... and here’s another one for you to try.
It’s Sher e Akbar at the bottom of Blacker Road in Birkby, a restaurant that’s ideal for either curry beginners or connoisseurs.
The reason is the food is excellent, but front of house you also have Susie Amin while husband Mohammed leads the kitchen.
She’s a lady who has great pride in the restaurant and it’s easy to see why.
With its marble floors, chandeliers, comfy chairs (you all now know I can’t abide an uncomfortable dining experience on hard-backed wooden seats), glass-topped tables with red hearts sprinkled beneath and air conditioning she’s eager to make sure the ambience is spot on.
But more than that she’ll talk you through absolutely anything you need to know about the menu and she does it in a quiet, unassuming way.
If there are large groups booked in then they will run a buffet. There’s also a banqueting suite upstairs ideal for ‘a big do.’
It’s not licensed so you can take your own alcohol.
There are a lot of ‘old school’ dishes on the menu - your korma, rogan josh, bhuna and vindaloo - along with a few chef specials.
You can pick off the menu or you can go fo a meal deal for £11.95 each which is poppadoms, any starter and then mains with rice and nan with a dessert to finish.
Sounds like a deal to me so we went for that.
Just the three of us on this culinary venture - me, wife Ruth and 12-year-old son Harry. He likes a curry does Harry.
We said we were hungry so she countered that by tempting us with her sizzler - a mixed dish that includes chicken tikka, samosas, onion bhajis, seekh kebab, mushrooms, kebab meat, onions and curried chips. Yes, you read right, curried chips. We’d never been offered them before in a restaurant so we thought we’d give it a go.
Glad we did. It’s the best sizzler we’ve ever had.
Like chips? you’ll love these spiced up ones and it was a huge starter for three of us - a veritable mountain of food. Seekh kebabs often tend to be on the dry side. Not these - they were amazingly succulent and the samosas containing peas and mince were spiced just right, it was top quality chicken in the tikka and the bhajis were great. We never thought we’d get through it all. We were wrong. Even when we’d finished we couldn’t resist picking at what was left until it had all gone. Big question then was could we fit the curry in?
We went for chicken makhan cooked with cream that was mild to medium, chicken achari cooked with pickles, herbs and spices and tandoori king prawns tikka cooked with garlic, ginger, onions and tomatoes in a tandoori sauce.
Harry’s a big peshwari nan fan - this looked plain but was sweet inside - and then there was the rice.
Fine quality chunks of chicken and the prawns had been cooked just right - so often in restaurants they can get rubbery. The tandoori sauce is a fiery red and it’s a very strong one in terms of flavour rather than spice while the achari gives a little after kick. The makhan is ideal for those wanting to move on from kormas.
For pudding we were given the chance to try their three main desserts - rice pudding, carrot pudding and gulab jamun. Now that’s no ordinary rice pudding. On the day it’s made it takes up to five hours and is a precise process with the rice cooked with the milk and stirred constantly to give it that ultra creamy texture. It takes rice pudding to a whole new level. Be aware it’s served cold.
The carrot pudding is finely diced carrot we think mixed with coconut to sweeten it up - an unusually pleasant taste - while the gulab jamun were just so soft and gooey.
So a great value meal in fine surroundings and the background music was the kind you’d get in a spa - ultra relaxing.
We’ll be back ... and taking our curry-loving chums with us.
The Bill
Sher e Akbar
80 Blacker Road, Birkby, Huddersfield, HD1 5HN
Phone: 01484 549775
Website: www.shereakbar.co.uk
Opening hours: Closed Mondays. Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed and Thurs 4pm-10.30pm; Fri and Sat 4pm-11.30pm.
Children: Yes
Disabled: Yes, plenty of room to move around and a disabled toilet
The bill: £37.50 - three buffets meals and one coke
Would you go back: Absolutely.
