Recently in eating out Category

This is a new curry take-away that opened this week. I tried the chicken shakoota last night and am pleased to say it was fantastic. Delicately spiced, and cooked to perfection, and reasonably priced to boot. The Bengal paratha was very nice too: light and tasty. They did forget to give me my pilau rice (opening week jitters I guess) but I called up, explained and they sent a guy around with a portion and a couple of complimentary poppadoms. The rice was gorgeous. Light, moist, wonderful taste so well worth the wait. I hope they keep up the good work when word gets out and trade increases. For now, whilst they are relatively underused and overstaffed, I can say this is the best curry I've had in Cambridge so far. No doubt the Rice Boat would give them a run for their money on the quality stakes, but you get a decent meal for less than a tenner from Ahar and that's great value for money.

This is River Farm Smokery, which is a wee bit outside of Cambridge on the way to Newmarket. I went there the other day with a hairy colleague in his fabulously retro car to get a gander of what was on offer. It was fantastic: the shop is in middle of the farm and stinks to high heavens with smoked ham, bacon, eels, kippers, cheese and assorted other bits and pieces. The ham was lovely (especially with the excellent crusty loaf) and formed the centre of a great lunch at work. I have some kippers from there to try this morning, but I am assuming they will to the same high standards as the rest of the goods.

Not cheap (but then why should food be cheap?) but not ridiculously priced, this is a nice drive in the country with the deep satisfaction of knowing your hunter-gatherer instincts will be rewarded with fine food to take home and enjoy in good, friendly fashion.

Thanks to Stray Toaster for the interlude from desk jockeying for a living to living for a living.

Curry queen is a good, solid, old fashioned, cramped, wall-to-wall carpeted curry house. There are two floors and more often than not they are full, which says something about the place. The poppadom and condiments have always been excellent and the main dishes very good indeed, with enough bite in the jalfrezi without an indecent amount of chilli peppers. The only disappointment was the paratha, which were overdone last time I went there. Not burnt, and still totally edible, but a high quality paratha is light and pulls apart into flaky, stringy pieces (the Kerala restaurant on Castle Street does cracking ones, btw). The dhal has always been good, not shying on the essential salt needed to make it tasty.

A good middle of the road choice.