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• Nearby Tube Stops: South Wimbledon/ [Colliers Wood]?

Cheap Sri Lankan/Indian take-away which also has seating for about 25.

The menu is quite extensive and varied. The string hoppers are certainly worth trying. The menu claims they offer free tea or coke if you spend enough (not any more it doesn't - Martin), but the waiter seemed curiously deaf to such requests. Overall, the quality of the food is pretty good.

On a visit on 2004-08-26, it seems that things have changed a bit. On the visit that led to the original writeup, the place was very much a takeaway with tables. Now they appear to be making more of their seating area, though the feel is still more of a canteen than a restaurant. The place always seems very popular with the locals (there is a large Tamil community in the area).

The menu includes a few of the basic curry dishes you'd expect to find in any Indian restaurant, but the real highlights are the South Indian and especially the Sri Lankan specialities. String hoppers (steamed rice noodles as a flat patty) are definitely recommended, and come with tangy bright orange sambol (grated coconut with lime and spices) and a sothi (a sauce made with onions, chillis and spices infused in milk). The plain hoppers (a sort of pancake of rice flour) had been cooked in a domed pan, leaving them lovely and crispy around the edges yet thick and fluffy in the middle; they came with more of the sambol. The main dishes from the "Sri Lankan Specialities" were also good: the Ceylon dishes have a rich sauce with lots of coconut milk and very flavoursome spices, and the Kothu dishes are dry with torn up roti (bread) cooked into the dish. From the South Indian section of the menu, the masala dosai was very large, with a good crispy pancake and plenty of filling, which unusually also contained cashew nuts, and came with a large bowl of tasty sambar (a sort of lentil soup with vegetables and tamarind, not to be confused with sambol). The masala dosai would make a decent meal by itself.

The best thing to do here is just to order lots of different things and share. None of the food is expensive - the most costly dish on the entire menu is the Special Biryani at �4.50, most main meat dishes are �3.50, and there are several starters for as little as 40p. The only thing you might want to beware of is that a lot of the food is significantly hotter than you might be used to. The waiter was pleased to offer suggestions as to the amount of food, and many of the dishes can be prepared milder on request.

There is plenty to keep vegetarians interested. Vegans may have problems as I imagine most of the food is cooked in ghee.

Convenient if you've been drinking in The Sultan.