York, 20th September 2014

Venue - The Raj, 21-23 Bootham, York, YO30 7BW
Attendees - Me, Dawn

None of the usual curry tasters were able to make the trip, leaving me and my better half Dawn to have a football based kid free weekend. She has got right into the footie, becoming an avid Southend fan and was delighted to come to watch the York match and sample the post-match curry, complete with an overnight stay. Yay!

We had set off early Saturday morning and stopped en route at the Ok Diner, a cool looking place on the side of the A1 near Newark but sadly the fayre was not up to a huge amount.The tea was the worst I had ever tasted - barely more than coloured water, certainly no flavour - and my breakfast was only really acceptable. It was off the menu and called the "Yankee Doodle Dandy" except that they had spelt it "Yankie". Hmm. Pancakes were nice, the eggs less so. It was however needed to set us up for the day.

In the evening, we went in search of a curry house and found The Raj just along the road from where we were staying, the restaurant was in the Bootham area of the City - not the best but still quite pleasant - and was about 250 yards from our hotel. According to the signs in the window it was "award winning" and certainly looked very clean, spotless in fact and with a quite modern feel. I liked it, Dawn not so. Just goes to show!

What was quite nice was that for once the curry didn't have to be rushed so that we could make the kick off. Therefore we arrived at around 7:30 and went into the lobby area (also the take-away collection area), asking for a table for 2. We were simply invited to take a seat so an answer to that question was completely avoided, but after a few minutes we were shown into the restaurant and to our table, which looked like the last one available!

We ordered some water and a bottle of wine, plus the obligatory poppodums, 2 plain, 2 spicy. They came up with the usual selection of pickles which were disappointing, straight out of a jar. I think that you can tell quite a lot about a curry house from it's pickle selection and if they can't be bothered to make their own then that's a warning sign.

However, everything else was A-ok and we waited for our main course. I had opted for the Akhini Chicken - a mild and fruity curry with pineapple, almonds, sultanas, tomato and cherry, garnished with rice and served with a "special" curry sauce - whilst Dawn opted for the seafood special. Side orders were a Peshwari Naan, Roti bread, a Sag Paneer and a Dall Masala.

Again, everything was ok, but not really much more than that. Dawn's seafood was very good and there isn't a lot wrong you can do with a Dall and Peshwari Nan (again, commercial rather than home made) nut the Sag Paneer was runny like a sauce and whilst the flavours were good, it struggled to get to the height of what might have been expected of an award winning restaurant. Perhaps that was the issue - it bigged itself up a lot and looked so lovely that the food expectations were extremely high.

Service wise it was ok considering it was busy although the waiters didn't seem over friendly but we were offered a complimentary drink afterwards. Price wise it was much more than I would have paid for a pre-match curry, plus we had wine as well (but no other drinks aside from 2 small bottles of Harrogate spring water) and most of the dishes were vegetarian. I thought £55 was on the high side.

Marks

Exterior - 9
Surroundings - 8
Interior - 8
Toilets - 7
Service - 6
Quality - 6
Value - 5

Overall - 7

The football

Southend made it a 3rd win in a week with a terrific 3-2 victory against a York side that had only lost their first game in 23 last week. Fantastic 2nd half performance and we were well worth the victory. The ground at York is quaint and old fashioned with a good "feel" for the real football fan. All in all a great weekend.

Oxford 5th October 2013

Venue - The White Horse, Wheatley Rd, Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, OX33 1EH
Attendees - JB, Dave, Harry, Peter

Due to work committments I was unable to join the gang for the Oxford trip... therefore I hand the review over to JB, our guest blogger for the day.

