Indian Gymkhana is on the outside an anonymous building next to cricket, hockey and football pitches, with an unfashionable Indian restaurant/clubroo, upstairs. It is also surprisingly difficult to find. Google Maps eventually got me to the complex, but I still ended up wandering past a banqueting suite, hockey pitches, a gym and Muay Thai before finding the right door.

What I ate:

• Half Daba Chicken £13.50
• Mogo chips £5
• Papadi chaat £7
• Fish pakora £8
• Tandoori lamb chops £14

The portions are absurd – for £47.85 I got enough food to feed 6-8 people.

The papdi chaat was the best thing I ate, a huge plate of crisp papdi under yoghurt, tamarind chutney, sev, onion and coriander, sweet, sour, creamy and crunchy at once. The six lamb chops were nicely charred and very good, although marginally tough. Fish pakora was meaty, slightly sour and a little dry. The mogo was fairly rubbery. The Half Daba Chicken was a big bowl of thin, bone-on curry, decent rather than extraordinary, and the spicy version was not especially spicy. 

The clubhouse itself is the more interesting part. It was mostly older men drinking after work when I arrived, with male and female sports players appearing later. The club dates to 1916 and its early history involves a Somerset cricketer nicknamed “Pyjamas”, Indian princes, the Tata family, Lord Hawke and, according to the club’s story, a landlord who turned up with seven heavies and threw them off their old pitch.

In all, the food is broad, clubby, cheap and built for groups rather than finesse. I waited an hour for it and suspect they had lost the order until I said something. Still, for the money and the setting, it is a wonderfully odd place to know about.

Paid in full. I’ve written more here.