Grand Holdi

All was tasty, the khata mitta curry especially...

First Impressions

Concealed in a smattering of new build properties just of the East Lancashire Road (west bound), Astley, lies the Grand Holdi curry house.

This venue, quite large as it is, provides a homely feeling restaurant that doesn’t overpower or overstimulate with decor. It is as they say, ‘alright’. The seats looked like the kind of seats you would find in any Ikea home, but the lighting looked like you could have walked into the lobby of a 5* hotel in central London.

Inside is hidden a large multi room eatery with a plethora of tables to enjoy sitting at. The tables are of an adequate size, enough to hold a main dish, rice dish, side dish and a serving plate along with drinks per person. We were placed at a table at one end of the restaurant, in an area which seemed to be designed for large groups. The chairs on one side of the table were large comfy fabric covered bucket style chairs. This made a welcomed change from the usual heavy, straight backed chairs with no arm support you usually expect to be seated on at this kind of eatery. On the other side of the table, the rest of the congress were seated on a booth/bench style seat that was adequate in it’s needs of providing reasonably comfy seating space for the larger groups. Above this bench was even a shelf which ran the whole length which allowed us to move some of the none essential items from the table to create more room (some of the fake flowers and candles).

The cutlery while functional caused a large uproar among the congress as the flat part of the handles are inverted causing issues with leaving it freestanding on the plates. Could provide to be a painful mistake should you reach for your cutlery slightly wrong after having a few too many pints of Cobra.

The Menu

The menu offered a wide range of variety, leaving some members of the congress to actually locate the food they wanted. Usually when you arrive at a eating establishment and they have a large menu it can set off alarm bells suggesting a compromise on quality / frozen food items to help offer the full menu but from the meals we tasted, this definitely was not the case.

The drinks menu was also rather robust, and while the main food menu seemed to be on a little bit more of the expensive side comparing it to other curry houses in the area – the drinks were very competitively priced with a pint of Cobra costing £4.30 and fizzy soft drinks at £2.50.

Dums of the Papa

We did provide some initial confusion with our Curry Congress meeting as half the Congress was running late, the staff were very keen to get us placing drink orders and were attempting to take food orders as soon as the others arrived, they did not seem entirely sure on how to handle one group arriving at two separate times – though we can easily put this down to inexperience as this curry house had only been open a week prior to our visit.

The Food

Starters were consumed at this congress meeting, consisting of Chicken tikka pieces, onion bhajis, meat samosas, veg samosas and some kind of kebab. This alongside poppadoms and dip dip provided an ample appetiser in preparation for the main meal.

Sufficient dip dip

The main meal consisted of tikka masala, butter chicken, khata mitta curry, and some bbq chicken breast thing. The chicken in the butter chicken was perfectly cooked and other than to help wipe up the plate at the end, there was little need to use a knife to cut it as the fork was enough to glide through the moist chicken.

Green

No eat the tomato

All was tasty, the khata mitta curry especially as it seemed to have either a lot of garlic or some kind of garlic shaped nuts/seeds.

Khata Mitta

The naan breads came with two portions to a basket, so if you’re ordering a few naan breads then make sure you’re comfortable with your fellow diners and don’t have a problem with other fingers picking around your bread.

We will have naan of that

The rice portions were substantial enough for a single serving, in a lot of curry eateries a single rice portion would be enough to share – which is what a few of the congress members intended to do, however once they arrived we needed to add additional rice orders as they weren’t large enough to share sufficiently.

In Summary

The bill left much to be desired however after waiting for a while for it to be brought over, as not only was it incorrect, the totals were badly presented and we were trying to calculate where the error lies but the pricing of each item was not next to it, but up next to an item 3 items above! The bill came with plenty of complimentary chocolates to go around (for those wondering – they were just plain chocolate, not mint or chocolate orange).

The issue with the bill being wrong was eventually corrected after much deliberation and quick math on the behalf of the friendly staff, Simon and gang. An obvious mistake made by the inexperience of a new place, one which we won’t hold against them. The staff were overall very welcoming and were very visible throughout the night should we have needed to summon them to our table, they were particularly good with paying attention to the younger members of the Congress.

We would highly recommend the Grand Holdi for a good curry. It has achieved a Curry Congress Seal of Approval! As long as the food quality keeps up, the service issues will get ironed out in time – making it a great all round experience for all the family to enjoy.

Our visit and review information has been based off a Friday evening reservation (7pm-10:30pm) serving time.