Dear all

As you know, some of us went to see Southend play at Oxford on Saturday – as this took in a pre match curry, I thought I should try and report back in Mr Goodson’s absence. I don’t actually know how to Blog, so you’ll all have to do with a good old fashioned Email. Here goes:

So, the day had arrived, our annual trip to Oxford, but there was something missing, or rather someone! I couldn’t quite get my head round the fact that Malcolm wasn’t joining us. Malcolm is always a given for these days out, and I just don’t know how Gill had been allowed to book up a weekend away with friends without Malcolm’s knowledge!! Luckily, he sent his brother Peter along instead, who has exactly the same voice, so as long as we didn’t look at him, no-one knew the difference.  We also lost Mike (another weekend away, but not so surprising as he’s under the thumb!), Bill (on holiday – again!) and Mr Goodson himself, who had some sort of excuse about being busy at work?!?!?! What does that mean?

Anyway, there were just four of us, a small group but perfectly formed – Peter, me, Harry and Dave. Unfortunately, Mark’s late change of plans meant that Dave had to drive – I think anyone who’s been in a car with Dave recently knows what that means. We set off on time from my house, Dave narrowly missing a car whilst pulling away from the house. How we laughed and teased. Last time Dave drove he hit a stationary car in Nelson Drive. We thought it was particularly funny that we might have had our first bump before actually getting out of my road! Still at least we wouldn’t be going down Nelson Drive this time. Far more sensibly we were going along Leigh Road – no chance of Dave clipping a stationary white van mirror this SSSMMMACCKKKKKKKKKK. He hit a stationary white van’s mirror!! The noise shocked the life out of poor Harry, who’s becoming quite the expert at putting the wing mirror back together again! It turns out that it was the van man’s fault for not turning his wing mirror in, and also apparently my fault – for being in the car!! Dave only hits vehicles when I’m in the car?? So, I apologise for this Dave and will pay your Insurance Premium next year – the least I can do.

The rest of the journey was relatively quiet – good conversation about our chances on the day – the Tutts and Peter were very confident, I thought we were in for a hammering. We were also looking forward to meeting up with Dave (6ft 4ins) Kitson, Oxford’s towering Centre Forward  after the game for a beer and an insight into how the game had gone from a player’s perspective.

 The slight difference on this away trip is that we decided to eat Thai food instead of Indian, mainly because the Indian restaurant was in the heart of Oxford and I know that getting in and out of the City on a Saturday is a real pain. Dave has a particularly fine Good Pub Food app that we used when we went to Crewe a couple of years back, and once again the App pointed us to a great looking country pub - The White Horse – see picture. What a brilliant choice. By the way, I should point out that Dave couldn’t actually see the pub when it was right in front of him. I think I now know why he keeps hitting things!! The sooner Harry passes his test the better! Anyway, inside the pub and not many people there, maybe three or four tables, we had an excellent hostess who had our drinks on the table in no time. So what to eat? This is what we went for:

Dave – a green chicken curry, a little limp wristed in my opinion.

Harry – Phad Prig – not sure if I’ve spelt that correctly

Peter – I can’t remember, I’m really not up to this job am I?

Me – a red chicken curry and easily the most manly of the choices

We shared starter of Crispy Wontons, spring rolls and chicken on toast – very nice indeed!

The food was excellent, and as we chomped happily in this most scenic of pubs, we started once again to discuss the match and how awful it would be if Dave Kitson scored a hat trick. On mentioning this, Harry broke down in tears, seriously blubbing, and we worried that the whole football experience was getting too much for him. Turns out that he mistook a chilli for a pepper and ate the whole thing in one go! What a man we now have in our midst, and quite the modern man too for letting out his emotions in public!

Scores for the pub:

Positioning  10

Service 10

Food 9, would have been 10 but for Harry’s chilli!

Company 11

And so on to the game itself – probably the best performance of the season from the Blues – totally outplayed Oxford, and could easily have been 5 or 6 goals. And a goal from Prosser, which was followed by the song How Shit Must You Be, How Shit Must You Be, How Shit Must You Be If Prosser Has Scored – a classic! Had a cast iron penalty turned down, and missed two one on ones! At the end of the match the players came over to the fans and there was a hint of a tear in Prosser’s eye when he realised that Mike was a no show! Dave Kitson ended up being a no show also, I suspect because he would have had to walk through a load of disgruntled Oxford fans in Frankie and Bennie’s to talk to Southend fans. He’s NOT popular there. Anyway, I asked him how he thought the game had gone and this was his text reply 

Thought you played well even though we gifted you two goals. So many chances for both teams. We were crap but life goes on! – so there you have it.

