Date - Tuesday, 18th September 2012 - Spice Court Indian Restaurant.
On our arrival at Gillingham, we parked near the ground and having taken advice from a local, headed off towards the High Street where he said the nearest curry house was located.
I use the words "High Street" in the loosest sense of the word, as that conjures up a shopping centre of some description. Again, if we are taking the literal meaning of "shopping centre" then maybe Gillingham's High Street does qualify. But I swear I will never speak detrimentally about Southend's High Street again, which is like Westfield in comparison. There was one dodgy looking establishment in the High Street itself called something like "Lahore Spice" which looked as though it may well serve up Salmonella Madras accompanied with Listeria rice and Botulism Bhajis. Just around the corner though, bang opposite the rail station, was an establishment called "Spice Court" that didn't exactly look very nice outside but was like a palace in comparison to the other one.
The interior decor was ok and the toilet was clean, albeit under approximately 1mm of water.
We were the only ones there and as there were 5 of us (me, Malcolm, Peter, Jude and Harry), it was a bit strange to find us cramped onto a table for 4 with an extra place as there were plenty of other tables available, especially a nice round one with 6 settings sitting completely empty.
We were served quickly with some poppodums and pickles. I look for the quality of the pickles and were they home made or out of a jar/bottle? Well, the onion/tomato one was obviously home made, but the mango chutney, lime pickle and minted yogurt sauce were definitely commercial.
There were the usual menu choices with a few additional items as specials. I opted for Chicken Passanda and Honey rice, which I had never seen. This was oversweet and with hindsight would have gone better with a sour dish, like a Rogan Josh or Jalfrezi. The flavours were, for me, a little sickly. Didn't stop me finishing it though! The Peshwari Naan was totally standard and again, almost certainly commercially produced.
The others had a variety of dishes; Chicken Korma, Meat Madras, Chicken Tikka (dry) and a Chicken Biryani, all with rice. No bhajis or other accompaniments were ordered. The standard Cobra beer was available but bottled only, not draught.
After a while we were joined by Dave and JB, who only had some poppodums and a beer.
There were no complaints about the food although there was a fair amount of dish juggling at our end of the table due to the space being too small. It effectively meant you had to empty everything out of the dish onto the plate in one go as there was nowhere to put the dishes.
Price wise the bill came to £80 (without service) for 12 poppodums, 4 bottles of cobra, 2 small cokes, 1 large diet coke, chicken tikka, chicken biryani, chicken passanda, chicken korma, meat madras, 2 x pilau rice and 2 x honey rice.
Marks (out of 10)
Exterior - 4
Surroundings - 4
Interior - 7
Toilets - 7
Service - 7
Food quality - 6
Value - 7
Overall rating - 6 - Won't be rushing back but it will do if necessary.
The Match - Gillingham 1, Southend 0
As for the football, Southend dominated the match but were ultimately beaten by a Gillingham side that had one shot at goal, a penalty, and scored. Having put our keeper in hospital and ensuring our player of the year went off with a bad groin injury (which resulted in the assailant being dismissed) they parked the proverbial bus and ensured an unhappy and frustrating journey home for us shrimpers.
We've had better nights in Gillingham.