Good banter on the way back. Somewhere along the line ‘Phad Prig’ became Fat Prick which was very funny at the time. Harry bought a huge KFC banquet (surely a misnomer!) which smelt disgusting, and possibly tasted just as bad. Probably need a chilli to help it along!

We had the best day – please make sure you check your diaries for the future – can’t have you missing another day out like this.

I love you all.

Jb

Dagenham, 28th January 2014

Venue - The Kalijeera, 32 Corbets Tey Rd, Upminster, Essex RM14 2AD
Attendees - Me, Mike, Bill, Liz, Dave, Harry, Peter, Kit, JB and Roland

Ok, ok. I know that Upminster isn't in Dagenham (for those not 100% familiar with the Geography it's about 6 miles and 20 minutes drive) but it's close enough... especially as we had decided to meet in The Crumpled Horn pub, the venue for the pre-Wembley visit when Southend United got to the final of the JPT last April. The Kalijeera was about 100 yards away on the opposite side of the road and had come well recommended; Bill, showing impressive organisational skills, had pre-arranged the whole thing and we had selected our meals in advance. The game kicked off at 7:45 and we had to allow a good 45 minutes to get from Upminster to Dagenham, park (no mean feat in Dagenham on a Tuesday evening for what is a local derby), buy the tickets and take our seats. This meant leaving the restaurant at 7:00 latest, which in turn meant a 5:30 - 5:45 arrival for the food. Allowing for a drink or two in the pub first, we therefore set off at 3:30 from Leigh for the short trip up the A13 - the shortest away trip this season by some distance - to see if we could continue our good run of form and our push towards promotion and League One by grabbing three points off of Dagenham.

Stage one went to plan, despite getting caught in the school traffic en route and taking nearly an hour for what is usually a 35 minute journey. By 4:30 we were in the pub, allowing a good hour for a couple of bevvies and saunter along to the restaurant (which, incidentally, we had arranged to be opened early to accommodate us).

The waiter was standing at the door as we arrived and happily took the picture shown above (which we had about 6 attempts at)... such was our sense of humour we then thanked him very much and started to walk off up the road. Oh how we laughed!

We then went back to the restaurant and entered, apologising for our wind-up, and said we'd take our seats and await the previously arranged order. The waiter, presumably to get us back a bit looked at us in a dead pan style and said, "What order?"

Ha ha, we were still laughing as the pints of Cobra arrived, followed by the poppodums and pickles and then the main courses. We had a good time although I seem to recall the food being good but unspectacular. There was some confusion over the bill and the fact that a deposit had been paid, but we got there in the end. In an attempt to hurry matters along, Dave had squared up on his credit card and we all settled with him afterwards. I think it worked out at about £15 per head.

Marks - 

Exterior - 7
Surroundings - 7.5
Interior - 7
Toilets - 7
Service - 8
Quality - 6.5
Value - 8

Overall - 7.29

The football

This had made us a bit late in leaving and so we made haste to Dagenham and eventually managed to park in a cul-de-sac. We just about made kick off and have to congratulate the ground staff who got the pitch looking really good considering the monsoon-like weather we had in the lead up to the game. The first half was non descript really and it then started raining. It didn't seem too bad but it got worse and worse as the match went on. We took the lead just after half-time but Dagenham equalised with a deflected shot and after that it was anyone's game. A point will have to do. Walking back to the car we discovered just how bad the rain had been as we were walking through puddles several inches deep across the car park and on the way back to the car. I don't think I could have been wetter if I had jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed.